Troubleshooting Tips

servicedesk@senecacollege.ca

The Seneca College service desk is available to help if you get really stuck. Provide them as much information as you can and include screenshots with error messages if applicable.

Try to fix things yourself first. There are lots of good resources below and more will be posted as they are found.

COMPLETING LABS ON YOUR PERSONAL LAPTOP OR PC:

First, you need to make sure that your home PC or laptop meets the minimum specifications. Ideally, you will duplicate the specifications of the lab computers with a CPU that supports virtualization (configurable through the BIOS – see instructions for this below) and a minimum of 16GB RAM so we can run multiple virtual machines simultaneously.

If you have only 8GB of RAM, you should be able to run 1 VM at a time, or you can change the amount of RAM used by each VM and potentially run up to 2 VMs simultaneously. This will be slow.

Running VMWare Workstation Pro at Home

Do not use VMWare from MyApps when you are at home.

Seneca provides all students with a free license to use VMWare Workstation Pro, downloadable from VMWare On TheHub (link in menu on MySeneca, or Google “Seneca ICT VMWare”.

Your username will be your Seneca email address. Use the forgot password link if you forgot your password or never set one.

Once you select your product from the online store and choose Checkout, the serial key will be generated and the download option will be listed.

Install the software and then enter the serial key under Help/About menu in VMWare Workstation.

How can I enable virtualization (VT) on my PC?

When you run VMWare on your home computer, you may see this message if virtualization is not enabled.

Use the instructions HERE to turn on virtualization on your computer. It is possible your computer does not support hardware virtualization.

VMWare Virtual Hardware Mismatch (different versions)

“The Version of the VMware Workstation determines the Virtual Hardware version ( Version 15 mean HW version 15) especially if you do typical when creating virtual machines. Choose Custom and choose VMware Workstation 12.x and it will allow it to work on any version 12 and up.

For your current virtual machine edit the following:

Open the virtual “Virtual machine name”.vmx file with a text editor, such as Notepad, and change:

virtualhw.version = “15” to virtualhw.version = “12” (or whatever versions you are using). Save the file and then open the virtual machine normally and the virtual machine should work.

Recovering a corrupted virtual machine (VM will not start).

There are 5 main files that make up your Virtual Machine (VM). Before you start your VM, the files below should be listed in your VM’s folder. More files will exist when the VM is running. More files can also exist if the VM was not shut down correctly and then it becomes corrupted.

vmname.vmx – primary configuration file

vmname.vmdk – virtual disk file – if you followed lab instructions you will have only one of these files, but it is possible to have more depending on VM configuration

vmname.vmsd – stores information and metadata about snapshots

vmname.vmxf – configuration file for VM teaming

vmname.nvram – stores the state of the VM BIOS

Log files also may exist that contain information that might help with troubleshooting.

If your VM becomes corrupted because of an improper shutdown and will not start. Check the contents of your VM folder. Delete all extra files except for the 5 files listed above. Start the VM.

There is more VMWare information further down this page.

GENERAL

**How to create a “screen shot” or “screen capture“. Do this from the HOST operating system, not from inside the VMs (Snipping Tool does not exist in Windows Server):
https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4027213/windows-10-open-snipping-tool-and-take-a-screenshot

You can also use Shift+PrtScr to copy the screen and PASTE the screen shot into MS Paint, and save as an image.

CONNECTIVITY

Symptom:
No connectivity between VMs. (ping does not work, domain cannot be found)

check TCP/IP settings (IP address, subnet mask)
ensure your VM Network Card setting is Bridged, not NAT

Symptom:
You can connect with an IP address, but not with a computer name or domain name.

make sure your Preferred DNS server setting is set to the IP address of the server running DNS (in our labs, this is normally Server 2, but in the lab assignment it is the first server set up a a domain controller in a new domain).

Symptom:
You cannot connect to your domain (domain cannot be found).

make sure you are typing the correct domain name, including .com
make sure your Preferred DNS server setting is set to the IP address of the server running DNS, which should be Server1 in our labs.
pay attention to the error messages. If you are getting a credentials error, remember that you must provide an Administrator username and password that has administrative privileges on the domain (domain.comAdministrator with a password of P@ssw0rd)

VMWare and VMs

VMWare Workstation Pro Support Center, click HERE.

VMWare Workstation Pro User Documentation, click HERE.

Tips for working with VMWare and Virtual Machines:

It can be helpful to put each VM into a separate folder on your SSD. This will help you to easily be able to identify which files belong to a particular VM.

You may want to make backups of VMs while they are working well. Copy the appropriate files into a separate folder on your SSD.

For maximum portability and compatibility of your VMs, create a VM using the Custom settings, and select Workstation 11.x under Hardware Compatibility. This will make it easier to use your VM if you have a Mac running Fusion, or if you are using other versions of VMWare Workstation Pro.

Files that make up your Virtual Machine:

.vmx	<vmname>.vmx	This is the primary configuration file, which stores settings chosen in the New Virtual Machine Wizard or virtual machine settings editor. This file can be edited (for example, changing the VMWare version) or you can use the contents to build a new virtual machine that contains settings that match one you are trying to repair.
.vmdk	<vmname>.vmdk	This is a virtual disk file, which stores the contents of the virtual machine’s hard disk drive. A virtual disk is made up of one or more .vmdk files. If you have specified that the virtual disk should be split into 2GB chunks, the number of .vmdk files depends on the size of the virtual disk. As data is added to a virtual disk, the .vmdk files grow in size, to a maximum of 2GB each. (If you specify that all space should be allocated when you create the disk, these files start at the maximum size and do not grow.) Almost all of a .vmdk file’s content is the virtual machine’s data, with a small portion allotted to virtual machine overhead. For our labs, we should have only 1vmdk file per VM, until Lab 6 where we purposely create more. If you corrupt your VM by not shutting down properly, but your vmdk file is still intact, you can create a new VM and attach the EXISTING vmdk file to recover the work in the corrupted VM. Earlier VMware products used the extension .dsk for virtual disk files.
.vmsd	<vmname>.vmsd	This is a centralized file for storing information and metadata about snapshots.
.vmxf	<vmname>.vmxf	Supplemental configuration file for VM teaming where multiple VMs can be assigned to a team so they can be powered on or off, or suspended and resumed as a single object.
.nvram	<vmname>.nvram	This is the file that stores the state of the virtual machine’s BIOS.
.log	<vmname>.log or vmware.log	This is the file that keeps a log of key VMware Workstation activity. This file can be useful in troubleshooting if you encounter problems. This file is stored in the directory that holds the configuration (.vmx) file of the virtual machine.
Files Related to Snapshots and Saved States
.vmsn	<vmname>-Snapshot.vmsn	This is the snapshot state file, which stores the running state of a virtual machine at the time you take that snapshot
.vmsn	<vmname>-Snapshot<###>.vmsn	This is the file which stores the state of a snapshot
.vmss	<vmname>.vmss	This is the suspended state file, which stores the state of a suspended virtual machine .Some earlier VMware products used the extension .std for suspended state files
Files Related to a VM that is running or has failed.
.vmem	uuid.vmem	The virtual machine paging file, which backs up the guest main memory on the host file system. This file exists only when the virtual machine is running or if the virtual machine fails. It is stored in the working directory.

There can be other files in the directory, some of which are present only while a virtual machine is running.