"Boot from SAN" step by step with Windows 2012 R2 and Cisco UCS using Brocade and EMC VNX.

"Boot from SAN" step by step with Windows 2012 R2 and Cisco UCS using Brocade and EMC VNX.

UCS:

• Create service profile for windows server.
• Create “Boot from san” boot policy
• Setup SAN primary and secondary target.
• The WWN required are that of your VNX array ports.

Brocade:

• Login to create an initial zone for one of the ports.
• Create new Alias
• Type in the Alias name and select the WWN from blade
• Create zone
• Select the blade Alias and VNX Storage processor
• Add to Zone configurations
• Activate

vCenter Infrastructure navigator - re-register vCenter server extension

Ran into some issue with our vCenter server recently which caused the refresh icon to keep spinning (updating) and would slow down performance and also could not perform any searches.

VMware support could not figure out the problem but eventioally provided information to investigate our plugins.


Troubleshooting:

Firstly we disable all the plugins and restarted vCenter server appliance services.
This caused the web client to crash whenever we selected the plugins!
Only way I found to fix this is:
-  Create copy of file /etc/vmware-vsphere-client/SerenityDB/serenity/ALL/client.package.states
-  Delete the original file
-  Close all browsers and login again.
-  All plugins should now again show enabled.
( Disclaimer:  I recommend contacting VMware support since this is not supported by VMware so please take snapshot&backup of VM and be careful)

vRealize configuration Manager - unable to run reports

When trying to run reports we receive the following error:

An error has occurred during report processing. (rsProcessingAborted)

Cannot create a connection to data source 'ECM'. (rsErrorOpeningConnection)

For more information about this error navigate to the report server on the local server machine, or enable remote errors

Troubleshooting:

Login to data source on report server to verify authentication which was successful

Worked with VMware support on solution

Solution:

add basic to the end of the AuthenticationTypes string in the rsreportserver.config file of the report server.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10_50.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\ReportServer

vCenter Server - lookup service failed

Recently did a rack migration for which we had to shutdown SQL cluster and vCenter server including all Virtual machines.

After powering I was unable to login with my domain account and got the following error:

"Failed to connect to VMware Lookup Service. SSL certificate verification failed"

Troubleshooting:

• Login to vCenter server (SSH or RDP depending on vCenter server platform) and verified that the vmware-sso service is running.
• Could not login with local admin@vsphere.local so logged into VA configuration https://<vcenterServer>:5480.  Verified all services was running.
• Verified SSO server and Active directory domain controllers time is not off by more than 5 minutes.
• Found KB article on this error.

Unable to power on VM with SCSI bus sharing enabled - error: "Could not open/create change tracking file"

So recently i was asked to assist with setting up a new SQL 2012 AlwaysOn Cluster for POC.
During the configuration of the VM's we had to setup a quorom disk which is shared between both servers for MSCS.
The shared disk I configured and select virtual device node on newly created SCSI controller, LSI Logic SAS with SCSI bus sharing set to Physical.
On the 2nd VM i created the same SCSI controller as above and instead of creating new disk the existing disk was select.

With Primary powered on and trying to power on the 2nd SQL server i receive the following error:
"Could not open/create change tracking file"

vCenter Server - Host Profiles - set NTP

Setting your host with NTP services using host profiles requires a few changes to be made in different settings on host profiles.

Solution:

Edit the host profile

• Lets first set the NTP servers:
• General system settings -> Date and Time configuration
• Click Date and time configuration
• Time settings - "Configure a fixed NTP configuration"
• List of time servers - add server IP address or FQDN for NTP servers.  Use comma to list multiple servers
• Now lets enable the NTP service:
• Security and services -> Services configuration -> Services configuration
• Select NTPD (make sure this is enabled)
• On service verify the dropdown box is set to "Establish a fixed service configuration"
• Policy that dictates how the service will be handled - type "on"
• Now lets set the firewall rule:
• Security and services -> Firewall configuration ->  Firewall configuration -> Ruleset Configuration
• Select ntpClient (make sure this is enabled)
• Verify dropdown "Specify the configuration of a fixed ruleset.
• Check the box for enabled  on "Flag indication where ruleset should be enabled"
• Check the box for enabled on "Flag indication where ruleset should allow all ip addresses"  (this is self explanatory)

vCenter server - host profiles error "host state doesn't match specification..."

Setup host profiles and when applied on other hosts i get receive the error message:

Seems that ESXi treats SAS disk as shared disks instead of local disks which causes these errors when you create your host profile from an existing ESXi host.

Solution:

The only workaround I found is to disable the following settings in the host profile -

• Storage configuration - > Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA) configuration
• disable "PSA device settings"
• disable "PSA device configuration"
• Storage configuration -> Native Multi-Pathing NMP
• disable "PSP and SATP configuration for NMP devices

Links:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2002488

Cisco UCS - step by step configuration

As mentioned I don't go into too much details on my post since i think there are a lot of other great blogs and vendor documentation out there.  Here is my short bullet point task list.   If I am missing anything please let me know.

Set equipment policies:

• Equipment tab -> equipment - > policies tab
• Chassis/fex discovery policy
• Action = 4 ports
• Link grouping preference = port channel
• Power policy = grid

Configure server/uplink port:

• Equipment tab -> select FI-A/B -> expand -> fixed modules
• Configure the appropriate unconfigured ports as “Server” (connections between IOM and Fabric Interconnect) and “Uplink” (connection to network)

Configure FC storage ports

• Equipment tab
• All the way bottom, select FI A
• Right hand side select Configure unified ports
• Run slider to end of fiber storage ports you need
• This will reboot FIA, after reboot re-login.
• Select FI B
• Perform same steps

Cisco UCS - configure policies

Set Policies:

Network control policies (enable CDP)

• LAB tab -> Policies -> root -> sub-organizations -> network control policies
• Create network control policy
• Enable CDP

Bios Policy:

• Servers tab -> Policies -> root -> sub-organizations -> Bios Policies
• Create bios policies
• Mostly setting cpu settings

Host Firmware:

• Servers tab -> Policies -> root -> sub-organizations -> Host Firmware Packages
• Create host firmware package
• Set simple and only blade package version.

DPA - Automate the conversion of report from CSV to Excel and upload to Sharepoint

Data Protection Advisor is a great application providing alerts and reports.

I created a scheduled custom report to show daily backups from Avamar.  The report job however only saves to CSV and cannot export file to a share.  You can publish to Sharepoint but this only compatible with Sharepoint Server 2013 so this was not an options for us.

I create a batch file which copies the CSV file from the website using wget.
I then run a powershell script to convert the CSV file to XLSX.
Thanks to Boe Prox - https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/7c56c444-2476-4625-b1d9-821f30280e44
After conversion is completed the file is copied to a Sharepoint document library.
I then setup a windows task scheduler to run the batch file.

A couple of problems I ran into:

On a windows 2008 R2 server when trying to open the Sharepoint document library in windows explorer gives you the following error message:

“your client does not support opening this list with windows explorer”

To resolve this:

Install Desktop Experience on Windows 2008 R2

Go to features -> Add features -> Select “Desktop experience”

When i ran the batch file from windows task scheduler I got the following error "Microsoft Excel cannot access the file". 

To resolve this:

You have to create a folder (or two on a 64bit-windows):

(32Bit, always)

C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\Desktop

(64Bit)

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\Desktop

Task scheduler failed to copy the file to mapped network drive

To resolve this:

Changed the copy to UNC path

Solution:  (can copy and paste into batch file)

"C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin\wget" -N --http-user=<username> --http-password=<password> --no-check-certificate --secure-protocol=sslv3 https://<servername>:9002/dpa-api/scheduledreport/results/DailyBackups.csv

sleep 5

powershell -NoProfile -command ". .\ConvertCSV-ToExcel.ps1"; "& {&'ConvertCSV-ToExcel' -inputfile DailyBackups.csv -output 'Daily Backup Report.xlsx'}" > E:\DPAreports\convert.log

sleep 5

copy /Y "E:\DPAreports\Daily Backup Report.xlsx" "\\<sharepoint server>@SSL\DavWWWRoot\DPA Reports" > E:\DPAreports\copy.log

vCloud director - running MAC OS X and Windows VM in same vApp.

Recently we installed in Mac Pro 6,1 hardware and provided MAC OS X virtual machines to our vCloud director environment.

This was configured in a separate cluster in vCenter server which provides all the regular capabilities like HA, DRS and vMotion which is great. Also created a separate storage cluster and assigned a new MAC storage profile to this cluster which was made available within vCD.

MAC OS X templates was created and added to catalog with storage set to pre-provision on default storage profile create for MAC cluster.

Problem: 

In vCloud director a new Provider VDC was created and linked to the new vCenter server cluster.
Within the existing Organizations we created an additional virtual datacenter with MAC provider VDC selected.  This created new resource pool in the cluster.


The users where now able to deploy MAC OS templates to this VDC, however a request came back quickly that users need to deploy both MAC OS X and Windows VM within the same vApp.

Troubleshooting: 

The configuration as explained above obviously does not allow for this situation since during deployment of vApp you can only select a single VDC to deploy too as well for adding a VM you can only specify a single storage Policy, which will also be the one assigned to vApp's VDC .  So all the VMs would need to run on the Apple hardware cluster which is not idea.

Solution:

Solution was pretty simple and can be accomplished by merging your provider VDC's which was introduced in vCloud director 5.1.1.

1. Login to vCloud director as system admin.
2. Select Manage & Monitor
3. Under Cloud resources select Provider VDCs
4. Right click the MAC provider VDC and select Merge
5. Select the Provider VDC that you want this merge with.
6. After completion you will now see your Provider VDC has  additional resource pool, datastores and ORG VDCs
7. I then went ahead and deleted the VDC I initially created for the MAC deployments since only need the original VDC.

Now when you deploy a vApp select the existing VDC which contains the MAC Provider VDC and storage profile.  Same can be accomplish for deploying VM within a vApp.

vRealize Operations - missing dashboards when sharing

After upgrading from vRO 6.0.0 to 6.0.1 I tried to share some Dashboard tabs and templates with certain account groups.

I have multiple solutions added which creates a lot of dashboards so when viewing the dashboard window under content i see all 69.  However trying to share dashboard only a count of 50 is displayed so cannot select all dashboards.


Solution:

I opened case with VMware support and they were able to reproduce the issue where the dashboards shared window cannot display more than 50 entries.
Fix will be available with next release.

vRealize Operations - change root password for console access

This is just a quick reference on how to reset the root password to be more secure:

Solution:

Login to vCenter server

Select VM for vRA appliance

Open console.

Press ALT+F1 which will provide you with login prompt.

Enter username "root"

For password just press ENTER since password is blank.

Will now be prompted to provide new password!

vCloud air plugin for vCenter server error: "Server Certificate not Verified"

For vCloud air plugin version 1.5.1.0 this is expected if the vCloud air certificate has not been added to vCenter server trusted keystore.  If you don't add the certificate you will be unable to register your vCloud Air account with the plug-in and connect to vCloud Air.

Solution:

Login to vCloud air.  https://vchs.vmware.com

From browser download the certificate.
NOTE Ensure that you select the Base-64 encoded x.509 option while exporting the certificate.
Firefox
- Click the lock icon in the URL field, then click More information.
- In the Security tab, click View Certificate.
- In the Details tab, click Export.
- Save the file with the name vchs.cer and the type X.509 Certificate (PEM).
Internet Explorer
- Click the lock icon in the URL field, then click View certificates.
- In the Details tab, click Copy to File and follow the wizard to export the certificate.
- Select Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER) as the format and name the file vchs.cer.
Chrome
- Click the lock icon in the URL field.
- In the Connection tab, click Certificate information.
- In the Details tab, click Copy to File and follow the wizard to export the certificate.
- Select the Base-64

If your vCenter server is installed on Windows run this command:

“C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\bin\keytool.exe" -alias aliasName -v -keystore "C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphereWebClient\server\configuration\keystore" -storepass changeit -import -file path_to_file\fileName.cer


If your running a vCenter server appliance:

Copy .cer file to /tmp folder using a tool like WinSCP.
Run the following command:
/usr/java/jre-vmware/bin/keytool -alias aliasName -v -keystore /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-client/server/configuration/keystore -storepass changeit -import -file /tmp/vCA.cer


Links:

http://pubs.vmware.com/vchsplugin-15/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vchsplugin.install%2FGUID-F75F245C-85B6-4A1A-B2FC-A5CB1B17C6C7.html

http://pubs.vmware.com/vchsplugin-15/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vchsplugin.doc%2FGUID-EC4471B5-0CED-4382-B251-AE73D103D80C.html

Sizing vRealize Operation Manager 6.0 using your existing vCOPS 5.8 environment information.

VMware provides a comprehensive KB on sizing your vRealize Operation Manager.  However this document is very much focused on first time installation architecture and does not really provide much information on how you can use your current 5.8 environment details in conjunction with the advanced Sizing guide spreadsheet.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2093783

I will just be focusing on the input parameter of this document and how i found the information needed to complete the excel spreadsheet.  Hope this helps but if you have a better solution please let me know since this is just from my own experience.

1. Getting information for vCenter Objects:

Open the custom UI webpage for vCOPS.
Select Admin tab -> Audit report
Select your preferred report type and submit.
At the bottom of the output page you have the section called "Virtual Environment (existing resources)" .  All the details required are available in this section.

2. Custom Adapters resource and metric counts

Open Custom UI website for vCOPS 5.8
Environment tab -> Environment overview

Expand Adapter instances
Select adapter

On right hand side highlight the adapter and select the  "Detail view" button.
There might multiple instance so go through each and add up for the total count of the adapter.

On the metric selector expand the instance generated

Select the number of metrics collected and number of resources collected.

The graphs display the numbers necessary for document.

This should provide all the information needed to get the correct sizing for your new vRealize Operations 6 environment.

Mac Pro 6,1 rack environment running VMware ESXi 5.5 (with Fiber connectivity to VNX)

With the recently addition of Mac Pro 6,1 to VMware's hardware compatibility I was eager to replace our exiting old Power Mac G5 towers in our environment.

http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/detail.php?deviceCategory=server&productid=37841&vcl=true

Prerequisites:

1. Mac Pro bios version MP61.88Z.0116.B05.1402141115

If your Mac Pro has an older boot ROM then just upgrade the Mac Pro to Yosemite (OS X 10.10) which contains the update to be applied to the Mac Pro.

https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=915041082&mt=12&ls=1

1. vSphere 5.5 P03 is required

Currently the latest version of ESXi available on VMware download is only 5.5 update 2 so you have to include the required patch version onto the update 2 ISO.  To do this perform the following steps:

Cisco UCS error: will_boot_fault sensor failure asserted

After replacing a faulty UCS blade the following error presented itself after inserting the new blade into chassis:  will_boot_fault sensor failure asserted

Troubleshooting:

Ran the following -

Tried to run the board controller activation

# scope server <chassis/server>

# scope boardcontroller

# show version

Showed version 13 (2.2.3d)

# show image

Did not display version 13 but latest was version 8 (2.2.1d)

# activate firmware <boardcontroller version>.0 force

# commit-buffer

Received an error message that commit cannot proceed.

vCenter Server - how to move your database to new server

This solution is for vCenter Server hosted on a Windows OS. I am just providing the short and sweet version since VMware KB 7960893 provides very detailed information on this process.

Solution:

• Create new database on new server
• Setup users on new database instance and provide security access with same permissions.
• Shutdown all vcenter services
• Shutdown all vcenter update manager services
• Backup databases
• Restore databases on new database server
• On vcenter server, copy all the scripts for SQL Agent rollup jobs that need to be recreated in new database server instance
• KB 1004382
• Update DSN entries for vcenter server and venter update manager to reflect new database server location.
• Start vCenter services

  

Note: In some instances, it is necessary to update the vcdb.properties file with the new SQL server if the SQL database name is referenced here. If this is not updated, the performance overview charts and the Storage Monitoring Service (SMS) may be affected after migrating the vCenter Server database. For more information, see VMware vCenter Storage Monitoring Service fails with the error: Service initialization failed (2016472). The vcdb.properties file is located at:

• Windows 2008 – C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter
• Other Windows versions – C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\

Links:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=7960893

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=1004382

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=7960893

vCenter Log Insight - move NFS archive location

Had to recently change the vCenter log insight archive to a new NFS location.   Here is how you change this 

Solution:

SSH to appliance.
Stop the service

• /etc/init.d/loginsight stop 

Copy the archive files over the new NFS location.

Change log insight configuration file to new NFS location

• /storage/core/loginsight/config/ 
• Vi loginsight-config.xml#<number>

Start the service 

• /etc/init.d/loginsight start

vCOPS - Recreate missing vSphere group dashboard

If you are familiar with the custom-ui of vCops you will find that since 5.7 you are providing with some default custom dashboards under the vsphere group.

  

We recently installed VNX analytics adapter which seems to have removed the vsphere group default dashboards. 

To fix this perform the following tasks:

SSH into UI VM

Browse to

cd /usr/lib/vmware-vcops/user/conf/dashboards/

Run the script  "import-dashboards.sh"

This will only share the dashboards with admin user

Edit the sh file at bottom where states:

    # import imported templates as dashboards for admin user

The xml files listed here are the custom dashboards.

These can also be copied out (for instance with WinSCP) and imported into a  manually created new dashboard.

Add lines for different users but firstly create duplicate of file for backup purposes

Cp import-dashboard.sh import-dashboard.sh.default

Vi /import-dashboards.sh

/usr/lib/vmware-vcops/user/conf/dashboards # ls -l

-rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin  61794 Aug 26 04:56 DashboardTemplate-Alerts.xml

-rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin 117798 Aug 26 04:56 DashboardTemplate-ClusterUtilization.xml

-rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin  90979 Aug 26 04:56 DashboardTemplate-DatastorePerformance.xml

-rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin  74401 Aug 26 04:56 DashboardTemplate-DatastoreSpace.xml

-rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin 170642 Aug 26 04:56 DashboardTemplate-Heatmaps.xml

-rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin  77214 Aug 26 04:56 DashboardTemplate-HostMemory.xml

-rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin 117370 Aug 26 04:56 DashboardTemplate-HostUtilization.xml

-rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin  76295 Aug 26 04:56 DashboardTemplate-Troubleshooting.xml

-rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin 128042 Aug 26 04:56 DashboardTemplate-VMPerformance.xml

-rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin 117626 Aug 26 04:56 DashboardTemplate-VMUtilization.xml

  # import imported templates as dashboards for all administrator users

    bash  ./dbcli.sh dashboard import group:Administrators $TD_1 --default true --set 1

    bash  ./dbcli.sh dashboard import group:Administrators $TD_2

    bash  ./dbcli.sh dashboard import group:Administrators $TD_3

    bash  ./dbcli.sh dashboard import group:Administrators $TD_4

    bash  ./dbcli.sh dashboard import group:Administrators $TD_5

    bash  ./dbcli.sh dashboard import group:Administrators $TD_6

    bash  ./dbcli.sh dashboard import group:Administrators $TD_7

    bash  ./dbcli.sh dashboard import group:Administrators $TD_8

    bash  ./dbcli.sh dashboard import group:Administrators $TD_9

    bash  ./dbcli.sh dashboard import group:Administrators $TD_10

From vCOPS 5.7.3  release notes:

• All and group options for dashboard commands
  For the dashboard import, dashboard delete, and dashboard reorder commands, you can use one of the following options instead of specifying a user name:
  * --all
* --group:<group_name[,<group_name>]
  The --all option applies the command to all user accounts. The --group:<group_names[,<group_name>] option applies the command to all user accounts that belong to the specified user groups. For example, the command dashboard import group:Administrators,Operators "templates\MyDashboard.bin" imports the dashboard MyDashboard.bin to all user accounts that belong to the Administrators and Operators user groups.
  The dashboard import command also has a --set <rank> option that enables you to set the dashboard order. For example, the command dashboard import MyUser2 "dashboards/MyDashboard.bin" --set 1 imports the dashboard MyDashboard.bin and makes it the first dashboard in the dashboard list for the user MyUser2.

vCenter Server log file locations by services

Location of vCenter Server log files (KB 1021804)

vCenter Server 5.x and earlier versions on Windows XP, 2000, 2003:    %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Logs\
vCenter Server 5.x and earlier versions on Windows Vista, 7, 2008:    C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Logs\
vCenter Server Appliance 5.x:    /var/log/vmware/vpx/
vCenter Server Appliance 5.x    UI: /var/log/vmware/vami


vpxd.log: 

The main vCenter Server logs, consisting of all vSphere Client and WebServices connections, internal tasks and events, and communication with the vCenter Server Agent (vpxa) on managed ESX/ESXi hosts.
vpxd-profiler.log, profiler.log and scoreboard.log: 

Profiled metrics for operations performed in vCenter Server. Used by the VPX Operational Dashboard (VOD) accessible at https://VCHostnameOrIPAddress/vod/index.html.
vpxd-alert.log: 

Non-fatal information logged about the vpxd process.
cim-diag.log and vws.log: 

Common Information Model monitoring information, including communication between vCenter Server and managed hosts' CIM interface.
drmdump\: 

Actions proposed and taken by VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), grouped by the DRS-enabled cluster managed by vCenter Server. These logs are compressed.
ls.log: 

Health reports for the Licensing Services extension, connectivity logs to vCenter Server.
vimtool.log: 

Dump of string used during the installation of vCenter Server with hashed information for DNS, username and output for JDBC creation.
stats.log:

 Provides information about the historical performance data collection from the ESXi/ESX hosts
sms.log: 

Health reports for the Storage Monitoring Service extension, connectivity logs to vCenter Server, the vCenter Server database and the xDB for vCenter Inventory Service.
eam.log: Health reports for the ESX Agent Monitor extension, connectivity logs to vCenter Server.
catalina.<date>.log and localhost.<date>.log: 

Connectivity information and status of the VMware Webmanagement Services.
jointool.log: 

Health status of the VMwareVCMSDS service and individual ADAM database objects, internal tasks and events, and replication logs between linked-mode vCenter Servers.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1021804

Location of vSphere Profile-Driven Storage log files (KB 2056646)

vCenter Server 5.x and earlier versions on Windows XP, 2000, 2003:    %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\Infrastructure\Profile-Driven Storage\Logs
vCenter Server 5.x and earlier versions on Windows Vista, 7, 2008:    C:\ProgramData\VMware\Infrastructure\Profile-Driven Storage\Logs
vCenter Server 5.x Linux Virtual Appliance: /var/log/vmware/vpx/sps


sps.log:

The main Profile-Driven Storage logs, consisting of all vCenter Server and Management Webservices connections, internal tasks and events, and information about the storage profile integrity.
vim-sps-install.log: 

This file consists of information about the installation of Profile-Driven Storage including computer name, operating system revision, the date of installation and the number of revisions that have been installed or upgraded on the system.
wrapper.log:   

This file provides information about the state of the Java runtime environment.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2056646

Location of vSphere Web Client service logs (KB 2004090)

For vSphere 5.0, all the logs for the vSphere Web Client service are located at:
   Windows: C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere Web Client\DMServer\serviceability\
   Linux: /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-client/server/serviceability/
For vSphere 5.1, all the logs for the vSphere Web Client service are located at:
   Windows: C:\ProgramData\VMware\vSphere Web Client\serviceability\
   Linux: /var/log/vmware/vsphere-client/serviceability/
For vSphere 5.5, all the logs for the vSphere Web Client service are located at:
   Windows: C:\ProgramData\VMware\vSphere Web Client\serviceability\
   Linux: /var/log/vmware/vsphere-client/


logs\vsphere_client_virgo.log:

The main vSphere Web Client log, consisting of all communication between underlying Flex endpoint connections, internal tasks and events
logs\access\localhost_access_log.<date>.txt:

Individual HTTP requests from the Web browser
logs\virgo-serverlog.log:

Information about plug-in bundle communication
eventlogs/eventlog.log

Time stamps of startup and shutdown of the vSphere Web Client service

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2004090

Location of vCenter Single Sign-On log files for vCenter Server 5.1 and 5.5 (KB 2033430)

vSphere 5.1 using vCenter Single Sign-On 5.1:
   vCenter Server 5.1.x on Windows Server 2003 – C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\SSOServer\logs\
vCenter Server 5.1.x on Windows Server 2008/2012 – C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\SSOServer\logs\
vCenter Server Virtual Appliance 5.1.x – /var/log/vmware/sso/
vSphere 5.5 using vCenter Single Sign-On 5.5:
   vCenter Server 5.5.x on 2003 – %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\CIS\
vCenter Server 5.5.x and 2008, 2012 – C:\ProgramData\VMware\CIS\
vCenter Server Virtual Appliance 5.5.x – /var/log/vmware/sso/


vminst.log

 SSO installer log
vim-sso-msi.log 

MSI installer verbose logs for SSO installation
vim_ssoreg.log 

SSO Service log
exported_sso.properties 

Endpoint information about each of the SSO Solution Users and identity sources extracted from previous vCenter Single Sign On 5.1.0 instance
vim-openssl-msi.log 

MSI installer verbose log for OpenSSL installation
vim-python-msi.log 

MSI installer verbose log for Python installation
vim-kfw-msi.log 

MSI installer verbose log for MIT Kerberos installation

SSO logs grouped by component and purpose include:
logs\vmdird\vdcpromo.log

Promotion and demotion operation information for the SSO instance when joined or removed from a linked configurations
logs\vmdird\vdcsetupIdu.log

 VMware Directory Service setup post-installation log containing information about the localhost name
logs\vmdird\vmdir.log 

Health reports for the VMware Directory Service (VMDir) service and the VMDir database
logs\vmkdcd\vmkdcd.log 

Key Distribution Center (kdc) run-time log, reports ports conflicts preventing the service from starting
logs\vmware-sso\vmware-sts-idmd.log 

VMware Identity Management service run-time logs, time-stamped records of user attempts when accessing SSO for administrative purposes
logs\vmware-sso\vmware-sts.ldmd-perf.log 

VMware Identity Management service performance counter logs
logs\vmware-sso\VMwareIdentityMgmtService. date.log 

Commons Daemon log once the Identity Management Service has started
runtime\VMwareSTS\logs\ssoAdminserver.log 

SSO admin server
runtime\VMwareSTS\logs\lookupServer.log 

Lookup server log
runtime\VMwareSTS\logs\catalina. date.log 

Standard Tomcat logs
runtime\VMwareSTS\logs\vmware-identity-sts.log 

VMware Security Token Service service run-time logs, time-stamped records of issuing, validating, and renewal of security tokens.
runtime\VMwareSTS\logs\vmware-identity-sts.log 

VMware Security Token Service performance counter logs.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2033430

vCenter Server - verify your heap memory size configuration!

Lately been getting a lot of service status failures for the following vCenter Server services:

VMware vCenter Storage Monitoring service.
VMware vSphere Profile-driven Storage service

The monitoring service was the most frequent and non-impacting but now and then the profile-drive storage failed which caused large impact since users could not deploy or start vApps in vCloud director.

Turns out when we installed vCenter server for the first time we sized it for a small environment and current this is not the case anymore so with the heap sizes set to small for all services we started running into problems.

Troubleshooting:

vCenter Operations Manager (vCops) errors and not collecting stats (/data out of space)

Recently I logged into vCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS) custom UI and found that all objects stopped collecting stats.

Troubleshooting: 

Logged into vCenter server and tried health status tab but received connection error.
In Custom UI select Environment tab -> Configuration -> Adapter instances.   Edit a vcenter instance and selected test. Received the following error

 "Test was not successful.  Connection refused to host: Secondvm-internal;nested exception is: java.net.ConnectionException: Connection refused"

I ran the same test on our VNX and Brocade adapter instances and received the exact same error.

In vCops Administration page under registration tab i selected the update bottom on vCenter Server registration and re-entered the password.  After a long while i received an exception error.
I went to status tab and saw that some of the vCenter Operations Manager Statuses was not running.
I tried to start the service but did not work and status did not change nor did i get an error message.

I SSH into the Analytics VM and tried to manually restart the service "vcops-admin restart".  showed that the database was not coming online on which i though about looking at space.

Ran "df -h" and found that the /data drive was out of space.

Solution:

Shut down vCops vapp container from vCenter server.
Edit the VM and add new disk.
Power on the vapp container.

vCops will automatically extend the /data drive with the newly added disk.


Links:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2016022