Set UCS SPAN Destination Interface Speed

If the sniffer connected to the traffic monitoring port on the Fabric Interconnect (port 1-8 on a 6120) is running at 1Gbps, the Status of the Port will be failed with the additional information as “SFP Validation Failed” even with a valid SFP in the port. The speed of the port needs to be set at 1 Gbps for it to be in UP state as it does not auto-negotiate. The GUI option for changing speed of a monitoring port to 1 Gbps is not present (Defect ID: CSCti86217) so as a workaround, set the as an Uplink port, set the admin speed to 1 Gbps (under the LAN tab) and then unconfigure the port. The admin speed sticks as 1 Gbps and then the port can be set as a Monitor port and will come up at 1Gbps. 

In my experience, setting the port's admin speed to 1 Gbps from 'Show Interface' in the equipment tab is not enough to force the port to preserve the 1 Gbps speed.

UCS Database Browser - Visore

The database browser, Visore, can be viewed by browsing to the following link: http(s)://<ip of FI>/visore.html

Nothing can be changed from Visore, but different aspects of the database can be viewed for configuration verification.

Blinking Cursor in VM of UC on UCS Apps

Currently, most OVA templates will try to boot off the hard drive which does not have any functional OS.  A blinking cursor is seen on the machine console.

You can work around this issue by manually configuring the boot order in the virtual machine's BIOS.  You can force the VM to boot into the BIOS on start-up in the following location within the VM's settings:

The defect, CSCtn40643, addresses this issue.

Black KVM Screen on C-Series Server

After an upgrade from 1.2(1b) to 1.3(2d), some C210 servers may experience a black KVM screen after the memory test/Cisco splash screen.  POST of PCI devices/onboard NICs will not be viewable.  You can break into these options by connecting up a physical monitor to the server.

In order to workaround this issue, the PC's Java cache must be cleared.
Steps to clear the Java cache can be found at the following link: http://www.java.com/en/download/help/plugin_cache.xml

The defect that addresses this issue is: CSCtl93037 - vKVM is blank after updating the CIMC FW from AP to BP.

Temporarily Add System VLAN to VEM

You can temporarily add system vlans with vemset if someone forgot and rebooted an ESXi host:

vemset system-vlan <vlan-id> ltl <ltl-num>

Example: If someone forgot to add management as a system vlan on their vEthernet port profile, and is now locked out of the host.

Check which vmk port you want:

~ # esxcfg-vmknic -l

Interface  Port Group/DVPort   IP Family IP Address                              Netmask         Broadcast       MAC Address       MTU     TSO MSS   Enabled Type   

vmk0       130                 IPv4      14.17.125.14                            255.255.255.0   14.17.125.255   00:50:56:7c:24:a9 1500    65535     true    STATIC 

Find the ltl:

~ # vemcmd show port

  LTL   VSM Port  Admin Link  State  PC-LTL  SGID  Vem Port

   17     Eth4/1     UP   UP    F/B*    305     0  vmnic0

   18     Eth4/2     UP   UP    F/B*    305     0  vmnic1

   49      Veth3     UP   UP    FWD       0     0  vmk0

Find the vlan:

~ # vemcmd show port vlans

                        Native  VLAN   Allowed

  LTL   VSM Port  Mode  VLAN    State  Vlans

   17     Eth4/1   T        1   FWD    64,125,129,225,325

   18     Eth4/2   T        1   FWD    64,125,129,225,325

   49      Veth3   A      125   FWD    125

Make it a system VLAN:

~ # vemset system-vlan 125 ltl 49

How to Analyze C-Series Tech-Support Bundle

1. Keep the name of the techsupport as <filename>.tar.gz

2. The techsupport bundle contains the following folders
            a)mnt
            b)tmp
            c)var
            d)obfl
            e)usr

3. OBFL (On Board Failure Logging) contains the logs of the CIMC , IPMI, SEL etc. It's circular and writes itself when the max number of events are reached.
            This folder should contains obfl files of 76KB size. New file is created once 76KB size is reached. The time stamp will tell the latest created file.
            Many types of failures should be looked into these files.
            IOCTL failures, network packet drop, Tulip driver issue, Process or memory issue.
            Use these keywords mainly error, fail, fault, disturbingly, critical, to search for such instances.

4. usr folder contains another folder IPMI. The IPMI folder contains the SDR file NVRAM_SDR00. This File is used decode the SEL.

5. tmp folder contains two files: one with same name as the bundle and another with filename_bios_post_results
            The first file will give most of the information about the system, firmware etc
            Get the BMC and BIOS versions. Board serial number and other information, CPU information, DIMM population and type information, card and adapter details, boot order information (SM BIOS TABLE) , Network settings, Memory and CPU consumption information.
            It also contains ifconfig information that will indicate what MAC addresses are active and what are the ips picked. The sensor listing with list the reading, fan speed and indicate in case any of these   sensors are in Critical or NR state. It also gives LED information.
            The BIOS file indicates the BIOS post completion information. It requires deeper knowledge of these codes to interpret this information.

6. var - The var folder contains multiple folders and files. Core folder contains any core dump file generated. It is a very complex process to analyze these files.
            IPMI folder contains the sensor alarm information and will tell what sensors are in alarmed state.
            Log folder contains log files like critical, peci, messages and avct_server. These can be opened with notepad.
            The avct_server file contains the VKVM related logs. search for fail, error, fault, to get the error messages logged related to VKVM. Messages and Critical files contains SEL, IPMI and CIMC logs and will give fairly good amount of error messages here.
            nuova folder contains information related to Rank margin test and memory status.
            The service folder contains the process status. and run contains information on pid.

7. mnt - This folder contains SEL file which can be used to decode SEL in association with SDR file.avct_ems_cfg contains some of the information on persistent data.cert contains certificate information.
            Links for sensor information

C-Series Tech-Support from CLI

Tech-support data can be exported from the GUI under the Admin tab -> Utilities, but it can also be collected via the CLI.

The following commands can be used from an SSH session into the server's CIMC to configure and start the collection of tech-support data:

scope cimc
scope tech-support
set tftp-ip x.x.x.x
set path supportfile
commit
start

You can view progress of the tech-support collection/upload by using the 'show detail' command repeatedly.

Reference: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10493/products_configuration_example09186a0080b10d5e.shtml