VMware vSAN: Troubleshooting Workshop [6.x] Beta experience Day 1

Today I attended the first out of two days of my first VMware Beta course. This time it was time to add vSAN to my portfolio. I think first of all a small disclaimer is in order. As said the workshop is in beta. This article is based upon my personal experience. Content might change later on as might the number of days.

The course  expects that you have basic knowledge and understanding of the vSAN product. The following course is highly recommended before you attend this workshop.

VMware vSAN: Deploy and Manage [V6.6]

The  workshop is a two days course and is delivered via Instructor Led Training (Live Online). It consists of a virtual lab which is located in the United States. People who have followed courses from VMware before might be familiar with this concept since VMware offers these labs during more of their courses. This with exempt to training centers that host and build their own labs.

The course consists of four modules:

Module 1: Course introduction

Module 2: vSAN Software Architecture

Module 3: Troubleshooting Methodology

Module 4: Troubleshooting Tools

One of the best parts of the course is that it includes 14 labs of which 10 Break Fix labs (Not including the 11th bonus Break Fix). Based on real life experience, most common errors are being reproduced and replicated in your lab environment which you have to fix in a calm and controlled environment.

The course is given by Javier Menendez who also happens to have a blog which has some nice detailed information on how the vSAN commands cmmds-tool and objtool work.  Of course these commands come with the necessary warnings about incorrect use and potential damage.

The day started with the vSAN architecture explaining CLOM, DOM, LSOM and CMMDS. Also FTT (Failures To Tolerate), which is now called PFTT (Primary Failures To Tolerate) was discussed and how many objects are being created on the vSAN datastore.

To conclude the day a beginning was made with Module 3: Troubleshooting Methodology.

Please visit back later to learn more about day two.

 

 

Synology DSM update to 6.1.3 update 6 HTTP Error 500

Like many others of you I own a Synology which I use to run a various load of servers. It is my trustworthy friend which is delivering NAS based storage to my VMware environment for quite some years now. Over the years I have been exploring the Synology quite a bit more and learned to appreciate many other features as well like “Web Station” which I use to host some WordPress websites.


Synology Diskstation DS2514+

There is one thing that I dread however. Quite ever so often Synology releases a new version of the Disk Station Manager (DSM). New featrures are added, old features are discontinued and security fixes are applied. This is also the case for the numerous packages that are available in Package Center. All nice and perfect you would say. Great job Synology! However this time I was presented with the following screen when trying to reach the websites I host on the box. All websites seemed to have been broken somehow and present the “HTTP ERROR 500” message.

Of course these things happen at the most inconvenient of times. Since I did not want to present visitors to the webpage with an HTTP ERROR 500 I decided to give Google a try and search for the error. Unfortunately it seems to be the most common error you can find so the resolution is not dictated and spelled out for you. However some peoples PHP Extensions seems to have been messed up by the DSM upgrade so I decided to give look at my PHP settings first.

 

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In my case where I use PHP 5.6 it seems the update messed with my PHP extensions. As you can see the “mysqli” extension checkbox is unmarked. Since WordPress makes use of the “MariaDB” database which is a fork of MySQL all started to make sense now.

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Just re-enable the extension, click “OK”and presto! You should be able to give your website a go again!