Archive for April 2012

USB Devices on ESXi 4.1 Upwards

April 12, 2012 USB Devices, VMware No comments

We experienced an issue with an Aladdin USB dongle on our VMware 4.1 U1 host where it suddenly stopped working for no reason and we were subsequently unable to re-add it back into the VM it previously resided on. We followed the below steps to try and resolve it which may help someone else experiencing the same problems

  1. First of all check that your device is supported by VMware
  2. Check that the vendor supports the VMware version and server H/W etc and whether they’ve done any in house testing
  3. USB Device Passthrough requires the VM to be on Windows 7
  4. USB Passthrough requires a USB Controller which is a virtual hardware device which you add to the VM
  5. USB Passthrough requires a USB Device which is a virtual hardware device which you add to the VM
  6. VMware ESXi 4 only supports USB1 or USB2 devices. USB3 devices are supported on VMware ESXi 5
  7. Check other USB Ports on your server – Are they turned on in the BIOS
  8. Only one USB controller of each type can be added to a virtual machineThe USB arbitrator (VMware service) can monitor a maximum of 15 USB controllers. If your system includes an additional number of controllers and you connect USB devices to these controllers, the devices are not available to be passed through to a virtual machine

Different types of USB Passthrough

Host Connected USB Passthrough

Limitations

  1. VMware ESXi 4 only supports USB1 or USB2 devices. USB3 devices are supported on VMware ESXi 5
  2. Not possible to use USB3

Client Connected USB Passthrough

The vSphere Client 5 allows Client USB Passthrough if you are connecting into vCenter, not the host directly. Both EHCI and UHCI as well as the normal HCI Controller can be chosen and are compatible with Client Connected Passthrough

Limitations

  1. Passthrough of a USB device using the xHCI controller with Hardware Version 8 requires that the guest O/S has a functioning xHCI driver. without one you cannot use a USB3 device
  2. At the current time of writing there is no xHCI driver
  3. Closing the vSphere client which initiated the USB Connection will disconnect the connection to the USB device

Further Troubleshooting

We checked all the above out and then contacted VMware and we tried the following

  1. Detach the USB device from the host.
  2. Reboot the host.
  3. Once the host comes up, attach the USB back to it.
    Run the lsusb -t command. See below. You should see that your device is recognised

All of this checked out ok

The End Result

VMware Support then said to us that USB1/2 devices are much better supported by VMware ESXi 4 U2 rather than Update 1.

He did actually get this fixed by doing the following

Checking the hostd logs we could see errors similar to those below:

USBGL: Error connecting to arbitrator socket: No such file or directory
USBGL: Giving up on connecting to USB arbitrator

This indicates that the hostd process is trying to access the usbarbitrator process before it is fully initialized and as such fails. Restarting the host and management services will not resolve the issue as you will still end up in the scenario that hostd is trying to access the service before it is ready, this is a known issue and should be resolved in U2.

In the mean time the workaround is to restart the hostd service itself once the usbarbitrator service is up and running, to do this we used

/etc/init.d/usbarbitrator stop

/etc/init.d/usbarbitrator start

/etc/init.d/hostd restart.

Robocopy

April 12, 2012 IT, Robocopy No comments

robocopy

Robocopy

Robocopy, or “Robust File Copy”, is a command-line directory replication command. It has been available as part of the Windows Resource Kit starting with Windows NT 4.0, and was introduced as a standard feature of Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. The command is robocopy.

Capabilities

Robocopy is notable for capabilities above and beyond the built-in Windows copy and xcopy commands, including the following:

  • Ability to tolerate network interruptions and resume copying. (incomplete files are marked with a date stamp of 1980-01-01 and contain a recovery record so Robocopy knows where to continue from)
  • Ability to skip Junction Points which can cause to fail copying in an infinite loop (/XJ)
  • Ability to copy file data and attributes correctly, and to preserve original timestamps, as well as NTFS ACLs, owner information, and audit information using command line switches. /COPYALL or /COPY. Copying folder timestamps is also possible in later versions – /DCOPY:T
  • Ability to assert the Windows NT “backup right”  /B so an administrator may copy an entire directory, including files denied readability to the administrator.
  • Persistence by default, with a programmable number of automatic retries if a file cannot be opened.
  • A “mirror” mode, which keeps trees in sync by optionally deleting files out of the destination that are no longer present in the source.
  • Ability to skip files that already appear in the destination folder with identical size and timestamp.
  • A continuously-updated command-line progress indicator.
  • Ability to copy file and folder names exceeding 256 characters — up to a theoretical limit of 32,000 characters — without errors.
  • Multi-threaded copying. (Windows 7 only)
  • Return code on program termination for batch file usage.

Example Process

  • Decide what is your source folder
  • Decide which is your destination folder
  • The Syntax is then as follows

ROBOCOPY Source_folder Destination_folder [files_to_copy] [options]

Robocopy

Robocopy Source Options

  • /S : Copy Subfolders
  • /E : Copy Subfolders, including Empty Subfolders
  • /COPY:copyflag[s] : What to COPY (default is /COPY:DAT) (copyflags : D=Data, A=Attributes, T=Timestamps S=Security=NTFS ACLs, O=Owner info, U=aUditing info)
  • /SEC : Copy files with Security (equivalent to /COPY:DATS)
  • /DCOPY:T : Copy Directory Timestamps. ##
  • /COPYALL : Copy ALL file info (equivalent to /COPY:DATSOU)
  • /NOCOPY : Copy NO file info (useful with /PURGE)
  • /A : Copy only files with the Archive attribute set
  • /M : like /A, but remove Archive attribute from source files
  • /LEV:n : Only copy the top n LEVels of the source tree
  • /MAXAGE:n : MAXimum file AGE – exclude files older than n days/date
  • /MINAGE:n : MINimum file AGE – exclude files newer than n days/date. (If n < 1900 then n = no of days, else n = YYYYMMDD date)
  • /FFT : Assume FAT File Times (2-second date/time granularity)
  • /256 : Turn off very long path (> 256 characters) support

Copy Options

  • /L : List only – don’t copy, timestamp or delete any files
  • /MOV : MOVe files (delete from source after copying)
  • /MOVE : Move files and dirs (delete from source after copying)
  • /Z : Copy files in restartable mode (survive network glitch)
  • /B : Copy files in Backup mode
  • /ZB : Use restartable mode; if access denied use Backup mode
  • /IPG:n : Inter-Packet Gap (ms), to free bandwidth on slow lines
  • /R:n : Number of Retries on failed copies – default is 1 million
  • /W:n : Wait time between retries – default is 30 seconds
  • /REG : Save /R:n and /W:n in the Registry as default settings
  • /TBD : Wait for sharenames To Be Defined (retry error 67)

Destination options

  • /A+:[RASHCNET] : Set file Attribute(s) on destination files + add
  • /A-:[RASHCNET] : UnSet file Attribute(s) on destination files – remove
  • /FAT : Create destination files using 8.3 FAT file names only
  • /CREATE : CREATE directory tree structure + zero-length files only
  • /DST : Compensate for one-hour DST time differences ##
  • /PURGE : Delete dest files/folders that no longer exist in source
  • /MIR : MIRror a directory tree – equivalent to /PURGE plus all subfolders (/E)

Logging options

  • /L : List only – don’t copy, timestamp or delete any files
  • /NP : No Progress – don’t display % copied
  • /LOG:file : Output status to LOG file (overwrite existing log)
  • /UNILOG:file : Output status to Unicode Log file (overwrite) ##
  • /LOG+:file : Output status to LOG file (append to existing log)
  • /UNILOG+:file : Output status to Unicode Log file (append) ##
  • /TS : Include Source file Time Stamps in the output
  • /FP : Include Full Pathname of files in the output
  • /NS : No Size – don’t log file sizes
  • /NC : No Class – don’t log file classes
  • /NFL : No File List – don’t log file names
  • /NDL : No Directory List – don’t log directory names
  • /TEE : Output to console window, as well as the log file
  • /NJH : No Job Header
  • /NJS : No Job Summary

Repeated Copy Options

/MON:n : MONitor source; run again when more than n changes seen
/MOT:m : MOnitor source; run again in m minutes Time, if changed
/RH:hhmm-hhmm : Run Hours – times when new copies may be started.
/PF : Check run hours on a Per File (not per pass) basis.

Job Options

/JOB:jobname : Take parameters from the named JOB file
/SAVE:jobname : SAVE parameters to the named job file
/QUIT : QUIT after processing command line (to view parameters)
/NOSD : NO Source Directory is specified
/NODD : NO Destination Directory is specified
/IF : Include the following Files

GUI Version (Freeware)

http://tribblesoft.com/easyrobocopy.aspx