The VMware Virtual SAN Observer is currently the best monitoring and troubleshooting tool for Virtual SAN that is available today. The tool is utilized for monitoring performance statistics for Virtual SAN live or offline.The Virtual SAN Observer UI depends on a couple of JavaScript and CSS libraries (JQuery, d3, angular, bootstrap, font-awesome) in order successfully display the performance statistics and their information.
These library files are access and loaded during runtime when the Virtual SAN Observer page is rendered. The tool requires access to the libraries mentioned above in order to work correctly. This means that the vCenter Server requires access to the internet. This requirement can potentially present a challenge in secured environments where applications with access to the internet is not be a practical form of operation and its not allowed.
Many vSphere admins have encountered this issue. In particular, those supporting secured environments. In order to overcome this issue, the vCenter Server Appliance can be modified so that it can access the required files and library locally.
Note: it is a recommended practice to always deploy an out of band vCenter Server Appliance for the purpose of using Virtual SAN Observer.
In order to configure the Virtual SAN Observer to work without internet connectivity (offline mode) the files listed below need to be modified. The html files are located under the vCenter Server appliance “/opt/vmware/rvc/lib/rvc/observer/” directory.
stats.erb.html
graphs.html
history.erb.html
login.erb.html
JavaScript and CSS Files Modifications
Locate the graphs.html, stats.erb.html, history.erb.html and login.erb.html files located under “/opt/vmware/rvc/lib/rvc/observer/” and download the exact versions of the JavaScript, CSS, and font libraries mentioned in those files.
The list of JavaScript, CSS, and font files need to be downloaded on to a local system. The EXACT versions are required for this to work (refer the source page from a web browser for exact versions). Create a folder structure under the “/opt/vmware/rvc/lib/rvc/observer/” directory as presented below and place the respective library files within each directory.
Folder Structure
Top folder – externallibs
Sub folders – js, css, font
Sub folder – js
angular.min.js
bootstrap-datepicker.min.js
bootstrap.min.js
d3.v3.min.js
jquery-1.9.1.min.js
jquery-1.9.1.min.map
jquery-ui.min.js
jquery.js
Sub folder – css
bootstrap-combined.no-icons.min.css
datapicker.min.css
font-awesome.css
Sub folder – font
fontawesome-webfont.eot
fontawesome-webfont.svg
fontawesome-webfont.ttf
fontawesome-webfont.woff
FontAwesome.otf
HTML Files Modifications
Modify the content within <script></script>, <link> tags and replace them with just the file name instead of the http link.
Once all the changes have been made, connect to the vCenter Server Appliance with RVC and perform a reload by typing “reload” in the CLI before starting the Virtual SAN Observer. To start Virtual SAN observer from the RVC command line interface use the command listed below, then access the Virtual SAN Observer web page by pointing to the vCenter Server appliance address on port 8010 (http://vcsaIP/fqdn:8010).
Note: The file and modifications covered in this article are compatible with the latest release of vCenter Server Update 2. This will not work with vCenter Server Update 1.
Special thanks to our awesome engineers Mousumi Mullick and Christian Dickmann for helping out with all of the Virtual SAN Observer greatness!!
– Enjoy
For future updates on Virtual SAN (VSAN), Virtual Volumes (VVols), and other Software-defined Storage technologies as well as vSphere + OpenStack be sure to follow me on Twitter: @PunchingClouds
