Virtual Machine Lab Information sheet$-$A

$1)$ Our vCenter management environment has three datacenters and five servers in different data centers.

DC$-110\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}18,10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}20,10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}241$

DC$-3(10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}242-$currently offline$),10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}246,10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}249,10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}251.$

The graphic below shows our current server environment.

$2)$ The Bad$-$Actor virtual machines are somewhat hidden

$3)$ The Bad$-$Actor virtual machines are on any of the servers that vCenter manages

$4)$ The bad$-$Actor virtual machines will not be in any or your classmate$$s resources

a$.$ Resource Pools

b$.$ vApps

c$.$ They not their virtual machines

$5)$ Do not start the Bad$-$Actor virtual machines, I only want you to find them.

$6)$ You will need to hunt for them and then answer the questions for each Bad$-$Actor virtual machine.

$7)$ Current Server Storage

Datacenter$-1$

a$.10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}18$ datastore$-1-18,$ datastore$-2-18$

b$.10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}20$ Storage$-2$

c$.10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}241$ Storage$-241$

d$.10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}242242-$datastore$-1($currently offline$)$

e$.10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}246246-$datastore$-1$

f$.10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}249249-$datastore$-1$

g$.10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}251251-$datastore$-1,251-$datastore$-2,251-$datastore$-3$

vCenter Server storage area assignments

Snapshot Files. This is what you will see when you connect via Putty and SSH into the Linux part of the Hypervisor. To determine if your VMware ESXi datastore uses VMFS$6$ or VMFS$5,$ you need to check the properties of the datastore within your vSphere client.

Select the $$Storage Icon$$ for the server you are working on$.$ Select the $$Summary Tab$$ and determine if the VMFS type is VMFS$5$ or $6$

If the "Filesystem Type" is $"$VMFS$5",$ then your datastore is indeed using VMFS$5.$

If the "Filesystem Type" listed is $"$VMFS$6",$ then your datastore is indeed using VMFS$6.$ Note that you need to be running at least ESXi $6\mathrm{.}5$ or higher to utilize VMFS$6.$

SEsparse is a default format for all delta disks on the VMFS$6$ datastores. This format is space efficient and supports the space reclamation technique. With space reclamation, blocks that the guest OS deletes are marked. The system sends commands to the SEsparse layer in the hypervisor to unmap those blocks. The file in a snapshot will look like the following: $000001-$sesparse.vmdk

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$8)$ In this lab we may be looking at snapshot files. We need to distinguish between the $-$delta files for the various ESXi versions.

Snapshot data files: $-$delta.vmdk vs $-$sesparse.vmdk

$-$delta.vmdk VMFS$5$ filesystem, the snapshot delta file originally on ESXi $6\mathrm{.}0$ and early $6\mathrm{.}5$

$-$sesparse.vmdk VMFS$6$ filesystem, the snapshot delta file originally on ESXi late $6\mathrm{.}5,6\mathrm{.}7,$ & $7\mathrm{.}0$

Some of our servers were upgraded from previous versions. Only the hypervisors were upgraded, the original filesystems remained. As a result, we have some old filesystems on newer hypervisors. Filesystems are backward compatible but new filesystems need to be installed on hypervisors designed to use them. $$

When you connect to the Linux part of the VMware hypervisor, remember to us putty to ssh into the machine

User ID: root

Password: P@ssw$0$rd $($our class password$)$

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How to find the hypervisor version and filesystem type to answer some of the lab questions.

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Bad$-$Actor$-1$

Server: $10\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}1\mathrm{.}18$

What version of ESXI is the hypervisor: Vmware ESXi $6\mathrm{.}5\mathrm{.}0$

Snapshot Files viewed through vCenter

Navigator Pane Virtual Machine Name: Bad$-$Actor$-1$

vCenter Storage Location: Datastore$-1-18$

vCenter Resource Pool Name: BA$-1$

vCenter Storage Folder Name: Bad$-$Actor$-1$

display name in the $.$vmx file: displayName $=$ "Bad$-$Actor$-1"$

How many snapshots are there for Bad$-$Actor$-1$: $3$

vCenter Disk Location Folder: $[$Datastore$-1-18]$ Bad$-$Actor$-1$

Last Snapshot Delta File: Bad$-$Actor$-1-000003.$vmdk

Last Snapshot State file: Bad$-$Actor$-1-$Shanshot$3.$vmsn

Files viewed through Linux

Linux Location: $/$vmfs$/$volumes$/5$cb$7717$c$-9034$d$9$a$6-1$cad$-$b$8$ca$3$aede$5$b$6/$Bad Actor$-1$

Last Snapshot Delta Disk: Bad$-$Actor$-1-000003-$sesparse.vmdk

Last Snapshot Disk Descriptor File: Bad$-$Actor$-1-000003.$vmdk

Last Snapshot State File: Bad$-$Actor$-1-$Snapshot$3.$vmsn

If a snapshot exists, why is the snapshot a delta or sesparse file? Because the hypervisor is ESXi$-6\mathrm{.}5\mathrm{.}0$ using VMFS$6.$