Category: Server Administration

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Microsoft Certificate Auto-enrollment

Source: Certificate Autoenrollment in Windows Server 2016 (part 3) – PKI Extensions (sysadmins.lv)

Thanks to Vadims Podans for his detailed write up.

Source 2: Basic: How to set up automatic certificate enrollment in Active Directory – Druva Documentation

Source 3 (Official): Configure server certificate auto-enrollment | Microsoft Docs

Overview

Autoenrollment configuration in general consist of three steps: configure autoenrollment policy, prepare certificate templates and prepare certificate issuers. Each configuration step is described in next sections.

Pre-requirements

  • Working AD
  • Enterprise CA
  • Proper Permissions (This post assumed domain admin rights)

Setup

Configure Autoenrollment Policy

  1. Start Group Policy editor. In Active Directory environment, use Group Policy Management Console (gpmc.msc). In workgroup environment, use Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc);
  2. Expand to
 Computer Configuration\Policies\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Public Key Policies
  1. Double-click on Certificate Services Client – Auto-enrollment;
  2. Set Configuration Model to Enabled;
  3. Configure the policy save settings:
  4. Repeat steps 2-5 for User Configuration node.

*Note 1* You technically don’t *NEED* a policy, the minimum you do need is the registry settings the policy defined. The reason for the policy is obliviously for scalability purposes. The key it defines is:

Key: SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Cryptography\AutoEnrollment
Value: AEPolicy
Type: DWORD

Of course HKLM and HKCU will be used depending on which one was defined in the policy, so if you want user auto enrollment ensure the registry is defined in the HKCU. If you want machine auto enrollment ensure it is defined in HKLM.

*Note 2* Vadims doesn’t cover what each value represents, or what possible values are available. I was only able to find this source on it which made the following statements:

“Hi,
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731522.aspx

The two checkboxes (point 7) control the value of AEPolicy
0 = non
1 = second
6 = first
7= both selected”

Configuring Certificate Templates

This section covers how to configure certificate templates.

Default settings

The following are the default settings:

  • Both domain administrators from the root domain, and enterprise administrators for fresh installations of Windows Server 2003 (and newer) domains may configure templates.
  • Certificate template ACLs are viewed in the Certificate Templates MMC snap-in.
  • Certificate templates can be cloned or edited using the Certificate Templates MMC snap-in.
  • Certificate Template need to be published before they can be used.
  • Authenticated Users have Read permission on the Template. (Leave it be)

Creating a new template for the autoenrollment of Web Server Cert

In this exercise we will create certificate template that will be intended for Server Authentication usually for a web server (IIS). As the additional requirement, the certificate will be stored on the server. To create a new template for autoenrollment for a web server:

  1. Log on to a computer where ADCS Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) are installed with Enterprise Admins permissions;
  2. Press Win+R key combination on the keyboard.
  3. In the Run dialog box, type certtmpl.msc, and then click Ok.
    The Certificate Templates MMC snap-in may also be invoked using the Certification Authority MMC snap-in by selecting the Certificate Templates folder, right-clicking, and then selecting Manage.
  4. In the console tree, click Certificate Templates.
  5. In the details pane, right-click the Web Server template, and then click Duplicate Template.
  6. The Compatibility tab of the new template properties dialog box appears. Configure compatibility settings to minimum OS version that will consume this template and minimum OS version of CA server that will issue certificates based on this template. (In my Lab Server 2016, and client Windows 10)
  7. On the General Tab, Give it a name, Do not publish in AD. If you want more info on these 2 checkboxes read Vadims guide on creating a smart card cert.
  8. Click the Request Handling tab. This tab is used to define how the certificate request should be processed. Use default settings in this tab.
  9. Switch to Cryptography tab:
    I use Key Storage Provider, RSA, 2048, Requests can use any provider.
  10. Switch to Subject Name tab. This tab is used to define how the subject name and certificate properties will be built.
    *IMPORTANT* Check off “Use subject information from existing certificates for autoenrollment renewal requests.
  11. Switch to Security tab. This tab is used to define which users or groups may enroll or autoenroll for a certificate template. A user or group must have the Read, Enroll, and Autoenroll permissions to automatically be enrolled for a certificate template.
    In our case any web server computers joined to the domain will be granted Read, Enroll, Autoenroll permissions.

Publishing the Certificate Template

When certificate template is prepared for autoenrollment, it must be added to Enterprise CA server for issuance. This section will describe how to add certificate template to CA for issuance by using Certification Authority MMC snap-in. For examples using certutil, and Powershell see Vadims post.

*Note* Standalone CA does not support certificate templates

Configuring CA using MMC

The most convenient way to add certificate template to CA is to use Certification Authority MMC snap in:

  1. Log on to CA server or computer with Remote Server Administration Tools installed with CA Administrator permissions;
  2. Press Win+R key combination on the keyboard;
  3. In the Run… dialog, type “certsrv.msc”;
  4. If necessary, click on root node, then press Action menu and select Retarget Certification Authority to connect to desired CA server;
  5. When connected, expand CA node and select Certificate Templates folder. You will see certificate templates supported for issuance by this CA.
  6. In Action menu, select New and Certificate Template to Issue menu. In the opened dialog, select target template and press Ok to finish. Ensure that certificate template is listed in Certification Authority MMC console.

Request and Issue Initial Certificate

Now with all the pre-reqs in place. All one has to do is log into the domain joined machine and request a certificate. In our example since we picked Serve 2016 and recipient as Windows 10, the template is saved as a version 4 template.

*Note* Version 3 and 4 templates do not show up under the CA’s web enrollment option.

If everything was done correctly on the client side Certificate snap in for the machine you should be able to see the template listed:

Fill in a common name, and a couple DNS names fields to make browsers SAN requirements happy. Once filled the Enroll option should be available.

Testing and Validating

Well now that we got that, not sure how to test it getting renewed outside of the time going by…

I did discover this command by searching for an answer:

certutil –pulse

Well that’s doesn’t tell me much… wonder what the office MS source has to say…

Real mature Microsoft… This isn’t new either here’s a bit more deatiled answer from good ol TechNet (RIP).

“Certutil -pulse will initiate autoenrollment requests.

It is equivalent to doing the following in the CertMgr.msc console (in Vista and Windows 7)

Right-click Certificates , point to All Tasks , click Automatically Enroll and Retrieve Certificates .

The command does require that

– any autoenrollment GPO settings have already been applied to the target user or computer

– a certificate template enables Read, Enroll and Autoenroll permissions for the user or a global or universal group containing the user

– The group membership is recognized in the users Token (they have logged on after the membership was added”

This action is available only when you right click the very top “Certificates” node, not the sub folders node under the Personal folder.

So again I wasn’t sure how to validate it will work when time comes, as running the above action in certmgr simply only gave me the option to enroll in the computer certificate template all the other templates were marked as “unavailable” even though I manually enrolled the cert above without issue. Which made me wonder if there’s a difference between auto renewal of a certificate and auto enrollment.

I found this post from a “field  Engineer”  which seemed to conclude that they are tied together in some form.

“The Autoenrollment Group Policy has to be enabled for this feature to work. This feature will also work on certificates issued prior to enabling it.”

However no other details. From what I can tell.. The command certutil -pulse triggers the following Scheduled Task:

Microsoft\Windows\CertificateServicesClient\SystemTask

Which AFAIK will only trigger certificate issuance on certs destined to expire, how close to expiry? I’m not sure, there was the option in the template to log @ 10% remaining. I’m not sure that’s the threshold it uses to trigger a certificate renewal.

I’m not sure if there’s a specific parameter you can set to tell it to renew a certificate before this expiry time.

If you know please leave a comment.

Final Note… Ensure you enable the auto rebind feature introduced in IIS 8.5 and later. I’ve had this bite me.

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Renew Subordinate CA Certificate to Offline Root

Setup

If you follow other posts on renewing a sub-ca certificate, they usually have two tings to make their lives easier:

  1. A server with a GUI
  2. an Online Enterprise Root CA

We have none of those. We have:

  1. an Offline Root CA (at least it has a GUI)
  2. A Server Core Sub CA

Like many times in the past, MMC remote snap-in pointing to a remote core server is lacking the context menu or ability to do what you need.

Steps

For example this poor guy who posted in Windows QA.

Step 1) Log Into the Server Core Sub Sub CA.

RDP, direct console, whatever floats your boat on this one.

Step 2) Run the following command:

Certutil -renewCert ReuseKeys

Now you get a pop up, asking you to select an Online CA server to sign the Cert. In small writing on the pop up it says you can click cancel and manually sign the certificate saved under c:\ path.

Step 3) Copy to Request File to Offline CA

Now save the request file, and copy it onto your Offline Root CA. How you accomplish this in on your and your setup. If it’s all virtualized, do the vUSB trick I often do. If you have RDP access to the Sub CA, use this RDP resource and notepad trick.

Step 4) Issue Certificate on Offline CA
– Open Certificate Authority Tool.
– Right Click Server Node -> All Tasks -> Submit New Request -> Select the request file created in Step 2
– Click on Pending Requests Folder -> Right Click Certificate -> Issue
– Go back to Issued Certificates Folder -> Double Click new Certificate -> Details Tab -> Copy to File -> Save it

Step 5) Copy Issued Certificate back to Sub CA

Whatever means you did for Step3, do it in reverse.

Step 6) Install the new Certificate on the Sub CA

certutil -installcert <path to signed certificate>

OK, Stop the Service:

sc stop CertSvc

Then Start it back up:

sc start CertSvc

Then from a remote management machine with the Cert Authority MMC Snap-in added, check the properties on the Sub-CA. You should see the new certificate listed.

Hope this Helps someone.

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Filter n Find Contextually from CMD output

c:\command > c:\txtfile.txt
c:\powershell
<PS>c:\Get-Content c:\txtfile.txt | Select-String -Pattern <String your interested in finding> -Context 2,4

Context 2,4 means 2 lines above, and 4 lines below the string pattern found.

Super useful trick.

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Veeam Backup Failed – SSL/TLS handshake failed

Another day, another issue.

Processing VirtualMachineName Error: Cannot get service content.
Soap fault. SSL_ERROR_SYSCALL
Error observed by underlying SSL/TLS BIO: Unknown errorDetail: 'SSL/TLS handshake failed', endpoint: 'https://vcenter.domain.localca:443/sdk'
SOAP connection is not available. Connection ID: [vcenter.domain.local].
Failed to create NFC download stream. NFC path: [nfc://conn:vcenter.domain.local,nfchost:host-#,stg:datastore-#@VirtualMachineName/VirtualMachineName.vmx].
--tr:Unable to open source file

If you come across this error, check if you have any firewalls between your Veeam proxy Server, and the vCenter server.

I’ve blogged about this type of problem before, but in that case it was DNS, in this case it’s a Firewall.

In most cases it’s either:

1) PEBKAC
2) DNS
3) Firewall <— This Case
4) A/V
5) a Bug

You may have noticed a lack in posts lately. It’s not that I can’t figure out content to share, it’s a lack pf motivation.  I’ve been burnt out with work from the pandemic when everyone got a bunch of free money and time off… I just got more work, did I get more pay? I’ll let you decide. The amount of support calls, sheesh. That’s my only real motivation — is not to be hassled. That and the fear of losing my job, but y’know, it will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

This site has earned me $0, so that also doesn’t help. Thanks everyone for all the support keeping this site alive.

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Send an Email using Powershell

Source: Send-MailMessage (Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility) – PowerShell | Microsoft Docs

Build your object….

$mailParams = @{
SmtpServer = 'heimdall.dgcm.ca'
Port = 25
UseSSL = $false
From = 'notifications@dgcm.ca'
To = 'nos_rulz@msn.com'
Subject = ('ON-PREM SMTP Relay - ' + (Get-Date -Format g))
Body = 'This is a test email using ON-PREM SMTP Relay'
DeliveryNotificationOption = 'OnFailure', 'OnSuccess'
}

And then send it….

Send-MailMessage $mailParams

if there’s any pre-reqs required I’ll update this blog post. That should be it though. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy.

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Fix Orphaned Datastore in vCenter

Story

The Precursor

I did NOT want to write this blog post. This post comes from the fact that VMware is not perfect and I’m here to air some dirty laundry…. Let’s get started.

UPDATE* Read on if you want to get into the nitty gritty, otherwise go to the Summary section, for me rebooting the VCSA resolved the issue.

The Intro

OK, I’ll keep this short. 1 vCenter, 2 hosts, 1 cluster. 1 host started to act “weird”; Random power off,   Boots normal but USB controller not working.

Now this was annoying … A LOT, so I decided I would install ESXi on the local RAID array instead of USB.

Step 1) Make a backup of the ESXi config.

Step 2) Re-install ESXi. When I went to re-install ESXi it stated all data in the exiting datastore would be deleted. Whoops lets move all data first.

Step 2a) I removed all data from the datastore

Step 2b) Delete the Datastore, , and THIS IS THE STEP THAT CAUSED ME ALL FUTURE GRIEF IN THIS BLOG POST! DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS STEP! IF YOU DO YOU WILL HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING ELSE THIS POST IS TALKING ABOUT!

Unmount, and delete the datastore. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

*during my testing I found this was not always the case. I was however able to replicate the issue in my lab after a couple of attempts.

Step 3) Re-install ESXi

Step 4) Reload saved Config file, and all is done.

This is when my heart sunk.

The Assumptions

I had the following wrong assumptions during this terrible mistake:

  1. Datastore names are saved in the backup config.
    INCORRECT – Datastore names are literally volume labels and stay with the volume in which they were created on.
    UUID is stored on the device FS SuperBlock.
  2. Removing an orphaned Object in vCenter would be easy.
  3. Renaming a Datastore would be easy.
    1. If the host is managed by vCenter Server, you cannot rename the datastore by directly accessing the host from the VMware Host Client. You must rename the datastore from vCenter Server.
  4. Installing on USB drive defaults all install mount points on the USB drive.
    INCORRECT – There’s magic involved.

Every one of these assumptions burnt me hard.

The Problem

So it wasn’t until I clicked on the datastore section of vCenter when my heart sunk. The old datastore was listed attempting to right click and delete the orphaned datastore shot me with another surprise…. the options were greyed out, I went to google to see if I was alone. It turns out I was not alone, but the blog source I found also did not seem very promising… How to easily kill a zombie datastore in your VMware vSphere lab | (tinkertry.com)

Now this blog post title is very misleading, one can say the solution he did was “easy” but guess what … it’s not support by VMware. As he even states “Warning: this is a bit of a hack, suited for labs only”. Alright so this is no good so far.

There was one other notable source. This one mentioned looking out for related objects that might still be linked to the Datastore, in this case there was none. It was purely orphaned.

Talking to other in #VMware on libera chat, told me it might be possibly linked to a scratch location which is probably the reason for the option being greyed out, while this might be a reasonable case for a host, for vCenter in which the scratch location is dependent on a host itself, not vCenter, it should have the ability to clear the datastore, as the ESXi host itself will determine where the scratch location is stored (foreshadowing, this causes me more grief).

In my situation, unlike tinkertry’s situation, I knew exactly what caused the problem, I did not rename the datastore accordingly. Since the datastore name was not named appropriately after being re-created, it was mounted and shown as a new datastore.

The Plan

It’s one thing to fuck up, it another to fess up, and it’s yet another to have a plan. If you can fix your mistake, it’s prime evidence of learning and growing as you live life. One must always perceiver. Here’s my plan.

Since building the host new and restoring the config with a wrong datastore, I figured I’d I did the same but with the proper datastore in place, I should be able to remove it by bringing it back up.

I had a couple issues to overcome. First one was my 3rd assumption: That renaming a datastore was easy. Which, usually, it is, however… in this case attempting to rename it the same as the missing datastore simply told me the datastore already exists. Sooo poop, you can’t do it directly from a ESXi host unless it’s not managed by vCenter. So as you can tell a catch22, the only way to get past this was to do my plan, which was the same as how I got in this mess to being with. But sadly I didn’t know how bad a hole I had created.

So after installing brand new on another USB stick, I went to create the new datastore with the old name, overwriting the partition table ESXi install created… and you guessed it. Failed to create VMFS datastore. Cannot change host configuration. – Zewwy’s Info Tech Talks

Obviously I had gone through this before, but this time was different. it turned out attempting to clear the GPT partition table and replace it with msdos(MBR) based one failed telling me it was a read-only disk. Huh?

Googling this, I found this thread which seemed to be the root cause… Yeap my 4th assumption: “Installing on USB drive defaults all install mount points on the USB drive.”

so doing a “ls -l”, and “esxcli storage filesystem list” then “vmkfstools -P MOUNTPOINT” I was veriy esay to discover that the scratch and coredump were pointing to the local RAID logical volume I created which overwrote the initial datastore when ESXi was installed. Talk about a major annoyance, like I get why it did what it did, but in this case it is  major hindrance as I can’t clear the logical disk partition to create a new one which will be hold the datastore I need to have mounted there… mhmmm

So I kept trying to change the core dump location and the scratch location and the host on reboot kept picking the old location which was on the local RAID logical volume that kept preventing me from moving forward. Regardless if I did it via the GUI or if I did it via the backend cmd “vim-cmd hostsvc/advopt/update ScratchConfig.ConfiguredScratchLocation string /tmp/scratch” even though VMware KB mentions to create this path path first with mkdir what I found was the creation of this path was not persistent, and it would seem that since it doesn’t exist at boot ESXi changes it via it’s usual “Magic”:

“ESXi selects one of these scratch locations during startup in this order of preference:
The location configured in the /etc/vmware/locker.conf configuration file, set by the ScratchConfig.ConfiguredScratchLocation configuration option, as in this article.
A Fat16 filesystem of at least 4 GB on the Local Boot device.
A Fat16 filesystem of at least 4 GB on a Local device.
A VMFS datastore on a Local device, in a .locker/ directory.
A ramdisk at /tmp/scratch/.”

So in this case, I found this post around a similar issue, and turns out setting the scratch location to just /tmp, worked.

When I attempted to wipe the drive partitions I was again greeted by read-only, however this time it was right back to the coredump location issues, which I verified by running:

esxcli system coredump partition get

which showed me the drive, so I used the unmounted final partition of the USB stick in it’s place:

esxcli system coredump partition set -p USBDriveNAA:PartNum

Which sure enough worked, and I was able to set the logical drive to have a msdos based partition, yay I can finally re-create the datastore and restore the config!

So when the OP in that one VMware thread post said congrats you found 50% of the problem I guess he was right it goes like this.

  1. Scratch
  2. Coredump

Fix these and you can reuse the logical drive for a datastore. Let’s re-create that datastore…

This is hen my heart sunk yet again…

So I created the datastore successfully however… I had to learn about those peskey UUID’s…

The UUID is comprised of four components. Lets understand this by taking example of one of the vmfs volume’s UUID : 591ac3ec-cc6af9a9-47c5-0050560346b9

System Time (591ac3ec)
CPU Timestamp (cc6af9a9)
Random Number (47c5)
MAC Address – Management Port uplink of the host used to re-signature or create the datastore (0050560346b9)

FFS… I can never be able to reproduce that… and sure enough thats why my UUIDs not longer aligned:

I figured maybe I could make the file, and create a custom symlink to that new file with the same name, but nope “operation not permitted”:

Fuck! well now I don’t know if i can fix this, or if restoring the config with the same datastore name but different UUID will fix it or make things worse…. fuck me man…. not sure I want to try this… might have to do this on my home lab first…

Alright I finally was able to reproduce the problem in my home lab!

Let’s see if my idea above will work…

Step 1) Make config Backup of ESXi host. (should have one before mess up but will use current)

Step 2) Reload host to factory defaults.

Step 3) rename datastore

Step 4) reload config

poop… I was afraid of that…

ok i even tried, disconnecting host from vcenter after deleting the datstore  I could, recreate with same name and it always attaches with appending (1) cause the datastore exists as far as vCenter thinks, since the UUID can never be recovered… I heard a vCenter reboot may help let’s see…

But first I want to go down a rabbit hole…. the Datastore UUID, in this case the ACTUAL datastore UUID, not the one listed in a VM’s config file (.vmx), not the one listed in the vCenter DB’s (that we are trying to fix), but the one actually associated with the Datastore… after much searching…  it seems it is saved in the File Systems “SuperBlock“, in most other File Systems there’s some command to edit the UUID if you really need to. However, for VMFS all I could find was re-signaturing for cloned volumes…

So it would seem if I simply would have saved the first 4MB of the logical disk, or partition, not 100% sure which at this time, but I could have in theory done a DD to replace it and recovered the original UUID and then connect the host back to vCenter.

I guess I’ll try a reboot here see what happens….

Well look at that.. it worked…

Summary

  1. Try a reboot
  2. If reboot does not Fix it call VMware Support.
  3. If you don’t have support, You can try to much the with backend DB (do so at your own risk).

 

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Azure AD and the ADConnect

*Note this is not supported. Installing Azure AD Sync on a Core server but it appears it does work.

Here’s what I did, I found this MS doc for reference:

  1. I followed this to guide me to make the “primary” tenant.
    no, I did not check either checkbox, **** em!
  2. I read this content to understand the tenant hierarchy.
  3. I added a custom domain (zewwy.ca), it said, sure no problem no federation issues, just verify. (Create a TXT record on the registrar to verify you own domain.)
    *refresh the page and the status will update accordingly.
  4.  I proceeded to download the Azure AD Connect msi file via the provided link after adding the custom domain.
  5. Install: (This was on Server 2016 Core)

2015.. interesting…

Click Accept Next.

Enter the Credentials from Step 1 (or enter the credentials provided by your MSP/CSP/VAR.

Enter the credentials of the local domain, enterprise admin account.

If you wish to do a hybrid Exchange setup check the second checkbox, Not sure how to configure this later but I’m sure there is a way. At this time that was not part of this post’s goals.

There was one snippet I missed, it appears to install a SQL express on the DC.

Then it appears to install a dedicated service.

This is Ground Control to Major Tom…

This is Major Tom to Ground Control… You’ve really made the grade!

They got all my passwords!

wait … it worked…. like what? No Errors?… No Service account creations? It actually just worked?…

Goto azure portal login, use my on prem credentials… and it logged me in….

I’m kind of mind blown right now. Well Guess on the next post can cover possibly playing with M365 services. Stay tuned. 😀

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How to vMotion a VM without vCenter

Well here I am… again…

In short, you figure… “Ummm just vMotion the VM in vCenter” and for the most part I would agree, however what do you do if you need to move a VM, for example vCenter, and it just so happens to be on an ESXi host that is not within a cluster with other similar ESXi hosts, or in a cluster without EVC? (In most cases rare, sure) However I happened to be just in that situation recently.

First thing I thought I’d just copy the files via ESXi console, using the CP command, and it for the most part it seemed to work for one smaller VM. However when I went to do it against vCenter. It seemed to be going longer then I had expected. After nearly an hour… I decided to see what was going on… but since I was just using CP command how do I find out the processes time?

“Yes, by running stat on target file and local file, and get a file size,

i.e stat -c “%s” /bin/ls”

Oh neat, so when I went to check the source was 28.5 Gigs…. and the target was 94 Gigs… wait wait what??? I can only assume something messed up with the copying cause the files were thin provisioned… not sure stopped the process and deleted the files…

Now I began to Google search and I wasn’t searching properly and found useless results such as this: Moving virtual machines with Storage vMotion (1005544) (vmware.com) then I got my act together and found exactly what I was looking for from here: How to move VMware ESXi VM to new datastore using vmkfstools | Alessandro Arrichiello (alezzandro.com)

So basically I liked this, and it was what I needed, I was just slightly annoyed that 1) there wasn’t a nice way to do multiple VMDKs via his examples, just for all the other files, so I took the one liner from the other files trick, and found out how to get the path I need from the files in question.

Low and behold here’s how to do the magic!

1) This assumes a shared datastore between hosts (if you need to move files between hosts without a shared datastore, follow this guide from VMware arena.) (I’m not sure but I think you can leave the VM’s registered, but they have to be powered down, and that there are no snapshots.)

2) Ensure you make the directory you wish to move the VM files to.

mkdir /vmfs/volumes/DatastoreTarget/VMData

3) Copy/Clone VMDK files to target.

find "/vmfs/volumes/DatastoreSource/VMData" -maxdepth 1 -type f | grep ".vmdk" | grep -v "flat" | while read file; do vmkfstools -i $file -d thin /vmfs/volumes/DatastoreTarget/VMData/${file##*/}; done

4) Copy remain files to target.

find "/vmfs/volumes/DatastoreSource/VMData/" -maxdepth 1 -type f | grep -v ".vmdk" | while read file; do cp "$file" "/vmfs/volumes/DatastoreTarget/VMData/"; done

Once done cloning and copying all necessary files, add the VM from the new datastore back to inventory.

In the vSphere client go to: Configuration->Storage->Data Browser, right click the destination datastore which you moved your VM to and click “Browse datastore”.

Browse to your VM and right click the .vmx file, then click “Add to inventory”

Boot up the VM to see if it works, when asked whether you copied or moved it, just answer that you moved it. In this case it all depends on if you want the VM DI to stay the same as it is known within vCenter. As long as you properly delete the old files and removed it from the host inventory, this will complete the VM migration. If you don’t plan on deleting the old VM, or do not care about VM IDs or backups, then select “I copied it”.

Hope this helps someone.

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Failed to create VMFS datastore. Cannot change host configuration.

Quick one here. Create a new logical disk via RAID5, after an old logical unit failed from only a single bad disk.

No issues deleting the old logical disk, and creating a new one via HP storage controller commands.

However was greeted with this nice error.

From here, by Cookies04: ”

I had the same problem and in order to fix it I had to run three commands through an SSH connection. From what I have seen and found this error comes from having disks that were part of different arrays and contain some data on them. When I ran the commands I was then able to connect the data stores with no issues.

1. Show connected disks.

ls -lha /vmfs/devices/disks/

(Verify the disk is seen. You will probably see your disk ID then :1. This is a partition on the disk. We only need to work about the main disk ID.)

2. Show the error on disk.

partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/(disk ID)

(It will probably indicate that the GPT is located beyond the end of the disk.)

3. Wipe disk and rewrite with a basic MSDOS partion.

partedUtil setptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/(disk ID) msdos

(The output from this should be similar to msdos and the next line will be o o o o)

I hope this helps you out.”

Looks like it worked… Thanks Cookie04!

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