Objective 8.2 – Administer vSphere Using the vSphere Management Assistant

Knowledge - Identify vMA prerequisites
vMA is a 64bit virtual appliance, to run this you require an ESXi host able to run 64bit VM, 3GB of disk and 1vCPU and 600MB of vRAM

Knowledge - Identify vMA specific commands
While vMA can be used to issue commands to run in the context of each ESXi and vCenter host,  it has specific commands for managing itself,  for example adding \ removing hosts.

Knowledge - Determine when vMA is needed

vMA is a Linux-based virtual machine that is pre-installed with a command-line interface and select third-party agents needed to manage your vSphere infrastructure. vMA includes the vSphere SDK for Perl and the vSphere Command-Line Interface (vSphere CLI). vMA also includes an authentication component named vi-fastpass. vi-fastpass allows direct connection to established target servers without user intervention.

It would be used for running centrally PowerCLI scripts within your estate, it is useful in a *nix only environment where Powershell cannot be used.

 
Skills and Abilities - Install and configure vMA

 

Skills and Abilities - Add/Remove target servers

Connect to vMA using using SSH client and login as vi-admin

To add server
sudo vifp addserver <servername>

To remove server
sudo vifp removeserver <servername>

It is the same commands to add and remove vCenter server as ESXi host

 

 
Skills and Abilities - Perform updates to the vMA
Logon to vMA via web browser change to Update tab

Skills and Abilities - Use vmkfstools to manage VMFS datastores
To issue commands to remote ESXi servers you first connect within vMA
     vifptarget --set 192.168.1.84

You can then issue commands as though you were using PowerCLI interface for managing datastores with vmkfstools or indeed anything else.

To disconect
     vifptarget --clear

Skills and Abilities - Use vmware-cmd to manage VMs
You can then issue commands as though you were using PowerCLI interface for managing VMs with vmware-cmd command set.

Skills and Abilities - Use esxcli to manage ESXi Host configurations
You can then issue commands as though you were using PowerCLI interface for managing hosts with esxcli.

Skills and Abilities - Troubleshoot common vMA errors and conditions
 vMA provides the vma-support script that enables you to collect various system configuration information and other logs. You can run this script by issuing the following command:

     sudo vma-support

The script generates the information and log bundle and appends it to the vmware.log file on the ESXi host on which vMA is deployed.