rasmus sjoerslev

performance data collection made easy: logman and powershell

Rasmus Sjørslev — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:06:00 GMT

If you need to gather performance data from multiple systems, it can be hard manual labor (and just plain boring) setting up all those collector sets manually. This PowerShell scripts servers as a wrapper for logman.exe which can create data collector sets from a command line.

It takes input in the form of which servers (servers.txt) you want to monitor, and which performance counters (counters.txt) you want to monitor. Both .txt files should be placed in the same directory as the .ps1.
The default for the script is to create collectors that run for 1 week, and polls every 2 minutes. This can all be changed though, just type logman /? In a prompt to list all the features available.

I have attached a .zip file containing both the PowerShell script and a counters.txt which contain some basic/standard counters for general performance monitoring.

If you would like to monitor specific counters feel free to create your own counters.txt file. (Note that <HOSTNAME> must still go in front of each line as in the included counters.txt) The easiest way to list performance counters is to use typeperf.exe. This tool lists all the performance counters on the system where it is executed. To list all counters included in the Processor object simply type:

typeperf.exe -q Processor

The easiest way to add counters is to use asterisk (*) to define instances. This way you won’t run into issues with defining which devices you want to see statistics for. For example the instance \LogicalDisk(*)\Disk Reads/sec would give you Disk Reads/sec for all logical disks defined on the target system, no matter how many drives are defined.

Be aware that when choosing counters for use with multiple servers, they must be available on all systems.

I hope you find it usefull – this can be a great way to quickly set up a baseline for multiple systems, or to simply monitor your systems on a regular basis.

Check ntp status and time on your ESX servers

Rasmus Sjørslev — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:10:00 GMT

Inspired by dkfbp in the VMware Community forums, i made this simple script that checks the date/time and ntpd service status of your ESX servers.

Its a Powershell/vSphere PowerCLI script that basically serves as a wrapper for plink.exe which then executes commands to a list of provided ESX servers to check.
You can download plink from http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Just place plink.exe in the same folder as Get-ESXTime.ps1 and execute. The script is attached with a .txt extension so just rename to .ps1

If you would like to send the script in an email, just uncomment the SMTP part at the bottom of the script.

Here is a screenshot if what the output looks like:

Using WOL from the internet

Rasmus Sjørslev — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:05:00 GMT

Being able to use Wake On Lan (WOL) thrue a router from the internet, seemed like the perfect match for my new Windows Home Server. Not wanting the server to be on at all times this feature would make me able to power the server up, get the files i need and power it back down. Meanwhile cutting down on my power bill, and saving the planet one server at the time.

I'm using a ASUS P5Q-VM motherboard with a Realtek LOM. For that to work with WOL i nedded to make a few changes in the BIOS and in Windows device manager.

Press DEL to enter BIOS and make the following canges:

Power > APM Configuration
Set "Power On By PCIE Devices" to "Enabled"

This is the only option required to be set in the bios. PXE support and "Power On Ny PCI Devices" it not required. At least not in my case.

Boot the system into WIndows and enter device manager, and continue to properties for the Realtek NIC. If you are using WHS either log on to the WHS using RDP or install the Advanced Admin Console to gain easy access to the device manager.

Go to "Power Management" tab and click "Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby"

Under the "Advanced" tab set:

"Wake-On-Lan Capabilities" = "Magic Packet"
"Wake-On-Lan After Shutdown" = "Enable"

Now on to the router/firewall configuration.

If your router does NOT support WOL forward you can just configure a NAT entry that forwards UDP port 9 to your broadcast address internally. If you use 192.168.1.0/24 you would create the rule to point to 192.168.1.255. My Zyxel router does not support WOL forward, so i just created that NAT rule which works fine.

Thats it for the configurationpart. Just shut down your computer and team up with a WOL program! I would recommend Magic Packet Sender - http://magicpacket.free.fr/ - easy to use interface, and you can save your settings in profiles. If you just want to use the WOL from the internet there are browser based options like this one at DSLReport - http://www.dslreports.com/wakeup

How-to: Configure DELL servers for use with vSphere DPM

Rasmus Sjørslev — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:47:00 GMT

One of the neat little feature upgrades in ESX 4 compared to 3.x is that Distributed Power Management (DPM) is now officially supported. In 3.5 it was experimental and the only way to power on your hosts was using WOL. In ESX 4 features like IPMI and iLO are supported, which makes for a more reliable usage.

Enabling IPMI can either be done using the web-interface or the DRAC configuration tool accessible when booting the system.

To enable the feature using the web-interface first log in to the DRAC interface and click on "Remote Access" in the menu to the left and then on the "Configuration" to the right. Scroll down to "IPMI LAN Settings" and check the "Enable IPMI over LAN" checkbox as in the screenshot below:

To enable IPMI over LAN using the DRAC config util boot the server and press CTRL+E when prompted to enter DRAC configuration. Set the "IPMI Over LAN" to "On". Save settings and exit.

When the servers is back up you can configure the ESX to attach to the BMC using IPMI. To do this start the vSphere client and mark the server you want to configure then click the "Configuration" tab, "Power Management" (under "Software") and the "Properties…" on the top right corner.
Enter the username and password used for logging in to the DRAC, the IP of the DRAC and the MAC address. To get easy access to the DRAC MAC address, simply ping the DRAC IP and run arp –a from a Windows command prompt and copy/paste the MAC from there.

After making the changes to all ESX servers in your cluster you are ready to start configuring and using DPM.

Even if you do not have a DRAC in your DELL servers you should be able to configure IPMI using the shared NIC feature. IPMI is standard on most DELL servers even without the DRAC installed.

I assume that the process is very similar if you have HP or IBM servers. If you are having trouble configuring IPMI/iLO properties for those kinds of servers, check that IPMI is enabled.

Bacis configuration changes in Linux - ESX/Appliances

Rasmus Sjørslev — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:33:00 GMT

I always get lost when it comes to configuring things like DNS, default gateway, IP settings and so on in Linux - more precise ESX and appliances.

Being tired of always have to google the answers, this post should cover how to do basic IP configuration changes in Linux.
The paths are taken from the VMware vMA 4.0 appliances, which is based on RedHat distribution. I figure most of the filenames are the same, but for some distros the paths might be different. They are in some cases my experience tells me.

Default gateway and hostname:

File:
/etc/sysconfig/network

Values:
HOSTNAME=FQDN
GATEWAY=10.0.0.1

DHCP, IP and netmask:

File:
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 (where eth0 corresponds to the interface you want to configure eth1, eth2 etc.)

Values:
BOOTPROTO=none (configures the device for static IP, set to =DHCP for...yes DHCP)
IPADDR=10.0.0.1
NETMASK=255.255.255.0

DNS and search order:

File:
/etc/resolv.conf

Values:
search domain.com (this corresponds to DNS suffix in the windows world)
nameserver 10.0.0.1
nameserver 10.0.0.2

nameserver values are picked on the order they are listed.

After you have made the changes restart networking on the host:

service network restart

One more thing i always forget hot to set: Keyboard layout
In many cases when deploying linux based appliances, the default keyboard is en-US, which can be bothersome when using a Danish keyboard. loadkeys should do the work:

loadkeys dk

A good command to know as well is the find command

find / -name resolv*

The first argument is the path to start in, and the -name defines what file you are looking for. The examples also shows that you can use wildcards when searching.

Thats all i remembered i forgot for now. Will update the post when i forget some more.

Thanks to http://www.linuxquestions.org/ - a really nice place for those of us who get lost when paths do not start with C:\ ...

FREESCO routing in a virtual environment

Rasmus Sjørslev — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 16:53:00 GMT

If you have the need for routing between different networks in VMware ESX (Hyper-V should be the same use-case though I have not tested), you need some sort of routing application. FREESCO could be that application, and since it’s very small, fast and easy to use that’s what I ended up using on my ESX test-server.

I use it for “simulating” different sites specifically for AD replication, DFS-R and other site-aware applications.

This guide walks you through installing and booting your new FREESCO VM.
I have attached a clean FREESCO .flp file to this post you can use “out of the box” in your environment, but if you want to try Virtual Floppy Drive and get a taste of how you can use that tool, please allow yourself to read this post: virtual floppy disks and drives for an how-to create floppy images using Virtual Floppy Drive.

The following guides you through creating and configuring FREESCO as a VM.

Upload your FREESCO .flp file to your ESX environment, using Datastore Browser, scp, WinSCP or whatever tool you use to add file to your ESX datastores.
Create at VM with the following settings. I have only listed the non-standard settings you need to make.
Guest OS: Other Linux (32-bit)
Memory: 32MB
NIC: Flexible (Add 2 NICs for a start, write down corresponding MAC address for later use)
Disk: Do not create disk
After you create the VM, change the configuration like the picture below. You need to remove the DVD drive, and the highlighted floppy path needs to correspond to where you uploaded your floppy file in step 1. Connect each of your NICs to the portgroups you want to route between.
Power on your VM where you should see FREESCO login prompt. Log in with root//root and choose the default color mode.
Select option “f) Server” and press enter.

A - Enter DNS server(s)
B - Hostname
C - Leave domain name
D - At the “Network Card Settings” configure the NICs you have added, and set both options to 0 for PCI auto configuration.

E - At network settings configure eth0, and then change settings for the other NICs you added to the VM. To configure eth1 press 1 and the “Insert” key on your keyboard to auto configure the interface. Afterwards it’s easier to configure the settings.

F - Just accept the default settings for all options but make sure to answer “Yes” when you are prompted to “Trust local networks”. You can choose to enable/disable features you would like to use like HTTP admin, SSH and so on.
You should end up with a configuration like the picture below: (unless you enabled some features along the way)
Press “x” and follow the onscreen instructions. It will ask you to change 3 passwords; for ppp, root and web. Just change to whatever suites you. Afterwards say no to create new root and admin users and restart the VM by pressing “save and quit”
If you have chosen the default networks (192.168.0.x / 192.168.1.x) and have created separate vSwitches/Portgroups , you can now test to see if the routing works. If you are having difficulties finding out what NICs are associated to which portgroup, you can run ifconfig command from the terminal session on the FREESCO VM and it will show you what MAC addresses are linked to which NICs. If you wrote down the MAC addresses for the vNICs in step 2, it should be no problem to find out where a specific vNIC is connected.

There are loads of other features in FREESCO which are explained in details at www.freesco.org. There is also a great FREESCO forum, where I got all my questions answered in regards to LAN routing. Thanks to “Lightning” for helping me with all my questions!

This guide only uses FREESCO from a floppy disk, since I don’t need any of the stuff that requires installation to hard disk. It is possible to add LSI Logic SCSI drivers to the FREESCO install if you would like to install it to a .vmdk rather then run if from a floppy. There is a forum post on that topic at the FREESCO support forums also.

Happy routing!

virtual floppy disks and drives

Rasmus Sjørslev — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:46:54 GMT

Virtual Floppy Drive (VFD) is very neat program that creates virtual floppy drives, which works just as if they where physical. You can save these virtual floppies in .flp format and use directly in VMware and MS hypervisors, or other programs which support floppy images. They can also be written to physical floppy disks using fx. WinImage.

There is one thing missing in VFD, but you can always press this link while you do step 8 below if you are a bit nostalgic :)

For starters you need to download the following:

FREESCO 0.4.0 – Download
Virtual Floppy Drive 2.1 (VFD) - Download

I’ll describe how to use FREESCO in a virtual environment, that’s why this guide uses FREESCO as an example. You could use whatever floppy based program you wanted to make a virtual floppy for. To see the FREESCO guide click: FREESCO routing in an virtual environment

Start by extracting Virtual Floppy Drive into c:\temp\vfd (or another folder, I use c:\temp\ in the guide), and FREESCO into c:\temp\freesco
Run vfdwin.exe from where you extracted the files to in step 1.
Go to the “Driver” tab and press “Start”. This will install and start the VFD driver.
Go to the “Drive0” tab and press “Open/Create”.
Press the “Browse” button and type in the full path to a new .flp file. fx. C:\temp\freesco.flp (or some other path you have write permission to) and press “Open”. You should then see something similar to the picture below. Make sure that “File” is selected and that media type is “3.5 1.44MB”. Then press “Create”.
Press “Change” at the “Drive Letter” option, and configure the screen as below.
You should now be able to access A: drive through your file manager of choice. Check to see if you can access the drive.
Start a CMD prompt and browse to where you extracted FREESCO files in step1, and run make_fd.bat. Just press enter when you see the following screen:
Go back info VFD Control Panel (vfdwin.exe it you closed it) and on the “Drive0” tab press “Close”. If it asks if you want to save changes to the file, answer “Yes” and chose to overwrite the file and press save.

You now have a floppy file which can be used directly in VMware environments. Save this file as your master, and make copies whenever you need a new FREESCO machine. If you boot directly from the file just created, you will get an installation forced down on the floppy, and you have to follow all the above steps again.

The above method can be used for all utilities that make use of floppy disks. http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm is a good place to look if you are missing old boot disks for Win 98, NT4, 2000 and so on. Typically they come in .exe format and require you to have a floppy drive, but you can work around that with the above method.

set hardware acceleration using scripts

Rasmus Sjørslev — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:38:00 GMT

If you have tried installing VMware Tools, you know that at the end it prompts you for changing hardware acceleration levels (which you always want to change anyways...). This is tedious process doing manually but can be automated.

Attached is a VBscript that changes the level to "Full" (just rename to .vbs and run). It works on Server 2003/2008 i assume that it works on XP/Vista/Win7 too...

I am using this script when installing VMs using MDT (the reason why it's a VBscript and not PowerShell) to automatically change hardware acceleration after VMware tools finishes installing.

If you want to check if all your current VMs have full hardware acceleration enabled, take a look at this awesome VI toolkit script from Hugo Peeters.

Note in the comments section of that post there is a description on how to change these settings directly in the .inf files for the drivers. Not tried that but sounds cool :)

booting Windows 7 from a VHD file

Rasmus Sjørslev — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 20:43:00 GMT

Update: The post is updated accordingly with the Server 2008 R2 build 7000 commands, and information on how to create/add/attach VHDs using Disk Management.

Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 supports booting directly from a VHD file, the same kind of files used for Virtual PC/Server and Hyper-V.
This gives you the option to install and handle the installation directly in one simple file, while being able to boot and run the OS just as if it were installed in a regular harddisk.
Also you should be able to attach these installation to the above products, and boot the installation. I'm just guessing here, i have not tried that yet but i'll have a go at it.

First you need to create a VHD file. This is done using diskpart, and then afterwards you can handle the boot process using bcdedit. The following shows the commands used in the 2008 R2 (build 7000), and the Windows 7 Beta 1 (build 7000).

If you have Windows 7 installed, boot into the OS and create the VHD file

diskpart
create vdisk file=c:\vhd\win7.vhd type=fixed maximum=16000

This will create a 16GB VHD file in C:\VHD (C:\VHD\ needs to exists prior to running the command)

VHD files can also be managed using a GUI directly from the Disk Management tool. “Computer Management” and right click “Disk Management”. You should see the following options:

After you have created the disk file, boot your machine with the Windows 7 DVD in the drive, and choose "Install Now". Press SHIFT+F10 to get a CMD prompt. You can also choose "Repair" and start the CMD from the tools menu. Run the following to select and attach the VHD file.

diskpart
select vdisk file=c:\vhd\win7.vhd
attach vdisk

NOTE: The command for "surfacing" (crazy name if you ask me...) a VHD files has changed in the 7000 build, and is now called "attach vdisk" instead of "surface vdisk".
If you are running the above commands when installing 2008 R2 Build 6801 the command is "surface vdisk". My guess is that this will also change in comming 2008 R2 builds to attach instead. The new beta 1 release of Server 2008 R2 (Build 7000) now also uses the “attach” command instead of surface.

After you have attached (Or surfaced the disk...) just type exit 2 times, and you will be back with the installation. When you come to the part where you choose where to install, you should see a 16GB partition. The installation will tell you that you cannot boot off this volume, just ignore and select the drive and install.

Since Windows 7 supports VHD files, it also knows when it is being installed to a VHD file. Therefore you do not need to add boot entries manually, the installation process takes care of that itself. The bad thing about this is that it makes your VHD installation the default boot option, and the entry name is "Windows 7" - just as it is for a "normal" installation.
Fear not - this can be changed using bcdedit.

When you have booted either the HDD or VHD installation, start a CMD prompt and run bcdedit with the verbose (this will show you identifier as GUID, which i find easier)

bcdedit /v

copy the ID for your VHD installation and type: (change xxxxx... to your GUID)

bcdedit /set {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx} description "Windows 7 VHD"

The above changes the description for your VHD installation to "Windows 7 VHD" so you can distingues them.

bcdedit /displayorder {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx} /addlast

This adds the VHD installation as the last choice in the boot list. If you have multiple entries, jyst type them in your prefered order seperated by spaces, and drop the /addlast option.

If you want to add an entry for a VHD installation manually, the easiest way is to just copy an entry in the boot store

bcdedit /copy {GUID} /d "my copy"

Afterwards you can change the 2 following options to point to your VHD file:

bcdedit /set {GUID} device vhd=[C:]\vhd\win7.vhd
bcdedit /set {GUID} osdevice vhd=[C:]\vhd\win7.vhd

Thats it! Im running 2x 2008 R2 and 2x Windows 7 installation on my laptop using the above, and it works like a charm.

You can also use the diskpart command for attaching your VHD files. This way you can copy files, change settings and so on to the installation in the VHD file. Just use the select + attach/surface command. Remember you cannot attach an running VHD file.

PowerShell: write to word using bookmarks

Rasmus Sjørslev — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:00:00 GMT

I needed to create some 5-600 change-request documents for server migration, where some of the information was hostname, IP address and OS version. Server hostname information was already available in txt/xls/csv format, so not wanting to create all thes documents manually (lazy as one is...), i created a change-request "template" (save as ".doc" not ".dot") and defined bookmarks (see this article on how to define bookmarks in Word documents) where the server specific information where to be located.

Armed with .doc file with bookmarks, server lists and PS i was ready to go. OS version and IP address is gathered using WMI.
I have included a $cred value in the first line of the script. This can be uncommented if you want to run the script remotely. Also the -Credential $cred value for the ipaddr and osver functions has to be uncommented for this to work (described in the script itself)

Remember to change the input files, and the output directory to suit your environment. Script is attached as write2word.txt, just rename to .ps1.

# Writes data to Word using bookmarks
# by Rasmus Sjoerslev
# www.it-experts.dk/blogs/rsj

# If you want to specify credentials the WMI command, uncomment the $cred below, and also make sure to uncomment the -Credential $cred in the 2 functions.
#$cred = Get-Credential $User

function ipaddr
{
param([string]$CompName)
$wmi = Get-WmiObject -Query "SELECT * from Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration WHERE IPEnabled='true'" -ComputerName $CompName #-Credential $cred
foreach ($nic in $wmi)
{
$nic.IPAddress
}
}

function osver
{
param([string]$CompName)
$osver = Get-WmiObject -Query "SELECT Caption from Win32_OperatingSystem" -ComputerName $CompName #-Credential $cred
$osver.Caption
}

# specify full path to the list of servers you want to scan.
$hostInputFile = "C:\Scripting\servers.txt"
if (! (test-path $hostInputFile))
{
throw "$($hostInputFile) is not a valid path."
}

# specify fill path to the word doc where bookmarks are defined.
$docTemplate = "C:\Scripting\template.doc"
if (! (test-path $docTemplate))
{
throw "$($docTemplate) is not a valid path"
}

$computers = Get-Content $hostInputFile

$msWord = New-Object -Com Word.Application

foreach ($computer in $computers)
{
$wordDoc = $msWord.Documents.Open($docTemplate)
$wordDoc.Activate()

#defines IP address input
$objRange = $wordDoc.Bookmarks.Item("ip").Range
$objRange.Text = ipaddr -CompName $computer
$wordDoc.Bookmarks.Add("ip",$objRange)

#defines OS version input
$objRange = $wordDoc.Bookmarks.Item("osversion").Range
$objRange.Text = osver -CompName $computer
$wordDoc.Bookmarks.Add("osversion",$objRange)

#defines hostname input (from the $computer value above)
$objRange = $wordDoc.Bookmarks.Item("hostname").Range
$objRange.Text = $computer
$wordDoc.Bookmarks.Add("hostname",$objRange)

# Save the document to disk and close it. CHange $filename path to suit your environment.
$filename = "C:\OutputFolder\" + $computer + ".doc"
$wordDoc.SaveAs([REF]$filename)
$wordDoc.Close()
}

$msWord.Application.Quit()

tile and cascade all your wonderfull windows.

Rasmus Sjørslev — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:50:00 GMT

I had to compare some Word documents today, and got annoyed that i had to ALT+TAB all the time to compare.

The tile and cascade options are available for grouped documents, but what i did not know is that you can CTRL mark windows in the taskbar. That way you can tile different application windows.

Just hold CTRL and left click the windows you want to tile or cascade, when you have made your selection right click and chose "Show Windows Stacked" or "Show Windows side by side". That way i could directly compare 2 word documents in 100% view on a monitor with 1680*xxx resolution. high-tech stuff, i know :)

i thought i had seen all of those fancy short-cuts and CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+... oh well.

SP2 for Windows Server 2008/Vista beta (CPP) released

Rasmus Sjørslev — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:01:00 GMT

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd262148.aspx

list the number of Virtual Machines pr. Datastore

Rasmus Sjørslev — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:35:00 GMT

This VI Toolkit script lists how many VMs are associated with each datastore. Additionally it shows datastore capacity, freespace, and % freespace.

It prompts for output file (which is HTML) when you run the script, and automatically loads the .html file aftwards.

This script can be way smaller. If you dont care about fancy HTML output (i know i do) and automacically launching the output file, just cut those sections out.

# Asks user for HTML output file
$strFile = (Read-Host "Enter full path to HTML output file:")

# Defines HEAD information for HTML formatting
$head = "<style>`n"
$head += "body {font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11px;}`n"
$head += "table {border-width: 1px;}`n"
$head += "td {border-width: 1px; padding: 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: #afafaf;}`n"
$head += "th {text-align: left;}`n"
$head += "</style>`n"

# Connect to VC
Connect-VIServer -Server <server_name>

# Gets datastores and creates empty array
$ds = Get-Datastore | Sort-Object Name | % { Get-View $_.ID }
$myCol = @()

# Loops thrue each entry and renames VM property
Foreach ($store in $ds)
{
$myObj = "" | Select-Object Datastore, VMs, "Size (GB)", "Free (GB)", "Free (%)"
$myObj."Datastore" = $store.Info.Name
$myObj."VMs" = $store.Vm.Length
$myObj."Size (GB)" = [math]::Round( ($store.Summary.Capacity/1GB),0 )
$myObj."Free (GB)" = [math]::Round( ($store.Summary.Freespace/1GB),0 )
$myObj."Free (%)" = [math]::Round( ($store.Summary.Freespace/$store.Summary.Capacity * 100),0 )
$myCol += $myObj
}

# Converts array output to HTML
$myCol | ConvertTo-Html -Head $head > $strFile

# Creats IE object, and launches the output file
$objIE = New-Object -com "InternetExplorer.Application"
$objIE.Navigate($strFile)
$objIE.ToolBar = 0
$objIE.StatusBar = 0
$objIE.Visible = $True

Remember to change the <server_name> value to your VC server IP/Hostname

reset ESX root password using VI toolkit

Rasmus Sjørslev — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:30:00 GMT

The first credential box is for VirtualCenter login, then the script asks for the current root password (through a read-host)

Second credential box is for the new root password (to secure the input)

Connect-VIServer -Server <server_name>

$rootpswd = (Read-Host "Type the CURRENT root password")
$newrootpswd = Get-Credential root

$accspec = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostPosixAccountSpec
$accspec.id = "root"
#$accspec.password = $newrootpswd
$accspec.Password = $newrootpswd.GetNetworkCredential().Password
$accspec.shellAccess = "/bin/bash"

#Use Get-VMHost -Name "*<filter>*" if you want to target specific ESX hosts
Get-VMHost | Sort Name | %{

Connect-VIServer $_.Name -User root -Password $rootpswd
$si = Get-View ServiceInstance
$acctMgr = Get-View -Id $si.content.accountManager

$acctMgr.UpdateUser($accspec)
}

Thanks to LucD for input at the VMware communities!

remember to align your partitions

Rasmus Sjørslev — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:55:00 GMT

Nothing new, but still important. Always remember to align your partitions no matter if the server is virtual or physical. (check with storage provider first, but in 99% of cases its a good idea)

Here is a really good guide from VMware which explains the process for both Windows and Linux guest OS.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx3_partition_align.pdf
http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2006/12/keeping_up_with.html

Also check out this post if you want to set alignment for the boot partition. 2008 and Vista aligns correct when creating partitions, no need to modify.