Courses
Courses Designed For Beginners, Seasoned IT Pros & Everyone In Between
VMware vSphere Troubleshooting
View All CoursesThe goal of this course is to enhance your skills to enable you to troubleshoot vSphere. This course will show you how to troubleshoot vSphere using log files, how to prevent downtime with your HA cluster, ways to deal with broken vNetwork Distributed Switches, and how to quickly get vSphere back up and running. If you are a middle-to-upper level enterprise network administrator, and/or have taken our VMware vSphere Training course or have done hands-on work with vSphere, you’ll benefit from the advanced troubleshooting techniques presented in our vSphere Troubleshooting Training course.
Lessons
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- About Your Instructor
- Why Learn vSphere Troubleshooting?
- What Does This Course Teach Me?
- How to Use This Course
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Overview: vSphere Lab Used in this Training Course
- Equipment List
- Estimated Costs
- Lab Diagram
- Alternative: Using a Virtual Lab
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- VMware VCAP Overview
- Difference Between VCAP-DCA and VCAP-DCD
- What to Expect at Your VCAP-DCA Exam
- Preparing for the VCAP-DCA
- VCAP Benefits
- How Does this vSphere Troubleshooting Course Map to the VCAP-DCA?
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Why You Need to Know How to Use the Command Line Interface (CLI)
- Comparing ESX and ESXi
- CLI Troubleshooting Options for vSphere
- Do I Need to Know Linux?
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Why You Need vMA
- What is Contained in the vMA VM
- vMA Requirements
- Downloading, Installing, and Logging into vMA
- Using vMA vCLI Commands to Manage ESX/ESXi
- Using vi-fastpass to Manage ESX/ESXi
- Using Session Files to Manage ESX/ESXi
- Consolidating ESX/ESXi Log Files with vMA
- Rebooting & Shutting Down the vMA Server
- Resetting a Lost vMA Password
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Locating and Viewing vCenter Log Files
- Locating and Viewing ESX Log Files
- Locating and Viewing ESXi Log Files
- Using the vSphere Client, CLI, Web, and DCUI to View & Search Log Files
- Controlling Log Rotation in ESX Server
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- View and Search with CLI Tools
- View and Search Using Vi
- View and Search with vSphere Client
- XtraViert's Free vLogView
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Why Export Logs?
- Exporting vCenter Logs
- Exporting ESX and ESXi Logs
- Creating VMware Support Log File Bundles
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Why You Need Centralized Logging
- Logging Consolidation Tips
- Changing the Location of ESXi Log Files
- Configuring vMA as a Log Server for vSphere
- Configuring a Syslog Server for vSphere
- Steps to Configure vMA as a Syslog Receiver
- Steps to Configure ESX Host to Send Syslogs to vMA
- Steps to Configure ESXi Host to Send Syslogs to vMA
- Using Kiwi Syslog Server
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Critical Resources – CPU and Memory in Hosts and VMs
- Analyzing CPU and Memory Performance in vCenter
- Analyzing CPU and Memory Performance in CLI Using esxtop/resxtop
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Adding, Modifying, and Removing Virtual Hardware
- Requirements to Use vSphere Hot-Add / Hot-Plug
- Using Hot-Add and Hot-Plug to Add RAM and CPU to a VM
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Why the Distributed Virtual Switch is So Important
- Comparing the Distributed vSwitch and Standard vSwitch
- How the dvSwitch Works – Control & I/O Plane
- Comparing ESX and ESXi Networking Differences
- Creating a Distributed Virtual Switch
- Connecting VMs to the Distributed Virtual Switch
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Locating vSphere Entries in VM Configuration Files
- Locating vSphere Entries in ESX/ESXi Host Configuration Files
- Examining net-dvs Output
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Troubleshooting the vNetwork with esxtop/resxtop
- Using vicfg & esxcfg Commands to Troubleshooting vNetworks
- esxcfg Commands
- vicfg Commands
- Understanding dvSwitch Sync and Timeouts
- Deleting Old dvSwitch Data
- Restoring a Standard Switch on an ESXi Server
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Troubleshooting Service Console & VMkernel Issues
- Restarting vCenter Service (vpxd)
- Restarting hostd and vpxa
- Restarting Management Services in ESXi Host
- Adding a Redundant Management Interface
- Restoring Connectivity to a Host After Management Was Lost
- Troubleshoot DNS and Routing Issues
- Use CDP to Assist in Troubleshooting
- Determine the Root Cause of vNetwork Trouble
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Private VLANs Explained
- Who Uses Private VLANs?
- Configuring Private VLANs in vSphere
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- What is a dvSwitch Port Binding?
- Three Types of Port Bindings – Static, Dynamic, and Ephameral
- Configuring dvSwitch Port Bindings in vSphere
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Packet Capture Concepts
- Differences Between Packet Capture on Virtual and Physical Network
- Packet Analyzer Options
- Configuring the vNetwork for Packet Capture
- Using Wireshark to Analyze the Virtual Network
- Downloading, Installing and Running Wireshark
- Using tcpdump to Analyze the Virtual Network
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Understanding the VMFS File System
- Reviewing vSphere 4 Storage Maximums
- Storage Terminology – PSA, MPP, NMP, SATP, PSP, & ALUA
- Storage Friendly Names, Identifiers, and Runtime Names
- Identify Log Files Used to Troubleshoot Storage
- Understanding Storage Plug-ins in the vSphere Client
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Reviewing esxcfg and vicfg Storage Commands
- Analyzing PSA & Multipathing with esxcli
- Analyzing Storage Paths with esxcfg-mpath
- Configuring Storage Path Masking
- Reviewing VMkernel Storage Modules
- Configuring VMFS Datastores with vmkfstools
- Understanding Snapshots and Resignatures
- Identifying Storage Performance Issues with esxtop & vscsiStats
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Configuring iSCSI Review
- Configuring iSCSI from the CLI
- Troubleshooting iSCSI Step by Step
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Configuring NFS Review
- Configuring NFS from the CLI
- Troubleshooting NFS Step by Step
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- vCenter Troubleshooting Must-Knows
- Troubleshooting vCenter Database Issues
- Knowledge Base Article 1003979 - Troubleshooting the Database Data Source Used by VirtualCenter Server
- Knowledge Base Article 1003938 – Investigating the Health of a VirtualCenter Database Server
- Troubleshooting vCenter When it Fails
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Overview of the ESX Server Firewall
- Where is the ESXi Server Firewall?
- Configuring the ESX Firewall – GUI
- Configuring the ESX Firewall – esxcfg-firewall
- Opening Custom Ports on the ESX Firewall
- Troubleshooting the ESX Firewall
- Adding Your Own Firewall Service
- How to Log Firewall Packet Denials
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- VMotion Refresher
- Host Requirements for VMotion
- VM Requirements for VMotion
- Common VMotion Problems and Resolutions
- SVMotion Refresher
- SVMotion Requirements
- Common SVMotion Problems and Resolutions
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- DRS Review
- Most Common DRS Problems and Resolutions
- VMotion Requirements
- Troubleshooting DRS Clusters and Resources
- Cluster Problems
- Host and Virtual Machine Problems
- Common Resolutions to Check
- Recommended Reading
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- VMHA Review
- Common VMHA Problems
- Understanding VMHA Admission Control
- Management Network Redundancy and VMHA
- VMHA Primary and Secondary Nodes
- HA Cluster Summary
- Cluster Operational Status
- HA Advanced Runtime Info
- Reconfiguring a Host for VMware HA
- Recommended Reading
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- VM Swapfile Location & Diskspace
- VM Virtual SCSI HBA
- VM CPU and Memory Reservations
- What We Covered
-
Lesson Clips
- Introduction
- Checking Hosts and vCenter
- Checking SAN or NAS
- Verifying VM Status
- Reviewing Alarms and Events
- Verifying Host to SAN/NAS Configuration
- Checking Error Logs
- Rebooting if Needed
- What We Covered
Instructor
David Davis
David has been in the IT industry for over 18 years. He has served as a server/network admin, IT manager, and independent contractor. Today, David is a full-time instructor for TrainSignal.com where he has created over 20 different IT training courses.
Additionally, he has written hundreds of IT articles on the Internet, written for Virtualization Review magazine, served as a judge at VMware product competitions, and spoke on virtualization at conferences in the USA, Canada, and Europe. David's "real-world" experience combined with his diversity of skills (Virtualization, Windows Server, and Cisco Networking) gives you a powerful learning resource that can't be matched.
