VSM stuck at loader

[Patrick Colbeck]

Hi

I made a coupel of changes to a 1000v config (to do with VSG) and all seemed well. As the system is not live yet we decided to do a quick power off test.

So I hit power off on teh standby VSM VM and teh same on the primary VSM VM. Then pwoered them both back up again primary first.

They didnt come back bot just sit theredisplayinh loader.

These are 1000v 4.2(1)SV2(1.1) I think (will check when back on sit eon Monday) on VMware 5.0.

The VMs runningthe VSMs are using the standard VMware DVS and the whole thing has been up and running with no problems for about three months.

The storage the VSM VMs are using as a hard drive is an FC attached HP storage array.

This looks like the boot image is corrupt but it seems odd that the primary and secondart VSM both have corrupt boot images.

Any other ideas about what mught cause this as I would hate for it to happen again when we have live customers on the paltform ?

Also if I do need to reinstall (I have a show run taken just before did the power on and off test) are we going to have to go get the licenses.transfered as I assume the switch ID will change ?

Thanks

Pat

[lwatta]

Pat,

I would open a TAC case. Would really be interested to see what caused this. You should be able to boot off cdrom and get to the config on the boxes. From there TAC should be able to help you get back up and running.

For customers that have VSM on ESXi take advantage of the ability to clone your VSM before you make any changes. We support clone to template with a copy of the most current running-config as a way to backup and restore your VSM. This is a great way to prevent issues and to help in troubleshooting issues like this.

louis

[Patrick Colbeck]

Unfortunately they cant find the contract details so we cant log a TAC case at the moment and need to get it up and running again.

I booted of a 1000v ISO and it reisntalled the VSM (I chose the only install if disk is unformatted option).

I have had a word with the storage admin and it seems the HP 3PAR SAN had a wobble when they turned on replication a while ago and corrupted some stuff. I am guessing that the VSM storage volumes got corrupted but they have been quite happily continuing on in RAM until I rebooted them.

Due to time constraints I am just going to reinstall from scratch as I have a copy of the config and it wont be too painfull.

[Patrick Colbeck]

In the end I botted teh VMs from teh ISO and chose the first option:

Install 1000v and install new image

This installed fine and I copied teh config back. Remarkably even though it has installed a new image and the config was blank the license files were there ! All I had to do was appply them.

So much powering on and off to test and both the primary and secondary VSM VMs are fine now and survive power off

It would be instructive to have some detailed information on exactly what the various options on the ISO actually do when you use them, perhaps with a discription of the disc structure of the VSM VMs and what gets overwritten by each of the four options on the ISO.