CUCM 8.5 VMware Issue

[clileikis]

Hi everyone,

I'm having an issue with CUCM 8.5 in VMware (Lab environment).  I'm able to get it installed without any issues, however after I reboot the server, network connectivity seems to be broken (unable to ping to/from the CUCM VM).  I've had no issues with 7.x or 8.0 which seem to run perfectly in this environment.

Currently testing this on VMWare Workstation.  I understand ESXi is the only supported platform but just thought I would ask on here to see if anyone else has had a chance to test this out.  Tried this on several different hardware platforms and they all seem to have the same result after a reboot.

Thanks.

[H-Alashi]

Hi Tony,
No, it's 11.5
And in my opinion, it doesn’t affect the upgrade process, but I want to make sure
Thanks!
Haron

[TONY SMITH]

I've never seen that error unless the network was in fact not properly connected or configured.  I'd suggest correcting it, but if you remain stuck it would make sense starting a new thread with CUCM 11.5 in the title.

[H-Alashi]

I do appreciate your kind assistance

I will proceed as you recommend.

Thanks!!

best regards,

Haron.

[yenlung]

Turning on the VMCI in vmware workstation will solve the issue.

Thanks

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[PATRICK GESCHWINDNER]

Hi Yenlung,

thanks for the hint, but in my case this did not help. I am running VMware Workstation 7.1.4 and VMCI was already enabled. I can live with the issue because all other functionality is working and this is a demo system and for quick tests.

Best

Patrick

[clileikis]

Hey Patrick,

I think I found a long term solution for this and seems to be working, when you create the virtual machine in Workstation, try setting it to Red Hat Enterprise 64 bit instead of 32.  After installing Call Manager on the 64 bit virtual machine template it seems to not have this issue anymore.

Chris

[PATRICK GESCHWINDNER]

Let me give this a try. I have simply let the install procedure do the choice of the environment and under VMware it detected Redhat4, but not enterprise 64. My system is a 64 bit install under W7 professional. Let me do a new install and force it into the 64-Bit environment and see. If this will work then it boils down to a mismatch for the VMware tools which are loaded during start after the eth0 has been brought up. Thanks for investigating.

[PATRICK GESCHWINDNER]

Installing the UCM the way you described did not work for me for whatever reason. I approached this problem now from a totally different side. Since this VMware installation is just for Demo and we all suspected that a mismatch in the VMware tools is causing this, I tried to install the VMware linux Workstation tools. For that I sneaked into root and installed the tools for my VMware version 7.1.4. I simply accepted all defaults during the installation. It now does not loose the connection anymore. I have no idea what function I may have killed by doing this. I will try this with another demo system with some config on it and see if there are some services/functions I may have impaired.

Cheerio

Patrick

[PATRICK GESCHWINDNER]

It seems that installing the VMware tools in UCM 8.5.1 and CUC 8.5.1 did not break anything but does not need bouncing eth0 to regain connectivity. UCCX 8.0.2 is still registering, CUC still answers voicemail and UCM does what it did before without any problem. This of course is not a thorough test, but as first impression is just fine. I think the I/O seems a bit better and the Web-interface seems more responsive in the demo install but this is totally subjective.

Best

Patrick

[PATRICK GESCHWINDNER]

BTW, after updating the VMware tools I was able to use phone control software again. I had the problem that the "PhoneDesigner widget", "UnifiedFX" and "Voipintegration phone remote control" were not able to successfully authenticate since 7.1 of UCM. Now all these tools work flawlessly again under VMware Workstation with UCM 8.5.1

Cheerio

Patrick

[clileikis]

Thanks for the updates Patrick!

[jeff.webb]

I did some research and found how to update

the vmtools via the console without going into root.

From the VMware console enter the command

utils vmtools status

This will tell you the current version.

Go to the VMware menu and select VM - Update VM Tools

From the VMware console enter the command

utils vmtools upgrade

Enter "y" and the system will restart after the upgrade

After you are back up run the command "utils vmtools status" to verify the upgrade.

The only odd thing that I experenced is after you enter "utils vmtools upgrade" and you enter "y" for yes nothing happens.  I needed to press "y" and enter a number of times before the upgrade started.

Reference Link: http://rc7200.blogspot.com/2011/04/cisco-unified-communicaitons-manager.html

Jeff

[PATRICK GESCHWINDNER]

Hi Jeff,

thanks for the research. I thought that the "utils vmtools update" did not work for me because after hitting "y" my system went for lunch and did not return. I may have been just too impatient and did not hit often enough "y" - doh!!!

[LordMurgen]

Thanks a lot Patrick and Jeff,

Been a lot of help getting my CUCM 8.5 Lab working. I was stuck on the eth0 dropping out. I noticed it was pingable during boot but then after not. So frustrating. I spend probably 20-30 hours troubleshooting this.....bug. Ugh.

-Anthony Towsley

CCNP, CCNA Voice

[djones]

Guys,

This is awesome information to have.  I spent about 30 hrs looking at issues with the Host OS instead of looking
at the possibility of the Guest OS being at fault.I think one item to note is that the initial VMWare Tools installed
are not from the Host OS.  When I update the VMware Tools I got: 

The current version is 4.0.0-164009

Version on host 7.7.6-203138

Does this mean that Cisco's version for VMWare tools is that old and that is what is causing the problem.

I would like to recommend Cisco looks at this and repairs for lab purposes.

Another question, does UCM install the same version when on UCS?