Configuring Asset Management › Collect Tasks › Configuring the Collect Task to Control Content Distribution › Waking Virtual Machines (Virtual WOL) › Verify Prerequisites

Verify Prerequisites

The following prerequisites are required for virtual WOL to work:

• Verify that the AM remote agent (RVI agent) is installed on a physical computer or on a virtual machine. Virtual WOLs are always performed from the computer that runs the AM remote agent.

  Note: The RVI agent cannot collect certain BIOS inventory attributes from Linux virtual machines that are running on Microsoft Hyper-V and XenServer servers, Virtual WOL is not supported on such Linux virtual machines.

• Verify that the scalability server is able to communicate to the AM remote agent computer. Virtual WOL requests are routed from the scalability server to the AM remote agent.
• Verify that the AM remote agent has discovered and collected virtualization data from the VMs that you want to wake. The AM remote agent collects virtualization data through the inventory collection task. Until the inventory collection happens, a WOL operation assumes that the target computer is physical and not virtual. The inventory collection takes time depending on the number of VMs to be discovered and registered.

Note: Virtual WOL is not supported on guests running on the free version of VMware ESXi as the free version restricts API access to the host.

Enable or Disable Virtual WOL for Computers or Groups

Virtual WOL is enabled by default on all the virtual machines. When a virtualization server hosts numerous VMs, but lacks the resources to run them at the same time, you can disable virtual WOL on its VMs. You can enable it back when you want to power up computers remotely.

Follow these steps:

1. Right-click the computer or group and select Power up, Disable.

   The virtual WOL is disabled on the computer. The computer or group is added to the do not wake group.

2. Right-click the computer or group and verify that the Power up, Power up is dimmed.

   This action verifies that the virtual WOL is disabled.

View Virtual WOL Status of Computers

You can view the virtual WOL status of a computer to know whether you can power it up using CA ITCM. You can view the status in one of the following nodes in DSM Explorer:

• Power on enabled under the Agent Status portlet on the homepage tab of the virtual machine
• Can be powered up option on the Computer Properties dialog

  Note: This option is available only for DSM components that can perform a bulk wakeup, such as software delivery and DTS. The Can be powered up option is not applicable for remote control.

• Power Up option under Computers, General, Computer in the Add Argument dialog in Query Designer for computer-based queries

View Virtual Machines that are Powered Off

You must know whether a virtual machine is powered on or off before you wake it up. You only want to wake up those that are powered off. To view the power on status of virtual machines on a particular virtualization server, navigate to All Computers, Virtualization server, Inventory, Virtualization, Server Virtual Machines. View the State column on the right pane.

Wake a Virtual Machine Using the CLI

You can wake a virtual machine using the CLI. For example, when you want to wake multiple virtual machines using a batch script. The following command wakes a virtual machine:

caf sendwol [user username password password] vm vGUID guid vsvr url rviagent fqdn

username and password

Specifies the credentials of an administrative user on the AM remote agent computer. When you use the same computer credential that you are executing the CLI, you can skip the parameters.

vm

Specifies that virtual WOL must be performed.

vGUID

Specifies the ID of the virtual machine as known to the host. The ID can be a virtual GUID, system ID, or serial number depending on the platform virtualization server type.

vsvr

Specifies the URL of the virtual server host of the current virtual machine.

rviagent

Specifies the FQDN of the AM remote agent that discovered the virtual machine.

Virtual WOL Example

This example performs virtual WOL on a virtual machine:

caf sendwol user root password secret vm vsvr https://virt.acme.com/sdk vguid 123456 rviagent rvi3.acme.com

Note: For more detailed information about CAF commands, type caf <command> /? at the command prompt.

Wake a Virtual Machine Using DSM Explorer

You can wake a virtual machine from the DSM Explorer. Right-click the virtual machines that you want to wake and select the Power up option. This action sends the virtual WOL request for the computer. Connect to the virtual machine to see whether the virtual machine is woken up.

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