Removing duplicate disposable disks assigned to SanDisk Fusion-io ioVDI enabled virtual desktop

Problem

While reviewing the Hard disk configuration of VMware Horizon View ioVDI enabled virtual desktops, you notice that there are several disposable disks assigned to the VDI:

Note the Disk File path: 18/disp0/18disp0.vmdk

Note the Disk File path: 18/disp1/18disp0.vmdk

Note the Disk File path: 18/disp2/18disp0.vmdk

The following are the paths of each Hard disk with the disposable disks highlighted in red:

[datastore01b:view_lun11] 18/18-checkpoint.vmdk

[datastore01b:view_lun11] 18/disp0/18disp0.vmdk

[datastore01b:view_lun11] 18/disp1/18disp0.vmdk

[datastore01b:view_lun11] 18/disp2/18disp0.vmdk

[datastore01a:view_lun11] 4-vdm-user-disk-D-e7fd3c19-ca5e-4c7e-9531-ac6a22830c49.vmdk

[datastore01b:view_lun11] 18/181-internal.vmdk

Solution

As shown in the desktop properties above, we have 3 disposable disks assigned to the VDI but only one is really being used.  To identify which disk is in use, SSH into the ioVDI management appliance and connect to the vCenter via the following commands:

fio3prd:~ # iovdi vcenter -ln -vu sladmin -va vc01.contoso.com

Enter the vCenter password:

Re-Enter the vCenter password:

Logged in to VMP : vc01.contoso.com

Once successfully logged into vCenter, proceed to execute the following command to list the VDI’s Cache Mode properties for each disk:

iovdi guest -dr -np 18 -gu a-tluk -v

An output similar to the follow will be displayed:

fio3prd:~ # iovdi guest -dr -np 18 -gu a-tluk -v
Enter Guest Password :
Re-Enter Guest Password :
Checking vSCSI filter
VM name: 18
scsi0:1.Cache Mode = write_vector
scsi0:2.Cache Mode = hyper_cache  (Write Vector Candidate)
scsi0:3.Cache Mode = hyper_cache  (Write Vector Candidate)
scsi1:0.Cache Mode = hyper_cache
scsi1:1.Cache Mode = hyper_cache
scsi0:0.Cache Mode = hyper_cache
Duplicate write-vector disks found

vSCSI filter status: Not OK

Checking Write Vector status
VM name: 18
Pagefile and temp folder are redirected

Write Vectoring status: OK

1 tests failed
Add failed guests to an ioVDI config to fix the issues. If already present, reapply the config.

fio3prd:~ #

From the output above, the disposable disks that are actually being used are the ones that are labeled as with:

(Write Vector Candidate)

This means that SCSI (0:2):

… and SCSI (0:3):

… are the ones we can delete so proceed to remove them from within the Virtual Machine Properties then re-execute the command again. Output similar to the following will be displayed:

fio3prd:~ # iovdi guest -dr -np 18 -gu a-tluk -v
Enter Guest Password :
Re-Enter Guest Password :
Checking vSCSI filter
VM name: 18
scsi0:1.Cache Mode = write_vector
scsi1:0.Cache Mode = hyper_cache
scsi1:1.Cache Mode = hyper_cache
scsi0:0.Cache Mode = hyper_cache

vSCSI filter status: OK

Checking Write Vector status
VM name: 18
Pagefile and temp folder are redirected

Write Vectoring status: OK

All OK
fio3prd:~ #

If you would like to traverse through all of the desktops rather than doing them independently, the command also accepts wildcards as demonstrated in the following command:

fio3prd:~ # iovdi guest -dr -np VDInamingConvention-* -gu a-tluk -v

Attempting to update a VMware Horizon View linked-clone pool’s snapshot throws the error: “Active Directory Host Unreachable”

Problem

You’ve updated your linked-clone pool’s master image and attempt to reassign the Default Image Snapshot but while you are able to assign the new snapshot, you receive the following error when you try to apply the setting:

Server Error

Active Directory Host Unreachable

Solution

While there can be several reasons why this error would be thrown, this is usually caused by connectivity issues between the server with the View Composer role installed and your Active Directory controllers.  In the example above, I noticed that the vCenter server which had the View Composer role installed was assigned a primary and secondary DNS server that would not be able to look up the internal Active Directory domain zone which would prevent the View Composer role to locate and communicate with the Active Directory Domain Controllers.  The error above went away as soon as I removed those DNS servers and configured the primary and secondary servers to point to the Active Directory Domain Controllers which had DNS installed on them.

VMware Horizon View virtual desktops experience temporary drive space issues with SanDisk Fusion-io ioVDI integration

Before I begin, it’s important to note that I am not an expert with the SanDisk Fusion-io ioVDI product and the only exposure I’ve had was with a client who had another consulting company implement it in their VMware Horizon View 6 environment. With that out of the way, I’ve been troubleshooting issues with the VDIs ever since the the ioVDI product was upgraded from 1.0 to 2.0.  The virtual desktops would exhibit sporadic issues with various applications such as BGInfo not being able to load the customized desktop background or Silverlight web pages not loading at all.  The Silverlight web page issue isn’t as obvious so I’ll use the BGInfo as an example.  The screenshot below displays an error message when we try to manually apply the customized background:

Error during WriteFile():

There is not enough space on the disk.

This behavior lead us to believe that it had to do with the ioVDI cache / disposable disk so we opened up a ticket to work with a support engineer and we noticed that the Non-Persistent / DisposableDisk was indeed low on space with 1.52MB free:

This would sort of explain why the BGInfo couldn’t load the background because the wallpaper would have consumed around 2MB of space which the disposable disk did not have.

Next, we browsed to the folder that ioVDI redirect files to:

\\VirtualDesktopName\c$\Windows\Temp\iotdx-disposable

Lassoing the folders and reviewing the properties shows that only 6.30MB of space is actually consumed:

Having a feeling that perhaps there were hidden files, we went ahead and configured the folder to list all files and folders:

Which immediately revealed a redirected 5GB pagefile.sys file that was just as big as the 5GB disposable disk:

The page file size was expected because the virtual machine was configured with 6GB of memory.

I’m currently still waiting for the ioVDI support engineer to call me back with a recommendation whether to increase the drive space or perhaps do not redirect the page file and will update this post when I get a firm answer.

Update Aug 9, 2015

I received confirmation from the support engineer that the pagefile.sys should be redirected to the disposable disk as it is by design.  The case is currently being escalated to the engineering group because there have been several customers with the same issue.  One of the another engineer I worked with is was able to locate a command to disable the redirection of this file:

iottool redirectpagefile { enable | disable } : Enable or Disable redirection of pagefile.sys. The command

takes effect after reboot.

I haven’t tried this yet because I wanted to wait for engineering to get back to us on a better resolution.

Update Aug 10, 2015

We didn’t get an update from the other support engineer who’s trying to escalate the case so I went ahead and made the change to disable the redirect of the pagefile via the command above, rebooted the VDI and immediately noticed that all the sporadic out of memory, out of disk space error messages and other problems we had went away.  The VDI also feels a lot faster.  Here is a screenshot what the command prompt output looks like when executed directly on the VDI: