If you get the error in vCenter while powering on VMs "The operation is not allowed in the current state of the host", try connecting directly to the host and powering it on that way. 

If this works, unfortunately you'll need to remove the Host from vCenter and re-add it in order to be able to power on the server from within vCenter

One of the most often used tool of sysadmins who need to deploy large numbers of similar hardware is the sysprep tool.  This Microsoft tool anonymises key system components so that cloned machines end up unique rather than duplicates of each other which can cause a wide range issues when they are networked together.  There are many different versions of sysprep available for the various versions of windows and the different flavours of service pack which can make it a nightmare to find the correct version. 

Thankfully microsoft in their wisdom have made the process simpler since the release of Vista, by incorporating sysprep into the OS installation as standard.  Assuming you've deployed windows to the default directory you'll find the tools in c:\windows\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe

The options are also much simplified, with the option of "Enter System Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE)" in combination with the "Generalise" tickbox giving the required options for cloning the system.

ITAssistant often seems to give unknown status to servers for no apparent reason.  The usual fix for this is just to refresh the inventory of the unknown servers (annoying but quite quick to do).

However sometimes servers go unknown and won't respond to an inventory, even if you bounce the ITAssistant services or the SNMP services on the remote server.

The first step is to try the troubleshooting tool in ITAssistant...

and run the SNMP connectivity test...

The result should show a list of SNMP agents installed on the server.  A healthy Dell Openmanage report will list the OpenManage Server Agent, plus any additional components that were selected (such as storage management.

If the OpenManage SNMP agent isn't showing you'll probably only see a couple of agents.

e.g.
1) A problem server
Connected to the agent software(s) - [broadcom, NA], [mib2, NA]
2) An OK server
Connected to the agent software(s) - [broadcom, NA], [cminventorysnmp, NA], [drac3, NA], [mib2, NA], [OpenManage Server Agent, 5.8.0], [storagemgmt, NA]

If the server responds with an output similar to the problem server (1) above, then you need to reinstall SNMP.  The good news is that this can be done without rebooting the server.

This usually requires the unzipped files for the installed service pack and the windows installation CD, so make sure you have the media available

1) Uninstall Dell OpenManage
2) Uninstall SNMP
3) Reinstall SNMP
4) Reinstall Dell OpenManage

Finally go back into ITAssistant and re-run the troubleshooting tool to make sure you get the full SNMP output for OpenManage and if this is ok, re-inventory the server in OpenManage and your unknown status should clear.

Of course if you take the opportunity to upgrade OpenManage you may find your firmware is out of date and you get a warning status, but that's a different subject...

The Dell TL2000 and TL4000 tape libraries both have the option to be used with iSCSI.  This comes in the form of a SAS to iSCSI bridge which installs in the unit.  The SAS ports are then connected to the Bridge card with an adapter cable (supplied) and the network ports on the card  are connected to your iSCSI network.

The microsoft iSCSI initiator is used to connect to the iSCSI bridge which presents the tape library hardware as a series of targets.

At first glance the first target appears to be duplicated but do not be fooled (like I was).  These are actually the first tape drive *and* the robotic library itself.

Once all the devices are logged on, you should see the Robotic library and all the drives in your changer in backup exec although you may need to rerun the device detection wizard in BE first.

Usually this is an issue when you change a network card and want to reuse the original IP.  The old driver and device is still registered in windows even though it's gone from device manager even if you select show hidden devices, so windows winges about duplicate IPs.  It'll still work mind, but it's not the neatest way to keep your windows.

The answer, in a command prompt, run the command set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 then start the device manage snap-in devmgmt.msc.  Then when you show hidden devices it'll also show devices that are no longer in the system.

This is a howto for setting up SNMP on VMware vSphere ESX4 to work with ITAssistant, written because there's precious little documentation on the matter and what documentation exists is quite often misleading or plain wrong!  Vmware in their wisdom have completely changed the way SNMP is configured in vSphere ESX4 (note not ESX4i which is a completely different kettle of fish and covered elsewhere).  This means (young padawan) you have to unlearn everything you knew and any documentation for pre-vSphere can be pretty much thrown out of the window.  The version used was 4.0.0 but should apply to future versions too.

Install Openmanage 6.1.x or higher

This is done the same way as on older vmware servers or linux systems.

1) download and unzip the Openmanage redhat package (OM_6.1.0_ManNode_A00.tar.gz) from the dell website to someone on in your vmware service console.

gzip -d OM_6.1.0_ManNode_A00.tar.gz
tar -xvf OM_6.1.0_ManNode_A00.tar

This will give the following files/volders:
COPYRIGHT.txt
docs/
license.txt
linux/
setup.sh

2) Run setup (as root) and select the first 3 options
sh setup.sh

##############################################

Server Administrator Custom Install Utility

##############################################

 

  Components for Server Administrator Managed Node Software:

 

    [x] 1. Server Administrator Web Server

    [x] 2. Server Instrumentation

    [x] 3. Storage Management

    [ ] 4. Remote Access Core Components

    [ ] 5. Remote Access SA Plugin Components

    [ ] 6. All

 

  Enter the number to select a component from the above list.

  Enter q to quit.

 

Then select i to install

3) start the Openmanage services
srvadmin-services.sh  start

4) Open the vmware firewall to allo access to the openmanage web interface

/usr/sbin/esxcfg-firewall -o 1311,tcp,in,OpenManage

Make sure you test it so you know openmanage is working and can see your hardware.  If you can see the disk systems, memory, cpus etc, then fix openmanage first.

Setup passive polling from ITAssistant

Passive monitoring is where the ITAssistant polls the server at a regular interval.  Supported methods in ITAssistant are CIM, SNMP and IPMI.  SNMP with the "get" string is the usual method and what this howto covers.  The ITAssistant documentation recommends creating a new readonly string for use with ITAssistant.

1) Edit the snmp conf file
/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf

2) Locate line 41 which should contain this string:
com2sec notConfigUser  default       public

3) Change the value from public to your string used with discovery in ITAssistant.

4) Append the following to the bottom of the file
smuxpeer .1.3.6.1.4.1.674.10892.1
This allows the snmp service to also serve out the Dell MIB information.

5) Restart the SNMPD service
/sbin/service snmpd restart
It often shows "failed" for the stop part but you can ignore that.

6) Restart the Dell Openmanage services for good measure
srvadmin-services.sh restart

7) Open up the SNMP service on the vmware firewall:
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-firewall -e snmpd

7) Test SNMP with the troubleshooting tool in ITAssistant (tools->troubleshooting tool).  Select the SNMP connectivity test and click the configure button to change the get string to your string (if you're not using

Alternatively use snmpwalk on the Dell MIB Tree
snmpwalk -v2c -c <your-string> 127.0.0.1 .1.3.6.1.4.1.674.10892.1
This should produce alot of scrolling text as it prints all the snmp output.

I'm still ironing out the quirks with active alerts (SNMP traps) and hope to have a definitive guide soon!

Windows 2003 has an enhanced shutdown command which allows shutdown of
multiple servers.
Running shutdown -i brings up a dialog box where you can enter the
list of servers.
Remember it's always good practice to put shutdown comments the mean
something so looking back in the future you'll know what was done.

If you ever need to find out which process is holding a port open use:
netstat -b

Just found a new blogging site called posterous.  It's main feature is making blogging easy by having entries all sent via email.  While some people are used to having a web connection all the time, I find often I'm out and about and just want to do something quick and simple on my phone so being able to upload posts, photos, videos somewhere just by sending an email from the gmail client on my phone sounds great.

The only downside is it posts signatures too :)

Lets see if this works then...