Category Archives: VMware

VMware

vSphere 6 – vMotion fails – PBM error occurred during PreMigrateCheckCallback

Trying to vMotion a VM and it failed with the following error:

A general system error occurred: PBM error occurred during PreMigrateCheckCallback: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it.

Easy fix – ensure the Profile Driven Storage service is running on the vCenter server – in my case I had disabled it in an attempt to save resources on the vCenter server and I did not think I was using Profile Driven Storage functionality – so I thought!

VMware

VMware vSphere – Adding Disk to a new VM Fails – A general system error occurred: Failed to create journal file

Received this error when trying to add an additional disk to a VM.

A general system error occurred: Failed to create journal file providerFailed

Various other vSphere actions also failed with the same message including vMotion.

Problem – the vCenter server was running low on disk space on the drive containing this file: %PROGRAMDATA%\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\journal.

VMware

Remove Redundant Devices After a VMware Hardware Version Update

After a P2V or a VMware hardware version update you often get redundant virtual hardware devices left over. They can be removed by doing the following.

Open a command window as Admin and then run the two commands below.

  • set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
  • start devmgmt.msc

When the Device Manager MMC opens ensure you select Show Hidden Devices using the View menu option.

Delete the devices that are not required.

QNAP, VMware

vSphere Datastore on a QNAP TS-670

  • Access QTS web interface.
  • Open Storage Manager.
  • Select the iSCSI Storage tab.
  • Click the Create button.
  • Select I want to create iSCSI Target with mapped LUN.
  • Enter a name for the iSCSI Target.
  • Select File Based and Instant Allocation.
  • Change LUN name to match the iSCSI Target name.
  • Select required volume.
  • Set capacity required.
  • Repeat the above as required to create more LUNs.

Note:  QNAP recommend one-to-one mapping of iSCSI Targets to LUNs and then combining several LUNs to create a vSphere datastore.

  • Access the vSphere client.
  • Select an ESXi host.
  • Select the Configuration tab.
  • Select Storage Adapters.
  • Select Rescan.
  • Select the newly discovered devices in turn and change the Path Selection to Fixed(VMware).
  • Select the Storage option.
  • Click Add Storage.
  • Select one of the newly discovered LUNs and create the datastore as normal.
  • When the new datastore is available select Properties and then click the Increase button.
  • Add the other newly discovered LUNs in turn to extend the datastore to the required size.
VMware

VMware vSphere 5.5 Web Client Session Timeout

By default the VMware vSphere 5.5 Web Client session timeout is set to 30 minutes.   To change this setting so the client never times-out complete the following on the server hosting the Web Client service.

  • Open the webclient.properties file in the C:\ProgramData\VMware\vSphere Web Client folder.
  • Change the session timeout entry so it reads session.timeout = 0
  • Save and close the webclient.properties file.
  • Restart the vSphere Web Client service.