Configuration Issues: System logs on host are stored on non-persistent storage.

Or, How to fix ESXi host configuration issues alert ‘System logs on host are stored on non-persistent storage’?

Or, VMware ESXi 6.0 error ‘System logs on host are stored on non-persistent storage’.

Descriptions: By-default VMware ESXi host logs are saved to non-persistent disk. Means, if in case your ESXi host OS get crashed due to any reason, all the logs will be lost/deleted. To avoid this situation, its always recommended that you save your ESXi hosts logs on persistent disk. E.g any datastore available in your VMware infra.

The error message looks like below:

Steps: Creating dedicated folders for saving logs of all ESXi hosts and changing the default folder path.

Login to vSphere console with administrative privilege > Go to Datastores and Datastore Clusters > Right click on any of the Datastore you wish to use and Click Browse

Create a Folder ‘AllHostsLogs’ > Create Sub-folders inside this folder as many as number of ESXi Hosts. E.g. ESXiHost01, ESXiHost02 etc...

Note down the paths of each folder you created dedicately for each ESXi hosts. In my case, for ESXi Host 01, the path is “[DC9] AllHostsLogs/ESXiHost01” and so on for other ESXi hosts.

Go to the ESXi-01 host > Configuration > Advanced Settings

Find the value “Syslog” > Go to “Syslog.global.logDir”

Under ‘Syslog.global.logDir’, write the log path for ESXi-01 Host. In my case, its “[DC9] AllHostsLogs/ESXiHost01”.

That’s it. Please save the configuration now and you are done. Cheers.

How to update or install drivers on VMware ESXi Host 6.0?

Or, Installing or updating drivers on VMware ESXi Host 6.0.

Steps:

Create a dedicated folder in any of the free Datastore to copy the driver’s files.  In my case, I have created a folder ‘ESXiDUpdate’ in Datastore ‘DC8’ and copied the driver’s files here.

Take any of the ESXi Host in maintenance mode > Enable SSH and access the host using Putty > Login with root credentials.

Navigate to the Datastore and Drivers files. In My case, I executed following command sequentially:

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#pwd

#cd /vmfs/volumes/DC8/ESXiDUpdate/

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Now run below command with full path of the driver file. Driver file name in marked in yellow. Make sure you replace this section with the file name you want to be there.

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#esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/DC8/ESXiDUpdate/scsi-fnic_1.6.0.28-1OEM.600.0.0.2494585.vib --no-sig-check

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Wait for driver update to be completed.

Note: You must take a reboot of the server upon successful completion of driver update.

CISCO UCS B200 M3 Blade Servers and Infrastructure Firmware Upgrade Process

Or, How to upgrade firmware of CISCO UCS Mini Blade Chassis and Servers.

Or, How to upgrade firmware of CISCO UCS B200 M3 Blade servers?

Or, Step by step instruction for upgrading Firmware on CISCO UCS B200 M3 Blade Server and Infrastructure.

Descriptions:

To ensure a smooth and hustle free upgrade of firmware for your CISCO UCS mini blade chassis Infra and Blade Servers, its always recommended to first check the inoperability matrix for appropriate hardware and software support as well as compatibility support.

Its better you check with CISCO Tech Support and your software vendor for all kind of dependencies and compatibility checks.

Scenario/Environment:

- Want to upgrade firmware of Infrastructure(Management, Fiber Interconnect etc..) and Blade Servers.

- Current ruining firmware version:              3.1 (1e).

- Upgrading to firmware version:                 3.1 (2b).

- Blade Server’s Operating System:            VMware ESXi 6.0 U3

Activity Approach:

- Upgrade firmware on Infrastructure using auto upgrade method.

- Upgrade firmware on all Blade Servers one by one using service profile.

Sequences/Prerequisites Checks

- Verify if there is any hardware error, if yes, please get that fixed first before proceeding with              upgrade.

- Download appropriate firmware version for Infra and Blade carefully. 

  In my case firmware version  for Blade Servers is ‘ucs-k9-bundle-b-series.3.1.2b.B.bin’ and 

  for Infra it is ‘ucs-mini-k9-bundle-  infra.3.1.2b.A.bin’.

- Prepare the upgrade package.

- Create Host Upgrade Package.

- Proceed with Infrastructure firmware upgrade.

- Proceed with Blade Servers upgrade (take one at a time). Make sure you have migrated all the VMs

  from the selected host and ESXi host is kept in maintenance mode.

- Check for any drivers update, if required update the drivers too.

Steps: Preparing the upgrade package

Login to UCS Server console with Administrative access.

Navigate to ‘Equipment’ > Download Tasks > Click on Download Firmware

Click on Browse > Select the firmware you downloaded > Click OK > Wait for firmware package to be uploaded and prepared.

Steps: Host Firmware Package Creation

Navigate to Servers tab > Go to Policies > Root > Host Firmware Packages > Right Click on Host Firmware Packages > Choose Create Host Firmware Package

Name the Package you wish > In the Blade Package selection area, select the appropriate package > Click OK to complete the package creation.

After successful creation, the new host package should be appearing in Host Package area.

Steps: Infrastructure firmware upgrade

Navigate to Equipment tab> click on Equipment tree area> Firmware Management > Firmware Auto Install > General > Click on Install Infrastructure Firmware

I got this/below warning because one host in my Infra was failed and it’s still in discovery mode. I know why this warning is coming up, so I checked all boxes to ignore.

Click Next

In the version selection area, select the appropriate package version you had just created in stage-1. In my case its 3.1 (2b).

Enable check mark on Upgrade Now and Click on Finish

Verify if the upgrade has been started (it should show in progress).

Wait for Infra firmware upgrade to be completed successfully. Usually it takes 1-3 hrs to complete the upgrade process.

Steps: Host Firmware Upgrade

Navigate to Chassis > Servers > Select the Server you want to proceed with (in my case, Server-1) > In Service Profile section, click on the service profile Hyperlink as highlighted in below screenshot

Go to Policies > Firmware Policies > Host Firmware Package > Select the appropriate package from the drop down list > Click Save Changes

Click Yes to confirm the changes

When prompted (in Pending Activities), enable check mark on Reboot Now > Click OK > Click OK

Now the upgrade will be initiated for Blade Server-1. You can check the FSM to monitor the upgrade status.

Note:  Repeat the same host upgrade steps for all the Hosts one by one carefully.

Cheers! Please write me back if you have any query or feedback on this.

How to Archive MS outlook emails?

Or, Archive outlook emails in to .PST.

Or, Why to archive outlook emails when the mailbox size increases?

Descriptions: Is your outlook email very slow overall than usual? If yes, the outlook data size is one of the very common factor which affects outlook performance. It’s very important to consider a regular email archival if you are using outlook emails in exchange server environment. If the archival is not done for long, then the .OST files size get increased. Every time you open outlook or perform any email operations, outlook takes lots of time to get everything checked and processed.

To archive your emails, please follow the steps sequentially as given below.

Steps:

1. Open Outlook and go to File menu as highlighted below.

2. Click on ‘Cleanup Tools’ and Select ‘Archive…’ option.

3. Select ‘Archive this folder and subfolders:’ > make sure your complete mailbox is selected, not only the inbox > Select a desired date in ‘Archive items older than:’ section (good to archive emails older than 3 months) > Click on Browse and Select a path, preferably other than C:\ drive > Click on ‘OK’ to begin the archival process.

Please Note: it may take longer to complete the archival depending on the current email data size of your mailbox.

Once the archival is completed, you will be able to see two root folder in your outlook (looks like below):

yourusername@yourdomainname.com folder contains current emails and ‘archive’ folder contains emails you have archived.

How to export email trace results of Office365 server?

Or, PowerShell command to export email trace of Office365 server.

Descriptions: This is something every Office365 administrators should know. When you perform email trace in office365 server using Web-console, you can’t export the email trace results in to some excel or CSV files if you want. The easiest way to doing it is, you can use Office365 PowerShell command to export the desired mail trace results in to .CSV file.

Steps:

Connect to office365 server PowerShell admin console with administrative privilege.

Run below command to get the email traces exported in to a CSV file.

Get-MessageTrace -StartDate 10/12/2016 -EndDate 10/13/2016|Export-Csv C:\test.csv

Updated: 23/03/2018

To export Message trace for specific users, you may use the command given below
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Get-MessageTrace -SenderAddress "test.user@techiessphere.com" -StartDate 3/20/2018 -EndDate 3/22/2018 | Export-Csv D:\temp\report123.csv
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Note: you can change the Start and End date as per your requirements. Also, you can specify the export path as per your convenient.

How to export the exception members list of a Moderated DL in Office356 server?

Or, PowerShell command to export the exception list of a moderated DL in Office365 server.

Descriptions: If you have enabled moderation on some sensitive DLs and want to verify who all are excluded from being moderated, you can use below PowerShell command to export the list of exceptions defined under DL moderation settings.

Steps:

Connect to office365 server PowerShell admin console with administrative privilege.

Run below command to get the list:

Get-DistributionGroup -Identity "MyModeratedDLName" | Select-Object bypass* |Export-Csv D:\list.csv

Note: you can replace the ‘MyModeratedDLName’ with your moderated DL name as per your requirements. Also, you can specify the export path as per your convenient.

Exporting DLs with Last modify date, Date created, DL members, Members display name etc. Details in Office365 server using PowerShell.

Or, PowerShell script to export DLs in Office365 server containing details like Last Modify, Date Created, DL Members, Members Display Name, Owners etc...

Descriptions: Sometime you may need to export the DLs with their last modify date, members list and creation date for audit or inventory purpose.  You can use below PowerShell command to get these details exported in an .CSV file.

Note: Please understand the risk before executing any commands/scripts.

Steps:

Login to Office365 Server Admin PowerShell Console with administrative rights.

Copy all script section contents and run that on powershell to get the DLs details as explained above. You can change the yellow marked path and file name if you want results to be exported to some other path and with some other file name as per your requirements.

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#Prepare Output file with headers

Out-File -FilePath d:\new.csv -InputObject "Distribution Group DisplayName,Distribution Group Email,When Created,Last Modified,Owner,Member DisplayName, Member Email, Member Type" -Encoding UTF8

#Get all Distribution Groups from Office 365

$objDistributionGroups = Get-DistributionGroup -ResultSize Unlimited

#Iterate through all groups, one at a time    

Foreach ($objDistributionGroup in $objDistributionGroups)

{    

               

                write-host "Processing $($objDistributionGroup.DisplayName)..."

                #Get members of this group

                $objDGMembers = Get-DistributionGroupMember -Identity $($objDistributionGroup.PrimarySmtpAddress)

                

                write-host "Found $($objDGMembers.Count) members..."

                

                #Iterate through each member

                Foreach ($objMember in $objDGMembers)

                {

                                Out-File -FilePath d:\new.csv -InputObject "$($objDistributionGroup.DisplayName),$($objDistributionGroup.PrimarySMTPAddress),$($objDistributionGroup.WhenCreated),$($objDistributionGroup.WhenChanged),$($objDistributionGroup.Managedby),$($objMember.DisplayName),$($objMember.PrimarySMTPAddress),$($objMember.RecipientType)" -Encoding UTF8 -append

                                write-host "`t$($objDistributionGroup.DisplayName),$($objDistributionGroup.PrimarySMTPAddress),$($objDistributionGroup.WhenCreated),$($objDistributionGroup.WhenChanged),$($objDistributionGroup.Managedby),$($objMember.DisplayName),$($objMember.PrimarySMTPAddress),$($objMember.RecipientType)"

                }

}

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