1. Login as Root user on your ESX server.
2. Type: #esxcfg-hwiscsi –j enable <vmhba#>
3. If successful, you should get the “MTU size successfully set to : 9000” message.
4. To verify the change type: #esxcfg-hwiscsi –l <vmhba#>

All done!

What we have: a few VMware ESX Servers. To find out what version we’re running we type.

[root@vmdesx001 root]# vmware -v
VMware ESX Server 3.5.0 build-82663

Ok, lets see what updates are already installed / which patch level we’re running:

[root@vmdesx001 root]# esxupdate query -a
Installed software bundles:
  —— Name —— — Install Date — — Summary —
         3.5.0-64607    15:33:01 05/08/08 Full bundle of ESX 3.5.0-64607
ESX350-200802303-SG    15:33:02 05/08/08 util-linux security update
…
…
…
ESX350-201008411-SG    12:43:52 10/31/10 Updates krb5
ESX350-201008412-SG    12:43:52 10/31/10 Updates perl
    ESX350-Update05a    12:43:52 10/31/10 ESX Server 3.5.0 Update 5
For a differential list of rpms, use the -l/–listrpms option.
[root@vmdesx001 root]#

First, we need to read about ‘Managing Patches for ESX Server 3.0.3 and ESX Server 3.5 Hosts’

Then we navigate to: http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/ to select and download from the available updates.

We create the Repository on a NFS Share and later we’ll promote that share using FTP protocol. First, we’ll download Update Package 5 / 5a and put / extract that to the NFS / FTP Share..

let’s see what can be installed ..

esxupdate -d ftp://172.16.88.194/nfsshare/VMware/PatchRepository/ESX3.5 –test update

ERROR: [Errno 4] IOError: [Errno ftp error] (111, ‘Connection refused’)

oups, we need to allow outgoing traffic ..

esxcfg-firewall –allowoutgoing

see if it works now..

[root@vmdesx002 root]# esxupdate -d ftp://172.16.88.194/nfsshare/VMware/PatchRepository/ESX3.5 –test update
INFO: No -b specified, selecting all bundles in depot.
INFO: Configuring…
INFO: The following bundles are being skipped.
INFO: [ESX350-200904406-SG] requires ['ESX350-200904402-SG'] but these bundles cannot be found. Please make sure they are in the depot and specified in the bundle list.

nice, it’s not working .. google for that .. oh, we’re not the only one having this issue .. nice .. (as usual, the companies spend so much money for marketing .. they need to cut costs in the quality check department…!) it’s seems there’s a script which has a bug => Patch Installation Might Require Obsolete Bundles to be Included in the Patch Depot – resolution => To work around this issue, make sure the patch bundle ESX350-200802403-BG is placed in the patch depot. BUT, I can’t find this ESX350-200802403-BG – think, read, study .. I swear, I could kill.. ok, View all Patches – we’re on 3.5 .. let’s see if we find ESX350-200802403-BG – surprise this little (you know what word..) is part of: ESX350-Update05a – UPDATE – joke? The fix is part of the fix and how should I apply a fix which needs to be installed before I can apply the fix? cruel joke, cruel joke. Look further Christian – there you go: ESX350-200911202-UG – UPDATE  includes ESX350-200802403-BG.

so let’s just apply (test first) this single fix using the esxupdate B parameter (bundle)..

esxupdate -d ftp://172.16.88.194/nfsshare/VMware/PatchRepository/ESX3.5 -b ESX350-200911202-UG  –test update

INFO: Configuring…
INFO: Preparing to install ['ESX350-200911202-UG']…
INFO: Downloading VMware-esx-scripts-3.5.0-207095.i386.rpm…
INFO: Checking disk space and running test transaction…
INFO: — TOTALS: 0 packages installed, 1 pending or failed, 0 removed, 0 excluded —
INFO: Test install of ['ESX350-200911202-UG'] succeeded.
== The esxupdate –test report ==
—– ESX350-200911202-UG  —–: installed
[root@vmdesx002 root]#

so we got green light:

[root@vmdesx002 root]#  esxupdate -d ftp://172.16.88.194/nfsshare/VMware/PatchRepository/ESX3.5 -b ESX350-200911202-UG -n update
INFO: Configuring…
INFO: Preparing to install ['ESX350-200911202-UG']…
INFO: Downloading VMware-esx-scripts-3.5.0-207095.i386.rpm…
INFO: Checking disk space and running test transaction…
INFO: Pre-installing ['VMware-esx-scripts.i386']…
INFO: | Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
INFO: | Server: Bundle ESX350-200911202-UG
INFO: | Finding updated packages
INFO: | Downloading needed headers
INFO: | VMware-esx-scripts-0-3.5. 100% |=========================| 6.3 kB    00:00
INFO: | Resolving dependencies
INFO: | Dependencies resolved
INFO: | I will do the following:
INFO: | [update: VMware-esx-scripts 3.5.0-207095.i386]
INFO: | Downloading Packages
INFO: | Getting VMware-esx-scripts-3.5.0-207095.i386.rpm
INFO: | Running test transaction:
INFO: | Test transaction complete, Success!
INFO: | VMware-esx-scripts 100 % done 1/2
INFO: | Completing update for VMware-esx-scripts  – 2/2
INFO: | Updated:  VMware-esx-scripts 3.5.0-207095.i386
INFO: | Transaction(s) Complete
INFO: Pre-install packages up-to-date
INFO: Restarting /usr/sbin/esxupdate…
INFO: Configuring…
INFO: Preparing to install ['ESX350-200911202-UG']…
INFO: The following RPMs are already installed on the system and will be skipped: ['VMware-esx-scripts.i386']
INFO: Checking disk space and running test transaction…
INFO: Running esxcfg-boot to regenerate initrds…
INFO: — TOTALS: 1 packages installed, 0 pending or failed, 0 removed, 0 excluded —
INFO: Install of ['ESX350-200911202-UG'] succeeded.
[root@vmdesx002 root]#

Yess, strike, what a wonderful day .. patching succeeded.

let’s see if we can successfully patch to Update 5 / 5a.

esxupdate -d ftp://172.16.88.194/nfsshare/VMware/PatchRepository/ESX3.5 –test update

INFO: No -b specified, selecting all bundles in depot.
INFO: Configuring…
INFO: The following bundles are being skipped.
INFO: [ESX350-200903209-UG] superseded by ['ESX350-201002411-BG', 'ESX350-Update05a'].
INFO: [ESX350-200912401-BG] superseded by ['ESX350-201006401-SG', 'ESX350-201003401-BG', 'ESX350-201008409-BG', 'ESX350-201008403-BG', 'ESX350-201008401-SG'].
INFO: [ESX350-200803213-UG] is already installed, nothing for esxupdate to do.
INFO: [ESX350-200911202-UG] is already installed, nothing for esxupdate to do.
…
…
…
INFO: [ESX350-200911216-UG] superseded by ['ESX350-201002411-BG', 'ESX350-Update05a'].
ERROR: This bundle requires the host to be in maintenance mode.  Since the host is not in maintenance mode, esxupdate cannot proceed. The VMs need to be turned off or migrated to another host first.

it asks for Maintenance Mode – of course. we shut down the virtual machines and put the system into maintenance mode ..

[root@vmdesx002 root]# vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

no errors – we can proceed with the real command

esxupdate -d ftp://172.16.88.194/nfsshare/VMware/PatchRepository/ESX3.5 -n update

reboot your server after the updates / patches have been applied..

In the VMware Infrastructure Client GUI I selected the the virtual machine with the right mouse button, selected Edit Settings, selected the Hard Disk Number 1, and under Capacity I entered a new value of 48 GB. I wanted to enlarge (the disk.. ) / extend the disk from 24 gigabytes to 48 gigabytes. Everything fine I thought. I clicked on OK and assumed that the change has been committed, because I the task pane, I got a green success ball that normally indicates: everything’s fine.

BUT, when I later booted Windows PE to extend the disk partition using diskpart, I realized, that the disk geometry hasn’t been changed. I check the Hard Disk Number 1 in the Virtual Machine Properties page and voila, the disk was still 24GB. I thought, ok no worries chris, there must be snapshot. Delete that bastard and try it again. WRONG, there was no snapshot. Ok, I the past I often had issues with the VMware Infrastructure Client GUI, and I’m an old DOS Batch guy anyway – I opened an Putty SSH Shell, connected to the ESX Host and tried to extend the partition using VMKFSTOOLS as documented here.

[root@vmdesx001 VMDSRV004]# vmkfstools -X 48G VMDSRV004_C.vmdk
Failed to extend disk : There is not enough space on the file system for the selected operation (13).

Failed to extend disk, not enough disk space .. wtf, there’s about a quarter terabyte free disk space. I rebooted the ESX Server just to be sure that it isn’t a temporary I don’t know ..failure or error. When I tried it again => still the same.

I found this article / post. But that didn’t help me either. I started looking at the different files in the folder

[root@vmdesx001 VMDSRV004]# ls -la
total 184550784
drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         1540 Oct 30 15:07 .
drwxr-xr-t    1 root     root         2240 Oct 31 07:21 ..
-rw——-    1 root     root          406 Oct 30 14:18 VMDSRV004_C.vmdk
-rw——-    1 root     root          408 Oct 30 14:18 VMDSRV004_D.vmdk
-rw——-    1 root     root     137438953472 Oct 30 14:24 VMDSRV004-flat.vmdk
-rw——-    1 root     root     25769803776 Oct 30 14:24 VMDSRV004 NEW_1-flat.vmdk
-rw——-    1 root     root     25769803776 Oct 30 14:24 VMDSRV004 NEW-flat.vmdk
-rw——-    1 root     root          404 Oct 30 14:18 VMDSRV004.vmdk
-rw——-    1 root     root            0 Oct 30 15:07 VMDSRV004.vmsd
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         1544 Oct 31 08:33 VMDSRV004.vmx
-rw——-    1 root     root          264 Oct 31 08:33 VMDSRV004.vmxf

I checked the VMDSRV004_C.vmdk using cat.

[root@vmdesx001 VMDSRV004]# cat  VMDSRV004_C.vmdk
# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
CID=c010d074
parentCID=ffffffff
createType="vmfs"

# Extent description
RW 50331648 VMFS "VMDSRV004 NEW-flat.vmdk"

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"
ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 97 8f 60 80 19-1e 49 de 39 f4 48 9f 7d"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "3133"
ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"
ddb.toolsVersion = "7300"

Ok, there’s an # Extent description Section in that file. AND, a Filename defined with a SPACE in it!

Let’s change the Filename on disk to something without a space

[root@vmdesx001 VMDSRV004]# mv "VMDSRV004 NEW-flat.vmdk" "VMDSRV004_NEW-flat.vmdk"

and now let’s open the VMDSRV004_C.vmdk using vi or nano or whatever editor.

[root@vmdesx001 VMDSRV004]# vi VMDSRV004_C.vmdk

change the section

# Extent description
RW 50331648 VMFS "VMDSRV004_NEW-flat.vmdk" <== new filename!

:wq (write quit the editor)

and try to extend the partition again..

[root@vmdesx001 VMDSRV004]# vmkfstools -X 48G VMDSRV004_C.vmdk
[root@vmdesx001 VMDSRV004]#

And see, IT WORKS. Took me 3 hours and thought I’ll share that with the rest of the world. maybe it will help someone .. someday.

Since many people asked me about how to expand or extend a virtual disk on VMware ESX Server, i decided to post quick how to / tutorial here..

First of all, always remember, doing a backup is always a good idea especially before changing a disk layout

The required steps / the turorial is as follows:

To expand / extend a Virtual Disk on ESX Server using the GUI & Diskpart

Please read to the end before starting with the procedure!

• Shut down the Virtual Machine
• In the VMware Infrastructure Client, right click the Virtual Machine, choose Settings
• Select the Disk you want to extend / expand
• Define New Size
• NOTE: this won’t work if you have any snapshots!
• Now start your Virtual Machine. If you extended / expanded the Boot Parition, i gets bit more complicated since the Volume is in use when the operating system is running. To extend a boot partition, additional steps are required.
  • Take a Windows 7 or Windows 2008 or even a Windows Vista Installation Medium. Boot the Virtual Machine using this media. When the Install Windows Window appears, press Shift-F10. This trick / shortcut opens a CMD. From there proceed with the next step using diskpart to extend the disk / partition
• Now use Diskpart to extend the Volume

Finally check your Disk or Partition in Explorer to see if it is expanded.

The graphical part can also be done using SSH. If you want to do it that way:

• Create an SSH Connection to your VMware ESX Server using Putty or some similiar SSH Client
• Use vmkfstools
  The syntax to extend / expand a Virtual Disk is:
  vmkfstools -X new_sizevmfs_name:disk_name
  i.e. vmkfstools -X 8192m sanVOL12:ServerDrive_D.vmdk

  The syntax reference for vmkfstools is
  vmkfstools -C –createfs vmfs3
  -b –blocksize #[mMkK]
  -S –setfsname fsName
  -Z –extendfs extension-partition
  deviceName

  -P –queryfs -h –humanreadable
  -T –tovmfs3
  -x –upgradetype [zeroedthick|eagerzeroedthick|thin]
  -u –upgradefinish
  vmfsPath

  OPTIONS FOR VIRTUAL DISKS:

  vmkfstools -c –createvirtualdisk #[gGmMkK]
  -d –diskformat [zeroedthick|
  eagerzeroedthick|
  thick|
  thin]
  -a –adapterType [buslogic|lsilogic]
  -w –writezeros
  -j –inflatedisk
  -U –deletevirtualdisk
  -E –renamevirtualdisk srcDisk
  -i –clonevirtualdisk srcDisk
  -d –diskformat [rdm:|rdmp:|
  raw:|thin|2gbsparse|
  monoflat|monosparse]
  -X –extendvirtualdisk #[gGmMkK]
  -M –migratevirtualdisk
  -r –createrdm /vmfs/devices/disks/…
  -q –queryrdm
  -z –createrdmpassthru /vmfs/devices/disks/…
  -v –verbose #
  -g –geometry
  -J –miscop [setuuid | getuuid]
  vmfsPath

  OPTIONS FOR DEVICES:

  vmkfstools -s –scan adapterName
  -L –lock [reserve|release|lunreset|targetreset|busreset] /vmfs/devicees/disks/…

Feel free to comment..