The below artical was taken from http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1026437

• Date placed 2015NOV05
• modify Client follows this comment, modify entire server is below.

Clipboard Copy and Paste does not work in vSphere Client 4.1 and later (1026437) Symptoms

   Cannot copy and paste from the virtual machine remote console to the system in which the vSphere Client is installed.
   The Copy and Paste options are disabled. 

Cause

This issue occurs because by default, the Copy and Paste options are disabled due to security concerns in vSphere Client 4.1 and later. Resolution

To resolve this issue, you must enable the Copy and Paste options using the vSphere Client. Alternatively, you can use RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) to connect to the Windows virtual machines. To enable Copy and Paste option for a specific virtual machine:

Note: This procedure will enable Copy and Paste within a file but not Copy the file itself.

Note: VMware Tools must be installed for the Copy and Paste option to work. For more information, see Installing VMware Tools in a Windows virtual machine (1018377)

• http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=1018377].

   Log in to a vCenter Server system using the vSphere Client and power off the virtual machine.
   Select the virtual machine and click the Summary tab.
   Click Edit Settings.
   Navigate to Options > Advanced > General and click Configuration Parameters.
   Click Add Row.
   Type these values in the Name and Value columns:

   Name    Value
   isolation.tools.copy.disable         FALSE
   isolation.tools.paste.disable        FALSE

   Note: These options override any settings made in the VMware Tools control panel of the guest operating system.

   Click OK to close the Configuration Parameters dialog, and click OK again to close the Virtual Machine Properties dialog.
   Power on the virtual machine. 

Note: If you perform vMotion of a virtual machine to a host where the isolation.tools.*=”FALSE” is already set, the Copy and Paste options are automatically activated for that virtual machine.

To enable Copy and Paste option for all the virtual machines in the ESXi/ESX host:

   Log in to the ESX/ESXi host as a root user.
   Take a backup of the /etc/vmware/config file.
   Open the /etc/vmware/config file using a text editor.
   Add these entries to the file:

   vmx.fullpath = "/bin/vmx"
   isolation.tools.copy.disable="FALSE"
   isolation.tools.paste.disable="FALSE"

   Save and close the file.

   The Copy and Paste options are only enabled when the virtual machines restart or resume the next time or shutdown and power-on the virtual machine for changes to take effect.
   This must be done on the virtual machine side, not the guest operating system side. 

Note: These options do not persist after the host upgrade. If you upgrade to a newer version after enabling these options, the changes are lost and you may have to re-enable them.

For more information, see the Limiting Exposure of Sensitive Data Copied to the Clipboard section in the ESX Configuration Guide.

Add Netgear ReadyNAS share as VMware ESXi datastore

 Netgear ReadyNAS Pro device

• Login to RadyNAS Pro admin interface
• Go to Services > Standard File Protocols and enable NFS service
• Go to Shares > Share Listing
• Click on NFS icon next to the share you want to use
• Enable required Default Access level
• Select Root privilege-enabled hosts and enter IP address of your VMware ESXi host

  VMware ESXi host

• Login to your VMware vSphere Client
• Go to Configuration tab, select Storage and click on Add Storage
• Select Network File System and click Next

• Server: Enter your Netgear ReadyNAS host name or IP address
• Folder: Enter share name in format /c/Share-Name i.e. /c/Data
• Share is case Sensitive, whatever you used when created share on NAS must be used as folder, case sensitive.’
• Optionally check Mount NFS read only
• Enter Datastore Name as you want it to appear in VMware list of datastores

• Click Next and Finish

Troubleshooting
If you get following error:
NFS mount <server-name>:<share-name> failed: The mount request was denied by the NFS server. Check that the export exists and that the client is permitted to mount it.
Double check that in VMware Add Storage wizard Folder field you entered share name in format /c/share-name and not just share-name
Make sure you entered correct IP VMware host IP address in Root privilege-enabled hosts on Netgear ReadyNAS

• Recommend reviewing:

ghettoVCB.sh – Free alternative for backing up VM’s for ESX(i)found at:

https://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760

Most of below has been clipped from above link.

• Requirements:

   VMs running on ESX(i) 3.5/4.x+/5.x
   SSH console access to ESX(i) host

Notes to keep in mind:

With this version you will get an error backing up with VM host names that have special characters.
Remove special characters like () from host names.  You can do this from the vCenter Client, by right clicking on host and rename.
Spaces are allowed in this version.

• Setup:

1) Download ghettoVCB from github (https://github.com/lamw/ghettoVCB) by clicking on the ZIP button at the top and upload to either your ESX or ESXi system (use scp or WinSCP to transfer the file)

I have included GhettoVCB-master.zip in this WIKI. Use above if available I have downloaded on 2015DEC01 and placed current version here Media:GhettoVCB-master.zip

2) Extract the contents of the zip file (filename will vary):

# unzip GhettoVCB-master.zip

3) The script is now ready to be used and is located in a directory named ghettoVCB-master

# ls -l
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root           281 Jan  6 03:58 README
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         16024 Jan  6 03:58 ghettoVCB-restore.sh
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root           309 Jan  6 03:58 ghettoVCB-restore_vm_restore_configuration_template
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root           356 Jan  6 03:58 ghettoVCB-vm_backup_configuration_template
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root           631 Jan  6 03:58 ghettoVCB.conf
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         49375 Jan  6 03:58 ghettoVCB.sh

4) Before using the scripts, you will need to enable the execute permission on both ghettoVCB.sh and ghettoVCB-restore.sh by running the following:

# chmod +x ghettoVCB.sh
# chmod +x ghettoVCB-restore.sh

• Configurations:

The following variables need to be defined within the script or in VM backup policy prior to execution.

Defining the backup datastore and folder in which the backups are stored (if folder does not exist, it will automatically be created):

VM_BACKUP_VOLUME=/vmfs/volumes/dlgCore-NFS-bigboi.VM-Backups/WILLIAM_BACKUPS

Defining the backup disk format (zeroedthick, eagerzeroedthick, thin, and 2gbsparse are available):

DISK_BACKUP_FORMAT=thin

Note: If you are using the 2gbsparse on an ESXi 5.1 host, backups may fail. Please download the latest version of the ghettoVCB script which automatically resolves this or take a look at this article for the details.

Defining the backup rotation per VM:

VM_BACKUP_ROTATION_COUNT=3

Defining whether the VM is powered down or not prior to backup (1 = enable, 0 = disable):

Note: VM(s) that are powered off will not require snapshoting

POWER_VM_DOWN_BEFORE_BACKUP=0

Defining whether the VM can be hard powered off when “POWER_VM_DOWN_BEFORE_BACKUP” is enabled and VM does not have VMware Tools installed

ENABLE_HARD_POWER_OFF=0

If “ENABLE_HARD_POWER_OFF” is enabled, then this defines the number of (60sec) iterations the script will before executing a hard power off when:

ITER_TO_WAIT_SHUTDOWN=3

The number (60sec) iterations the script will wait when powering off the VM and will give up and ignore the particular VM for backup:

POWER_DOWN_TIMEOUT=5

The number (60sec) iterations the script will wait when taking a snapshot of a VM and will give up and ignore the particular VM for backup: Note: Default value should suffice

SNAPSHOT_TIMEOUT=15

Defining whether or not to enable compression (1 = enable, 0 = disable):

ENABLE_COMPRESSION=0

NOTE: With ESXi 3.x/4.x/5.x, there is a limitation of the maximum size of a VM for compression within the unsupported Busybox Console which should not affect backups running classic ESX 3.x,4.x or 5.x. On ESXi 3.x the largest supported VM is 4GB for compression and on ESXi 4.x the largest supported VM is 8GB. If you try to compress a larger VM, you may run into issues when trying to extract upon a restore. PLEASE TEST THE RESTORE PROCESS BEFORE MOVING TO PRODUCTION SYSTEMS!

Defining the adapter type for backed up VMDK (DEPERCATED – NO LONGER NEEDED):

ADAPTER_FORMAT=buslogic

Defining whether virtual machine memory is snapped and if quiescing is enabled (1 = enable, 0 = disable):

Note: By default both are disabled

VM_SNAPSHOT_MEMORY=0
VM_SNAPSHOT_QUIESCE=0

NOTE: VM_SNAPSHOT_MEMORY is only used to ensure when the snapshot is taken, it’s memory contents are also captured. This is only relevant to the actual snapshot and it’s not used in any shape/way/form in regards to the backup. All backups taken whether your VM is running or offline will result in an offline VM backup when you restore. This was originally added for debugging purposes and in generally should be left disabledDefining VMDK(s) to backup from a particular VM either a list of vmdks or “all”

VMDK_FILES_TO_BACKUP="myvmdk.vmdk"

Defining whether or not VM(s) with existing snapshots can be backed up. This flag means it will CONSOLIDATE ALL EXISTING SNAPSHOTS for a VM prior to starting the backup (1 = yes, 0 = no):

ALLOW_VMS_WITH_SNAPSHOTS_TO_BE_BACKEDUP=0

Defining the order of which VM(s) should be shutdown first, especially if there is a dependency between multiple VM(s). This should be a comma seperate list of VM(s)

VM_SHUTDOWN_ORDER=vm1,vm2,vm3

Defining the order of VM(s) that should be started up first after backups have completed, especially if there is a dependency between multiple VM(s). This should be a comma separate list of VM(s)

VM_STARTUP_ORDER=vm3,vm2,vm1

Defining NON-PERSISTENT NFS Backup Volume (1 = yes, 0 = no):

ENABLE_NON_PERSISTENT_NFS=0

NOTE: This is meant for environments that do not want a persisted connection to their NFS backup volume and allows the NFS volume to only be mounted during backups. The script expects the following 5 variables to be defined if this is to be used: UNMOUNT_NFS, NFS_SERVER, NFS_MOUNT, NFS_LOCAL_NAME and NFS_VM_BACKUP_DIR Defining whether or not to unmount the NFS backup volume (1 = yes, 0 = no):

UNMOUNT_NFS=0

Defining the NFS server address (IP/hostname):

NFS_SERVER=172.51.0.192

Defining the NFS export path:

NFS_MOUNT=/upload

Defining the NFS datastore name:

NFS_LOCAL_NAME=backup

Defining the NFS backup directory for VMs:

NFS_VM_BACKUP_DIR=mybackups

NOTE: Only supported if you are running vSphere 4.1 and this feature is experimental. If you are having issues with sending mail, please take a look at Email Backup Log section

Defining whether or not to email backup logs (1 = yes, 0 = no):

EMAIL_LOG=1

Defining whether or not to email message will be deleted off the host whether it is successful in sending, this is used for debugging purposes. (1 = yes, 0 = no):

EMAIL_DEBUG=1

Defining email server:

EMAIL_SERVER=auroa.primp-industries.com

Defining email server port:

EMAIL_SERVER_PORT=25

Defining email delay interval (useful if you have slow SMTP server and would like to include a delay in netcat using -i param, default is 1second):

EMAIL_DELAY_INTERVAL=1

Defining recipient of the email:

EMAIL_TO=auroa@primp-industries.com

Defining from user which may require specific domain entry depending on email server configurations:

EMAIL_FROM=root@ghettoVCB

Defining to support RSYNC symbolic link creation (1 = yes, 0 = no):

RSYNC_LINK=0

Note: This enables an automatic creation of a generic symbolic link (both a relative & absolution path) in which users can refer to run replication backups using rsync from a remote host. This does not actually support rsync backups with ghettoVCB. Please take a look at the Rsync Section of the documentation for more details.

A sample global ghettoVCB configuration file is included with the download called ghettoVCB.conf.  

It contains the same variables as defined from above and allows a user to customize and define multiple global configurations based on a user’s environment.

• Usage:

# ./ghettoVCB.sh 
###############################################################################
#
# ghettoVCB for ESX/ESXi 3.5, 4.x+ and 5.x
# Author: William Lam
# http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/
# Documentation: http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760
# Created: 11/17/2008
# Last modified: 2012_12_17 Version 0
#
###############################################################################

Usage: ghettoVCB.sh [options]

OPTIONS:
  -a     Backup all VMs on host
  -f     List of VMs to backup
  -m     Name of VM to backup (overrides -f)
  -c     VM configuration directory for VM backups
  -g     Path to global ghettoVCB configuration file
  -l     File to output logging
  -w     ghettoVCB work directory (default: )
  -d     Debug level [info|debug|dryrun] (default: info)

(e.g.)

Backup VMs stored in a list
   ./ghettoVCB.sh -f vms_to_backup

Backup a single VM
   ./ghettoVCB.sh -m vm_to_backup

Backup all VMs residing on this host
   ./ghettoVCB.sh -a

Backup all VMs residing on this host except for the VMs in the exclusion list
   ./ghettoVCB.sh -a -e vm_exclusion_list

Backup VMs based on specific configuration located in directory
   ./ghettoVCB.sh -f vms_to_backup -c vm_backup_configs

Backup VMs using global ghettoVCB configuration file
   ./ghettoVCB.sh -f vms_to_backup -g /global/ghettoVCB.conf

Output will log to /tmp/ghettoVCB.log (consider logging to local or remote datastore to persist logs)
   ./ghettoVCB.sh -f vms_to_backup -l /vmfs/volume/local-storage/ghettoVCB.log

Dry run (no backup will take place)
   ./ghettoVCB.sh -f vms_to_backup -d dryrun

To find the ID (VM_ID) number of a virtual machine, run this command:

vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms

The above command retrieves the VM ID number for all virtual machines.

This is to find the name to use in the -m (Backup a single VM) or -f (Backup VMs stored in a list).

Below copied from: [1]

Ok, so you’ve setup ghettoVCB on your ESXi or vSphere Hypervisor to backup your VM’s but your sick of logging into the server and running the command manually. Don’t fret, there is a solution.
This solution requires that you have SSH enabled on your ESXi Server, you have previously configured ESXi backups with ghettoVCB. If you have not done this yet. Please look at how to complete these tasks in the ESXi Tutorial section of this site.
Many of you are familiar with Putty which is great Free SSH program. The Putty developer also has a program called Plink. Plink is a command shell interface into Putty that can make this possible.

First, download Plink and Putty from [2].

Now gather some information to create the batch file that we will call with Plink. I’ve included reference information below.

Path to Putty & Plink.exe: c:\putty\plink.exe
ESXi user:root
ESXi Server Host or IP: 192.168.1.100
ESXi root password: ESXiRocks01
Path to ghettoVCB.sh: /vmfs/volumes/DataStore1/backup Path to list of VMs to backup: /vmfs/volumes/DataStore1/ backup/vm-list

Now that the information is gathered it’s time to create the batch file that will run. We do this by taking all of the information above and adding it to a new notepad document.

c:\putty\plink.exe root@192.168. 1.100 -pw ESXiRocks01 "nohup ./vmfs/volumes/DataStore/backup/ghettoVCB.sh -f /vmfs/volumes/DataStore1/backup/vm-list"

What the bath file does is login to the ESXi server using root, nohup starts the ghettoVCB script to continue running even after Plink.exe has closed the connection. GhettoVCB calls the file that contains the list of VM’s that we want to backup.

There are several variation on this command line.
If you are not concerned about logging out of the session simply don’t include “nohup” in the batch file. If you would like to create a log add

” > /logfilepath/backuplog.txt”
to the end of the file. Make sure that /logfilepath/ exists on your server. To keep it with the ghettoVCB files utilize the same path as your ghettoVCB script. In the case above it would be /vmfs/volumes/Datastore1/backup/backuplog.txt The whole command would be

c:\putty\plink.exe root@192.168. 1.100 -pw ESXiRocks01 " ./vmfs/volumes/DataStore/backup/ghettoVCB.sh -f /vmfs/volumes/DataStore1/backup/vm-list >  /vmfs/volumes/Datastore1/backup/backuplog.txt "

Save the file on your computer. I saved mine as “c:\esxibackup\vibackup.bat”
Now simply use the task scheduler, located in administrative tools, in Windows to schedule the batch file to run whenever you want your Virtual Machines backed up.

Installing VMware Tools on CentOS and RHEL

Open Vmware Worstation or ESX console and Locate the VM you need to install VMware Tools to.

Right click the VM and choose “Tools”, then select “Install VMware Tools”.

It will connect the virtual CD-ROM device to the appropriate CD image containing the tools for your virtual machine.

Log into VMware Guest you need to install VMware Tools to.

Install the kernel-devel, gcc, dracut, make, perl and eject packages using yum :

$ yum -y install kernel-devel gcc dracut make perl eject

Mount CD image with VMware Tools :

$ mount /dev/cdrom /media

Uncompress the archive with VMware Tools :

$ tar -zxf /media/VMwareTools-*.tar.gz -C /tmp

Run the installer (exclude the –default option if you prefer to control the installation process) :

$ /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib/vmware-install.pl --default

Remove the temporary files after installation :

$ rm -rf /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib

Validating VMware Tools Installation

Use the command as follows to validate that VMware Tools is running :

$ initctl list | grep vmware-tools

vmware-tools start/running

To determine the vmware-tools version, run the command :

$ vmware-toolbox-cmd -v

Notes to consider:

1.) If you are using a minimal install of CentOS / RHEL, you will also need to yum install fuse-libs.
2.) Using "tar -zxf" to uncompress is very important; using the archive mounter is slower and does not copy file properties, 
      which will result in a failed install.

How to set the Time / Date and Timezone in CentOS/RHEL

Steps

  1. Set the time zone
  2. Set the time and date
  3. Sync the hwclock with the current time and date

Commands

Below are the commands that are required. For the date command this will set the time and date to 22nd of May for 2015 and time to 22:22. The syntax is `date MMDDhhmmYYYY`.

rm /etc/localtime
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/GMT /etc/localtime
date 052222222015
hwclock --systohc

Confirm Settings

To confirm your machine is set with the right time and date run the following commands :

[root@Fileserver ~]# date
Fri May 22 22:22:22 GMT 2015
[root@Fileserver ~]# hwclock
Fri 22 May 2015 22:22:22 PM GMT  -0.125883 seconds

You can easily install NTP (Network Time Protocol, a means of transmitting time signals over a computer network) using the yum command under Red Hat or CentOS/Fedora Linux server or workstation based systems. You need to install the following packages:

   1. ntp : ntpd server which continuously adjusts system time and utilities used to query and configure the ntpd daemon.
   2. ntpdate : Utility to set the date and time via NTP.
   3. ntp-doc : NTP documentation

Procedure: Setup NTPD on CentOS Linux

Open the terminal or login over the ssh session. You must login as as the root user. Type the following yum command to install ntp

# yum install ntp ntpdate ntp-doc

Turn on service, enter:

# chkconfig ntpd on

Synchronize the system clock with 0.pool.ntp.org server (use this command only once or as required):

# ntpdate pool.ntp.org

At Erlich several servers are using NetTime to keep time accurate. Prefer to use one of them then set: Domain Controller Nettime is at 192.168.1.3 and another local server is at 192.168.1.22

# ntpdate 192.168.1.3 

Start the NTP server. The following will continuously adjusts system time from upstream NTP server. No need to run ntpdate:

# /etc/init.d/ntpd start
or if above did not work
# /sbin/service ntpd start
or
# service ntpd start

Configure ntpd (optional)

Edit /etc/ntp.conf, enter:

# vi /etc/ntp.conf

Set public servers from the pool.ntp.org project or Erlich servers above:

This procedure is used when otherwise the VM would boot into a bluescreen type 7B. This assumes that VMware is the target and you configure the VM with VirtualHardware type 7. It only applies if the virtual disk is configured like this scsi0.virtualDev = “lsisas1068” scsi0:0.fileName = “imported.vmdk”

On the target platform boot the newly created VM into the Windows 7 Recovery CD.
After boot is finished click on the CMD-button and run regedit.
Select HKLM (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE)and then Menu > File > Load Hive.
Browse to the Windows-directory on the virtualdisk > system32\config and select the file SYSTEM.
When asked for a name enter p2v.
Then find the key
HKLM\p2v\ControlSet001\services\LSI_SAS
and set the start type to REG_DWORD 0
Then select HKLM\p2v and click Menu > File > Unload Hive.
You can close regedit now and restart.
On next boot you can start into the VM system. It should find drivers and probably needs a reboot when done.

The disk is offline because of policy set by an administrator

Taken from http://www.happysysadm.com/2010/11/disk-is-offline-because-of-policy-set.html[1]

You have just installed or cloned a VM with Windows 2008 Enterprise or Datacenter or you have upgraded the VM to Virtual Hardware 7 and under Disk Management you get an error message saying:

“the disk is offline because of policy set by an administrator”.

This is because, and this is by design, all virtual machine disk files (VMDK) are presented from Virtual hardware 7 (the one of ESX 3.5) to VMs as SAN disks.

At the same time, and this is by design too, Microsoft has changed how SAN disks are handled by its Windows 2008 Enterprise and Datacenter editions.

In fact, on Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Windows Server 2008 Datacenter (and this is true for R2 too), the default SAN policy is now VDS_SP_OFFLINE_SHARED for all SAN disks except the boot disk.

Having the policy set to Offline Shared means that your SAN disks will be simply offline on startup of your server and if your paging file is on one of this secondary disks it will be unavailable.

Here’s the solution to this annoying problem.

What you have to do is first to query the current SAN policy from the command line with DISKPART and issue the following SAN commands:

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

DISKPART.EXE

DISKPART> san

SAN Policy : Offline Shared

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Once you have verified that the applied policy is Offline Shared, you have two options to set the disk to Online.

The first one is to log in to your system as an Administrator, click Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management, right-click the disk and choose Online.

The second one is to make a SAN policy change, then select the offline disk, force a clear of its readonly flag and bring it online. Follow these steps:

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

DISKPART> san policy=OnlineAll

DiskPart successfully changed the SAN policy for the current operating system.

DISKPART> LIST DISK

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt

————- ——- ——- — —

Disk 0 Online 40 GB 0 B

• Disk 1 Offline 10 GB 1024 KB

DISKPART>; select disk 1

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> ATTRIBUTES DISK CLEAR READONLY

Disk attributes cleared successfully.

DISKPART> attributes disk Current Read-only State : No Read-only : No Boot Disk : No Pagefile Disk : No Hibernation File Disk : No Crashdump Disk : No Clustered Disk : No

DISKPART> ONLINE DISK

DiskPart successfully onlined the selected disk.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Once that is done, the drive mounts automagically.

You might also like: VMware guests and ISCSI/SAN storage Vmware Windows 2008 R2 template ESX server troubleshooting

Configuring SNMP Traps in ESXi (without paid license)

Enable SNMP in vSphere ESX 6

First, make sure you have enabled SSH access to your ESXi node. You can do that in Configuration > Security Profile > Services > SSH.

When SSH is enabled, login to your server with ssh root@esxi-address and type the following commands to enable a SNMP community named myc0mmun1ty with your appropriate Location and Contact.

   esxcli system snmp set -r
   esxcli system snmp set -c myc0mmun1ty
   esxcli system snmp set -p 161
   esxcli system snmp set -L "Farmington, Michigan"
   esxcli system snmp set -C itservices@erlichpro.com
   esxcli system snmp set -e yes

The below will only work on paid versions of ESX/ESXi. Setting the community, port, enable, etc will not work. Test and show will work

Configuring SNMP Traps in ESXi/ESX (1008065)

Taken from: [1]

Details To generate virtual machine and environmental traps from ESXi/ESX 3.5, 4.x, and ESXi 5.x hosts, you must configure and enable the embedded SNMP agent. You cannot use the Net-SNMP-based agent to generate these traps, although it can receive GET transactions and generate other types of traps.

This represents a change in behavior from ESX 3.0.x, in which the configuration file for the Net-SNMP-based agent controlled the generation of virtual machine traps. For more information, see Configuring SNMP on an ESX 3.0.x host (1008186).

In ESXi 5.1, SNMP is configured using esxcli rather than vicfg-snmp. In addition, you have the option to configure SNMP v3 traps and informs as well as the SNMP v1 and v2c traps available with previous versions of ESXi.

For instructions on:

Configuring SNMP v1 and v2c traps, see Configure ESXi for SNMP v1 and v2c in the vSphere Monitoring and Performance Guide. Configuring SNMP v3, see Configuring and troubleshooting SNMPv3 informs in vSphere 5.1 (2033343).

Solution Run the vicfg-snmp.pl command from the Remote CLI or vSphere CLI to enable the SNMP agent and configure trap destinations. Each time you specify a target with the vicfg-snmp.pl command, the settings you specify overwrite all previously specified settings. To specify multiple targets, specify them in a single command, separated by commas.

To enable and configure SNMP traps:

Notes:

Prior to ESXi 5.0, ESXi did not include a firewall. Ensure that the SNMP protocol is open in the ESXi/ESX firewall. For more information, see:

ESX 4.x: Open an SSH session to the host and run the command esxcfg-firewall -e snmpd. See Working with firewall rules in ESX 4.x (1021779).

ESXi 5.0: By default, the SNMP firewall port 161 is open. If it is not, see ESXi Firewall Configuration in the ESXi and vCenter Server 5.0 Documentation.

To implement these steps:

ESXi/ESX 3.5: Use the Remote CLI. For more information, see the Remote Command-Line Interface Documentation. You can download the VMware Infrastructure Remote CLI, available at VMware Downloads. ESXi/ESX 4.x and ESXi 5.0: Run this procedure using the vSphere CLI, not the vSphere PowerCLI.

For more information, see the vSphere Command-Line Interface Documentation.

If you have a My VMware profile, you can download the vSphere CLI from:

vSphere 4.x: From the My VMware page vSphere 5.0: From the My VMware page vSphere 5.1: From the My VMware page

Note: If you do not have a My VMware profile, you must create one. For more information, see How to create a My VMware profile (2007005).

Open a command prompt (on host that vSphere client has been installed).

Navigate to the directory where vicfg-snmp.pl is stored. By default, vicfg-snmp.pl is located in:

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\bin 

Run this command:

vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --show

Note: Run the vicfg-snmp.pl –help command for a full list of options.

Specify the communities and trap targets with this command:

vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password -t hostname@port -c community

Note: In ESX 3.5, you may need to use vicfg-snmp.pl –server hostname –username username –password password -t hostname@port/community. Example: To send SNMP traps from the host host.example.com to port 162 on target.example.com, using the public community, use this command:

vicfg-snmp.pl --server host.example.com --username root --password password -t target.example.com@162 -c public

For ESXi 5.0:

vicfg-snmp.pl --server host.example.com --username root --password password -t target.example.com@162/community

Note: To prevent clear text display of the user password, remove the –password password portion. You are then prompted to enter the password, and the entry is hidden.

To enable the SNMP service, run this command:

vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --enable

Note: To verify SNMP settings, run this command:

vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --show

Optional) To send a test trap to verify that the agent is configured correctly, run this command:

 vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --test

The test trap generated is a warmStart trap.

Note: Changes to the SNMP configuration are stored on the ESXi/ESX host in /etc/vmware/snmp.xml. The ESX/ESXi SNMP agent log messages are saved in /var/log/syslog.log.