Free Virtualization Tool for VMware Environments Updated: RVTools 3.8 : @VMblog

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Free Virtualization Tool for VMware Environments Updated: RVTools 3.8

Back in April 2008, VMware community member and VMware vExpert Rob de Veij launched a 1.0 version of a free tool called RVTools. Over time, that tool has truly become an industry fan favorite, as evidenced by it being downloaded more than half a million times to date.

Rob has just announced the launch of a new release, RVTools version 3.8, an update that has been in the works for about a year now.

RVTools Background

RVTools is a Windows .NET 2.0 application which uses the VI SDK to display information about your virtual machines and ESX hosts. It helps users find out about misconfigurations in their virtual environment, and it can also be used as a general reporting tool.

It lists information about a wide array of components, including: VMs, CPU, Memory, Disks, Partitions, Network, Floppy drives, CD drives, Snapshots, VMware tools, Resource pools, Clusters, ESX hosts, HBAs, Nics, Switches, Ports, Distributed Switches, Distributed Ports, Service consoles, VM Kernels, Datastores, multipath info and health checks.

With RVTools, you can disconnect the CD-rom or floppy drives from the virtual machines, and RVTools can even update the VMware Tools installed inside each virtual machine to the latest version.

RVTools

Support

RVTools is able to interact with: ESX Server 3.5, VirtualCenter 2.5, ESX Server 3i, ESX Server 4i, VirtualCenter 4.x, ESX 4.x, VirtualCenter 5.0, VirtualCenter Appliance, ESX 5.0, VirtualCenter 5.1, ESX 5.1, VirtualCenter 5.5, ESX 5.5, VirtualCenter 6.0 and ESX 6.0.

What's new in RVTools 3.8?

VI SDK reference changed from 5.5 to 6.0
on vInfo tab page new field: ChangeVersion unique identifier for a given version of the configuration
on vInfo tab page new field: HA VM Monitoring status
on vInfo tab page new fields: Number of supported monitors and Video RAM in KB.
on vInfo tab page new field: Config status.
VM config issues are visible on the vHealth tab page
on vInfo tab page new field: OS according to the VMware Tools
on vTools tab page new fields: App state, App heartbeat status and Kernel crash state
on vTools tab page new fields: Operations availability, State change support and Interactive Guest Operations availability
on vHost tab page new field: NTPD running state.
NTP issues are visible on the vHealth tab page
on vHost tab page new field: Config status.
Host config issues are visible on the vHealth tab page
on vCluster tab page new field: Config status.
Cluster config issues are visible on the vHealth tab page
on vDatastore tab page new field: Config status.
Datastore config issues are visible on the vHealth tab page
on vSC+VMK tab page new fields: IP 6 Address and IP 6 Gateway
all VM related tab pages now have a VM Object ID and VM UUID columns
all VM related tab pages now have powerstate and template columns
all tab pages. Now have a vCenter UUID column (= unique identifier for a vCenter Server)
all VM related tab pages. The Custom Attributes columns are now ordered alphabetically
all tab pages. A select is now a full row select so it is easier to follow the information across many columns
bug fix: Refresh data issue on vRP and vCluster tab pages solved
bug fix: Filter issue on vCluster tab page solved
bug fix: On vInfo tab page the HA information was not filled with cluster default values
bug fix: Content Libraries vmdk files are no longer reported as possible zombie files
bug fix: msi installer sometimes installs RVTools in root of c:\ drive. This is solved now.