Virtual Machine - Endpoint format is invalid

Just came across a VMware virtual machine issue which jogged my memory from a few months back.

Basically, when a user was trying to RDP to a new VM, built from a syspreped template, they were unable to logon and received a strange error message about an "Endpoint format" being invalid. I thought I'd seen this before and remembered that the problem was to do with VMware tools. The problem does not seem to be very well documented but can be found if you Google for problems joining the domain, another manifestation of the problem:

http://david.hochstaetter.net/2007/09/vmware-endpoint-format-is-invalid-join.html

Basically the way we fixed the problem, with minimal reboots, was:

• Disjoin the VM from the domain and uninstall VMware tools, then reboot.
• Then rejoin to the domain, install the VMware tools and reboot again.

VMware Storage VMotion from the VI Client GUI

You might have heard that VMware were bringing out the ability to migrate ESX VMs between storage areas (e.g. to different SAN LUNs or local disks) whilst running. Good news is that it part of ESX 3.5: http://www.vmware.com/products/vi/storage_vmotion_overview.html

Bad news is that is that Vmware haven't integrated the functionallity into their Virtual Infrastructure Client, however a clever person at LostCreations has created a plugin: http://www.lostcreations.com/code/wiki/vmware/viplugins/svmotion

To use this fantasic tool, you'll need servers running ESX 3.5 and to install the LostCreations SVMotion plugin for Virtual Infrastructure Client following the installation instructions on: http://www.lostcreations.com/code/wiki/vmware/viplugins/svmotion

(you don't need to install the VMware Remote CLI which is required for "manual" storage vmotion)

Have tested and works a treat with no interruption to the VM during migration.