Default Parameters for VsanVMKernelTest

A VMkernel network adapter provides network connectivity for hosts and handles the standard system traffic of vSphere vMotion, IP storage, Fault Tolerance, vSAN, and others. Every host that participates in a vSAN cluster should be configured with a VMkernel adapter to handle the vSAN traffic. Smooth traffic flow through the VMkernel adapter is vital for seamless vSAN traffic among the hosts. If high packet loss is monitoring traffic through VMkernel adapter is necessary for administrators to identify the traffic

By continuously monitoring the VMkernel adapters configured on the hosts, administrators can track the traffic through each adapter and quickly identify the virtual port that is handling the maximum amount of traffic in terms of multicast packets, broadcast packets etc. Administrators can figure out the VMkernel adapter that is dropping the maximum number of packets upon transmission and reception. To enable the exchange of data in the vSAN cluster, you must provide a VMkernel network adapter for vSAN traffic on each host.

Note:

This test is applicable only for the vSAN enabled clusters in the VMware vCenter server.

This page depicts the default parameters that need to be configured for the VsanVMKernelTest test.

• The TEST PERIOD list box helps the user to decide how often this test needs to be executed.

• To connect to vCenter and extract metrics from it, this test should be configured with the name and password of a user with Administrator or Virtual Machine Administrator privileges to vCenter. However, if, owing to security constraints, you are not able to use the credentials of such users for test configuration, then you can configure this test with the credentials of a user with Read-only rights to vCenter. For this purpose, you can assign the ‘Read-only’ role to a local/domain user to vCenter, and then specify name and password of this user against the VC User and VC Password text boxes. The steps for assigning this role to a user on vCenter have been detailed in the Monitoring VMware Infrastructures document.

  vCenter servers terminate user sessions based on timeout periods. The default timeout period is 30 mins. When you stop an agent, sessions currently in use by the agent will remain open for this timeout period until vCenter times out the session. If the agent is restarted within the timeout period, it will open a new set of sessions. If you want the eG agent to close already existing sessions on vCenter before it opens new sessions, then, instead of the ‘Read-only’ user, you can optionally configure the VC USER and VC PASSWORD parameters with the credentials of a user with permissions to View and Stop Sessions on vCenter. For this purpose, you can create a special role on vCenter, grant the View and Stop Sessions privilege (prior to vCenter 4.1, this was called the View and Terminate Sessions privilege) to this role, and then assign the new role to a local/domain user to vCenter. The steps for this have been discussed in the Monitoring VMware Infrastructures document.

• Confirm the password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.

• By default, the vCenter server is SSL-enabled. Accordingly, the SSL flag is set to Yes by default. This indicates that the eG agent will communicate with the vCenter server via HTTPS by default.

• By default, in most virtualized environments, vCenter listens on port 80 (if not SSL-enabeld) or on port 443 (if SSL-enabled) only. This implies that while monitoring vCenter, the eG agent, by default, connects to port 80 or 443, depending upon the SSL-enabled status of vCenter – i.e., if vCenter is not SSL-enabled (i.e., if the SSL flag above is set to No), then the eG agent connects to vCenter using port 80 by default, and if vCenter is SSL-enabled (i.e., if the ssl flag is set to Yes), then the agent-vCenter communication occurs via port 443 by default. Accordingly, the Webport parameter is set to default by default.

  In some environments however, the default ports 80 or 443 might not apply. In such a case, against the WEBPORT parameter, you can specify the exact port at which vCenter in your environment listens, so that the eG agent communicates with that port for collecting metrics from vCenter.

• Once the above values are provided, click on the UPDATE button to register the changes made.

When changing default configurations of tests, the values with “$” indicate variables that will be replaced by the eG system according to the specific server being managed - for instance, $hostName is the host/nickname of the target host, $port is the port number of the server being monitored. E.g., for a server xyz:80, $hostName will be changed automatically by the eG manager to “xyz*” and $port will be changed to “80” when configuring a test.