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For Advanced Users : UBERAlign API / CLI / Powershell

November 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

From the beginning I knew some UBERAlign users would want to go into power user mode. The UBERAlign Console was designed to allow for easy use for the average Joe. But, there are people out there with the desire, guts, and ability to script and automate that want more. So this post will inform you on two other options for UBERAlign.

1. The CLI

Each vAligner is a Ubuntu Linux VM. On the VM is a set of binary files that do all work. One is a startup file for initializing, one is a daemon for accepting new jobs via the REST API, and the final is the actual magic behind the scenes. From the beginning UBERAlign was designed to be run from the command line. In fact back months ago the vSpecialist actually got a copy of this to try out and help me test. So for those that do not want to use the Console here are some reasons and instructions on how to run alignment, reclaim, and alignment+reclaim jobs manually.

Some of the reasons you may want to do this:

  1. Hate MS Windows – Since the console is a .Net WPF app some Mac users (@mcowger) have already asked how to skip using a Windows VM.
  2. VM size is too big – If the VM is more than 50% of the size of the datastore then a snapshot of it can potentially cause an out of space issue if it grows to full size (which and align can do). So if you have a good backup or are using array-based snapshots why use VMware snapshots? The CLI allows you to skip having to use a VMware snapshot which is required for using the Console.
  3. Aligns disks not attached to a VM -  The manually method just needs a valid VMDK file. Whether from a backup or anywhere. The Console requires a VM. Technically you can use tricks with snap and copy similar to the way VMware Converter works with online VM’s if you want.

So here are the steps:

  1. You must have the vAligner running and it must be on a vSphere host than can reach the datastore your VMDK is on.
  2. Make sure that any secondary disks are removed from the vAligner from a previous job.
  3. Make sure no UBERAlign Consoles are using this vAligner. Easy way is to disconnect the NIC and use the console if you are worried. If you console is showing weird FD0 garbage, grab a new copy of the vAligner OVA as this was patched.
  4. Add a Hard Disk to the vAligner (while it is running) to SCSI 0:1. Make sure and choose an existing disk and point it to the VMDK you want to run against.
  5. Login to the vAligner with root/UBERAlign.
  6. Make sure at least 15-20 seconds have passed since step 4. From the command line run: ‘fdisk –lu’ and make sure /dev/sdb is showing. Confirm the partition layout is as expected.
  7. Change directory to the UBERAlign binaries with ‘cd /opt/uberalign/bin’

Now that you have everything attached we are running to run a job. If you run ‘./uberalign’ you will see a printout of the command syntax like what follows:

./uberalign MODE  DEVICE  [OFFSET]  [ID]  [NAME]

MODE = The mode you want to run in and is formatted. Syntax:  -r:[a|r|s|c]

  • [a] = Align & Reclaim
  • [r] = Align only
  • [s] =  Simulate
  • [c] = Check alignment only
  • [z] = Reclaim only

DEVICE = The hardware device your VMDK is mounted on(normally /dev/sdb): Syntax: /dev/sdb

OFFSET = The target offset you want to align to. This defaults to 2048 sectors if not specified.

ID / NAME = Only useful for the API leave these off or use for logging purposes.

Example:

./uberalign –r:a /dev/sdb 2048

Once you run this command the uberalign program will process and log to the screen it’s progress while it works. When it completes, disconnect your VMDK from the vAligner and check your VMDK within a VM. It is as simple as that.

2. The API

The UBERAlign vAligner comes with a REST API that the UBERConsole uses for managing. While the state machine, orchestration for vSphere, and GUI are all a part of the console; you can still use the vAligner API to integrate into any existing processes you may have. Here is a short guide to the REST API. All data is return in JSON format. The first section explains the API get/put and the second explains the object structure in a pseudo format.

Methods

Root Path: http://<valigner IP>/uberalign/api/

Get Current State (GET)
Path: /uberalign/api/state
Parameter: n/a
Return: UAState
Description: Returns the current state of the vAligner

Get Current Job (GET)
Path: /uberalign/api/job/current
Parameter: n/a
Return: UAJob
Description: Returns the current job of the vAligner. On first boot this is an rather blank object.

Get All Completed(Historical) Jobs (GET)
Path: /uberalign/api/job
Parameter: n/a
Return: UAJob[]
Description: Returns an array with all completed jobs. This list will include all jobs still the vAligner was first deployed. Can be useful for historical purposes.

Get Session (GET)
Path: /uberalign/api/session
Parameter: n/a
Return: UASessionLock
Description: Returns the session lock information. This object contains information on the current lock status of the vAligner.

Lock vAligner (PUT)
Path: /uberalign/api/session/lock
Parameter: UASessionLock
Return: string (“true” | “false”)
Description: Used to lock a vAligner for 30 seconds. A locked vAligner will not accept new jobs from another source. Once a job is started it will not accept a new job until idle again. Use this method to maintain a lock on a vAligner while using it. Must specify a unique GUID that must match the GUID in the job ticket. GUID is a string and should be unique and not change for the duration of the session.

Submit New Job Ticket (PUT)
Path: /uberalign/api/job/new
Parameter: UAJobTicket
Return: string (“true” | “false”)
Description: Used to submit a new job ticket to the vAligner. A job ticket goes into a queue and is picked up by the daemon <15 seconds. The submitted UAJobTicket must have the same GUID as the lock and a lock must exist. Also the vAligner state must either be in Idle(0) or IdleWithError(9). You can use both the Get Current State and Get Current Job to watch for a job starting. The Current Job returns the UAJob object which will have a Name and ID that will match the  UAJobTicket Name and GUID fields you submitted.

 

Object Definitions:

Class UAState
{
string ip;
string errmsg;
string mac;
States state;
}

Class UAJob
{
string id;
string name;
string disk;
UADiskDetails diskdetails;
int offset;
States type;
string errmsg;
string currentstep;
string laststep;
double duration;
UAPartition[] partitions;
string msg;
string timestamp;
string completetimestamp;
}

Class UAPartition
{
string _system;
string _aligned;
string _id;
string _device;
string _offsetdiff;
string _boot;
string _start;
string _blocks;
string _end;
}

Class UADiskDetails
{
string _cyclinders;
string _size;
string _sectorsize;
string _totalsectors;
string _sectoratrack;
string _heads;
string _diskserial;
}

Class UASessionLock
{
string guid;
string ip;
int timestamp;
bool locked;
int secondsleft;
}

Class UAJobTicket
{
States type;
double offset;
string id;
string name;
string guid;
}

Enum States
{
Idle = 0,
AlignNoZero = 1,
AlignWithZero = 2,
Simulate = 3,
CheckOnly = 4,
ZeroOnly = 5,
GrowOnly = 6,
IdleWithError = 9
}

The objects above are simplified from my C# class structure.

This workflow for a job submission would look like this:

  1. Check vAligner state (is idle?)
  2. Lock vAligner (and continue to re-lock <30s until done with it)
  3. Mount Disk using vSphere API/Manually
  4. Create and submit new Job Ticket
  5. Watch vAligner State and Current Job to watch status
  6. After seeing the job completes (state=Idle or IdleWithError) un-mount disk

 

 

I know what some of you are going to say now: “But, Nick – how can I use the API now?”. The answer is provided by the vSpecialist rock-star Clint Kitson in his EMC Community release today. Clint built an awesome example of using Powershell to integrate and control UBERAlign via the REST API. This is so cool because if you already have scripting/code toolsets you use for automation, you can integrate UBERAlign right in. Check out more on this in Clint’ post here.

This is a basic overview and I am sure will probably just lead to more questions Smile. Please feel free to play around with both the CLI and API and post questions/comments below.

Thanks,

.nick

Filed Under: EMC, Scripts, Tools, VirtualAppliances Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Straighten up with a new UBER tool : Presenting UBERAlign

November 3, 2011 By 98 Comments

NOTICE: For more info on UBERAlign Advanced (API / CLI / Powershell) features also read the new post here: http://nickapedia.com/2011/11/07/for-advanced-users-uberalign-api-cli-powershell/

You know how in cartoons they show a small snowball rolling down a hill until it grows into a massive beast of a snow boulder?

Well, that is kind of how my most recent UBER project has gone. I know it is a been a little while since I have released a tool for the community and I am hopefully making that up with my newest creation: UBERAlign.

The idea of creating this came from the lack of a decent free alignment tool out there for VMware admins. Most every other one at there was either something you had to purchase or you had to be a customer of the vender to get access to it. And even after getting access these tools were either (in my opinion) limited in what they did, how they did it, or had become obsolete in a console-less vSphere 5 architecture.

For those they don’t know, alignment with Virtual Machine disks on top of Storage Arrays has been a performance issue for a long time. I won’t go into long detail explaining the problem or the benefits to alignment. There are great posts by Duncan (http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2010/04/08/aligning-your-vms-virtual-harddisks/) and Kevin(http://www.blueshiftblog.com/?p=300) on what the issues are and some of the tools available.

So my goal in creating UBERAlign was to once and for all create a free and powerful tool resolve this issue for everyone in the VMware community. Along the way I ended up probably overdoing the way I went about it. Turns out there are issues with aligning Windows boot disks, drive letter mappings getting lost on changes, current tools requiring copying of the whole disk, and tools frying NTFS metadata. I ended up deep in the weeds learning more than I have wanted to about NTFS, MBR/GPT, and disk logical formats. I also ended spending days writing data movement algorithms on my whiteboard over and over and I tried to solve specific problems with aligning a VM. And along the way I realized I had an opportunity to solve another issue that did not have a good universal answer.

So let me cut the background story down and get right to the details.

Presenting UBERAlign, a tool for VMware Virtual Machine alignment and Space Reclamation3

Features:

  • Allows for fast alignment checking of virtual machines with detailed logging.
  • Can perform alignment to any offset you want. Even the crazy ones that you shouldn’t choose.
  • Works with both Windows 2000/XP/2003/2008 (NTFS) and Linux Distros (EXT2/EXT3/EXT4).
  • Is able to work on NTFS boot drives perfectly. It does this by rewriting NTFS Metadata (the right way).
  • Auto detects Windows 2008 and Windows 7 native installs (alignment not needed). Will not touch a System Reserved Partition (important for Windows 2008).
  • Preserves all Windows drive mapping (AFAIK only one to do so). This means no having to remap drive letters and complete support for non “C:\”  system drives with some Windows builds (some Citrix stuff).
  • Doesn’t trash the NTFS and Boot mirrors like other tools.
  • Handles Primary and Extended partitions like it is no big deal on both Windows and Linux.
  • Has the ability to handle multiple disks for a VM.
  • Multiple disks + Multiple Partitions + Multiple types (primary, logical) + Multiple file systems (NTFS, EXT#) =  no problem
  • Also allows for optional Space Reclamation on both NTFS and Ext! That’s right: you can choose to do space reclamation at the same time as an alignment or as a option to itself. This means you can retrieve space no longer used on Thin VM’s using UBERAlign.
  • Operational model allows for completely CONCURRENCY with processing VMs. You can run up to 6 simultaneous jobs per Console and as many Consoles as your VCenter can handle. This was designed to allow people with big environments to process through a large set of VM’s.
  • Options to check, align, or reclaim any choice of disks in a VM.
  • Powerful very simple to use graphic console and easy to deploy OVA’s.
  • Orchestration for batch operations allowing you to process groups of VM’s with just a couple clicks.
  • Getting started is simple with just entering VCenter credentials/IP and pointing at a vAligner.
  • Space Reclamation should also help with possibly speeding up defragmentation of some NTFS file systems after. Your mileage may vary.
  • Space Reclamation can help you turn a thick VM into a thin one and actually get the space back!
  • Does all operations IN-PLACE! My first big goal was this. No more having to copy disks using the ESX command line(especially since ESX is going away). This will process a VM’s disks in-place.
  • Automatically makes a snapshot before running for failback. If you turn on your VM to check it and see anything you don’t like you can simply revert to the UBERAlign snapshot and be right back. (You should always have a backup and test also, see prereqs)
  • Automatically rolls the snapshots back if it sees an error. UBERAlign has the ability to do health check throughout the jobs and if it sees something wrong it will roll back it’s own snapshots for you.
  • Automatically enables CHKDSK scanning on each NTFS volume on the next boot.
  • Completely Storage Array agnostic. That’s right: if it connects to vSphere and host storage UBERAlign will work with it. This includes local disks (see prereqs below) and arrays other than EMC. Don’t say that the EMC vSpecialists don’t love all VMware users.
  • Completed tested against vSphere 4.1 / 5 environments.

So as you can see UBERAlign got to be a bit of a beast along the way.

2UBERAlign comes in two pieces. The UBERAlign Console which is a graphical interface meant to be run on a Windows XP/7/Server system with .Net 4.0 or greater. And the UBERAlign vAligner vAppliance which is deployed from OVA into a vSphere environment. The console connect to the vSphere via SOAP and to up to 6 vAligners via REST interface. The way it works is: each vAligner can process VM’s on the storage the vSphere Host it lives on has access to. So you should spread vAligners across clusters and make sure one is on any vSphere Host that has local storage you want to access.

These features are meant to make the life of a VMware admin much easier when taking on this kind of task. But, let me cover some prereqs and how-to information.

Prerequisites/Tips/Caveats:

  • All VM’s must be turned off to run any operation on. I won’t go into detail on why in-place + on is risky but suffice to say I wasn’t going to give it to you Smile
  • Console has been tested on Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 2008 R2. You need the very latest .Net 4.0 updates also.
  • As said above: only VM’s powered off and residing on storage visible to an attached vAligner will be selectable. You don’t have to restart the console but it may take up to 60 seconds for you to see a newly turned off VM.
  • Only vAligners managed by the VCenter you connected will be useable. One VCenter per console.
  • Concurrency is based on the VM level. Which means each vAligner can handle and process through different VMs. But, a single VM with multiple disks will not be split across multiple vAligners. They will process in a linear fashion one at a time.
  • If UBERAlign detects an error on a VM disk when a previous disk was processed it will revert the previous jobs also. This is because snapshots are handled at a VM-level.
  • When doing multi-disk Windows VM’s it is recommended to align them all and to use the same offset. When the System disk is processed it assumes all the disks will be done and at the same offset. You don’t HAVE to do this but you may have to remap drive letters otherwise (not a huge deal, just annoying).
  • In order for Space Reclamation to work you must boot VM (check that it is healthy), delete all snapshots, svMotion to a different datastore while specifying that you want it thin (important). Another option is to clone the existing VM from a power off state to a new VM on another datastore while 1specifying Thin for the disk format.
  • By default *Natively* installed Windows 2008 and Windows 7 installs don’t need alignment. Upgrades from Windows 2003 do. But Space Reclamation works on all of them.
  • Space Reclamation does make alignment jobs take about 15-20% longer. It all depends on the speed of the storage underneath.
  • You need to have at least 20% free space on any NTFS volume to safely align/reclaim. This can be less on a very large volume but is a safe rule to follow. If you have to, expand a drive to make a little extra room. The alignment check reports information you can use to check.
  • vAligners currently pick up a DHCP address. You can view what the address has become by looking at the info pane in VCenter. Or you can set an IP manually. The vAligners are running Ubuntu and the login is root/UBERAlign.
  • I have tested the console over WAN (Texas –> North Carolina) and it works very well.
  • LVM’s are NOT supported. Long story but #1 the test cases for this are crazy and difficult to QA and #2 technically LVM gives you its own options.
  • UBERAlign is aware of how much storage space is used/available within a datastore. It keeps track and will not start jobs if there is a possibility it could cause an out of space error.

*DISCLAIMER*
Ok, before I go any further I want to mention one important thing. UBERAlign is an experimental tool and carries no support from EMC Corporation or myself (Nicholas Weaver). It is being released in beta state and while it does have functions that allow for failback you should only perform operations on Virtual Machines for which you have a solid backup. Also, I recommend you test in your lab thoroughly to make sure you understand it fully. You accept full responsibility when you use this tool.
*DISCLAIMER*

Ok, now that that is out of the way here are a few videos showing off the console and some of the cool things you can do (these are some quick/rough cuts):

.

And now for the downloads:
(New links are HTTP, no more FTP issues)

UBERAlign Console 1.1 – FTP

UBERAlign vAligner OVA (~500 MB) – FTP

This was a long process for me. It was something I started in June and had to delay because of VMworld 2011 and side projects. It is my last tool as a vSpecialist (more on my move here) and I hope it helps the VMware community somehow. The good news is this was designed from the beginning to be hypervisor agnostic so watch for a Hyper-V and Xen version in the future.

I also want to thank Larry Whitlock (EMC vSpec) who was the primary tester during the harder part of this. Without his help I would not have gotten anywhere.

Questions, comments, and critisism are all welcomed.

.nick

Filed Under: EMC, Slider_Featured, Tools, VirtualAppliances Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

VMware Workstation 2011 : w00t

September 14, 2011 By 1 Comment

Just a quick blog post but I wanted mention that VMware has just release the new VMware Workstation 2011 and Fusion 4.

Basically 100% of the projects I do on Nickapedia.com have been done on VMware Workstation. I have done the big-Windows 7 machine running Workstation with virtual ESX/vCenter for over a year now. And I was just getting ready to pull the trigger on moving to more of a white box design when I got invited to the BETA for both of these products.

The new changes with Workstation have changed me back to staying with the current model for my current lab. Some of the big cool stuff I am excited about:

  1. It now supports the ability to run 64-Bit OS’s inside a virtualized ESXi VM inside Workstation. This was the biggest issue I had and the primary driver for me to want to move to a whitebox.
  2. New UI – it rocks, it is easier to use, more options, and so cool.
  3. Remote connection – now I can be running VM’s on Workstation on any of my big machines and connect from my main workstation. This is so slick for extending lab environments across machines.

I am so appreciative of the work of the VMware Workstation & Fusion (I have a Macbook Air now also) teams. I can’t wait to upgrade my BETA to the new release.

Check out more and download a 30-day trial here: http://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2011/09/vmware-workstation-8-now-available-worldwide.html

.nick

Filed Under: Commentary, Life/Work, Tools Tagged With: , , , ,

Lightning Strikes Twice : VMware vExpert 2011

July 1, 2011 By 3 Comments

Like many other VMware friends, I also received an email informing me I was awarded VMware vExpert for 2011. This is the second year for this award and I am extremely

gonggrateful for the honor. Like every vExpert should; I want to thank everyone at VMware behind the great social media and community and especially thank John Troyer for his leadership. I don’t think people realize how much awesomeness has come out of the work John has done, because it is so difficult to quantify. I also want to thank Duncan Epping who was when I started, and still is an inspiration as a blogger and Twitter junkie.

Fair warning: it is at this point of the blog post I will get a little retrospective and sappy.

Sometimes it is tough to measure success outside of just projects, sales goals, or training milestones. I am often so obsessed with *the next thing* that I never take time to fully enjoy a sense of accomplishment for what I have done. For me, the vExpert email is a point where I can stop and think over what I did over the last year.

And so I encourage you to do the same. And not just in light of your career. Sit still for a couple minutes and think of all the things you have accomplished in the last year as a parent, professional, friend, and as a partner.

There are many ways to measure success in life and not all of them can be easily recognized. I can think of so many great people that helped me get to where I am now that deserve way more praise than I do. So since today is a day I am taking to feel good about what I have done; I encourage you to do the same.

.nick

Filed Under: Commentary, Life/Work Tagged With: , ,

VPLEX Geo / GoogleMaps Mashup : Higher Quality Video

May 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

My previous post showing the VPLEX Geo / GoogleMaps mashup was an early version and low quality. I created this one to better show the UI and recorded it at 60FPS using my HD camera.

thanks,

.nick

Filed Under: EMC, Life/Work, Videos Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

VMworld 2011 : One lonely session

May 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I haven’t got to post this because of the EMC World madness. But, I did submit one single session for VMworld 2011. It is “Top 10 Ways to Become a Cloud Innovator Using VMware Technology”.

This time around I really wanted to focus on delivering something unique as a session. I have been the last year trying hard to come up with thought provoking way to innovate with VMware tech and this session will cover how I approach innovation. I think this session should really be title: “Why Nick isn’t as smart as he looks” or maybe “Seriously, this stuff is easy. Let me show you how.”. Either way, my goal is to enable and encourage the audience to take the creative ideas and solutions I know they have and turn it into something both relevant and eye-opening.

So if this sounds interesting to you, then toss a vote my way:

Title:         Top 10 Ways to Become a Cloud Innovator Using VMware Technology
Abstract:         This session will walk the listener through an interactive example of ten different ways to innovate using VMware Technology. Topics will include using new methods of interaction, new methods to orchestrate, and illustrations of possible opportunities within your own position. This will also cover walkthroughs on how the speaker built the Interactive Cloud (Kinect-based control of vSphere) and Virtual Selection (Evolving VM’s) featured on his blog.

 

Thanks,

.nick

Filed Under: Life/Work, Tools Tagged With: , ,
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