Greetings to all.
I've got a few VMs that I want to start up on a single ESX box automatically once the host is up.
I've enabled the VM Startup & Shutdown option under configuration, and set the order of my VM' to bootup accordingly.
Now, I've noticed two issues with the automatic starting of VMs:
1) When I check off "Continue immediately if the VMware Tools stat", this doesn't actually /do/ anything. The VMs automatically start (as do the tools inside the VM's) as they should, but only one after another once the startup delay has exceeded (120 seconds). Regardless of if the VMware Tools inside the guest starts or not (I can see the VMware Tools switches to "OK" once the box is up and running), ESX still sits around and waits for the startup delay before starting additional VM's.
2) As my VM's are starting, I can't access the "Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown" page under VI Client. If I do, it shows up as "blank" (nothing in the box where it usually lists the VM startup order), and then anything else that I click on under VI Client is also blank from that point onward (ie, if I click on health- nothing shows up). Eventually VI Client completely hangs. It will "unfreeze" as soon as my VM's are done the automatic startup- but not before. If I don't click on "Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown" while my VMs are automatically starting up, then this doesn't happen.
I'm not sure if these are bugs or what, but VM Startup & Shutdown seems somewhat buggy, especially with VI Client hanging like it does if I try and access the Startup & Shutdown configuration page /before/ all my VM's have finished starting (see #1, since the VMs won't continue even if VMware Tools starts).
I've tested this in both ESXi and ESX, both running the latest (U3) releases from VMware. Same results in both cases, even with the HP and generic releases of ESXi.
-SC