300+ TOP Windows Vmware Interview Questions – Answers

1. What Is The Maximum Number Of Luns That Can Be Attached To A Host (esxi 5.0)?

256

2. What Is The Maximum Number Of Vcpus That Can Be Assigned To A Vm (esxi 5.0)?

32

3. What Are The Uses Of Ntdsutil Tool?

Some of the main uses of ntdsutil tool:

• Authoritative Restore – Authoritatively restores the Active Directory database or AD LDS instance
• ifm  – Create installation media for writable and RODC setups (Offline DC provisioning)
• metadata cleanup – Cleans up objects of decommissioned servers
• roles – Transfers and seizes operations master roles
• set DSRM password – Resets DSRM administrator password
• snapshot – Manages snapshots of the volumes that contain the Active Directory database and log files

4. What Is Scratch Partition?

Scratch partition stores the logs and other details of ESXi which helps in troubleshooting

5. What Is The Name Of Ballooning Driver In Esxi?

vmmemctl

6. What Is Vmcp?

VMCP is VMware Component Protection

This new feature in 6.0 ensures that VMs are rebooted in other servers during APD or PDL situations

7. What Are The Various Memory States In Esxi ?

• High
• Clear
• Soft
• Hard
• Low

8. What Is Vmx~?

• In addition to the normal vmx file, from vSphere 6.0 onwards there is an additional file vmx~
• vmx~ first takes any configuration changes and then writes to the actual vmx file
• This ensures that the actual vmx file do not get corrupted

9. How Can I Check If Storage Is Vaai Capable?

Check datastore and confirm if it supports Hardware Acceleration

10. What Are The Two Deployment Models Of Psc?

Embedded & External

• Embedded if PSC is installed in vCenter box
• External if PSC is installed outside vCenter in separate box

11. What Is Psc?

• PSC is Platform Service Controller
• This is an extended SSO model which was there in pre 6.0 versions
• It takes care of authentication,licensing,certificates etc..

12. What If Reconnecting The Esxi Host Back To An Evc Cluster Fails?

• Make a note of the VM folders
• Remove the ESXi host from the inventory
• Add the ESXi host directly to the vCenter outside the EVC cluster
• Now move the server to the EVC cluster
• Add the VMs back to the folders

13. How Can I Change The Evc Mode Of An Existing Cluster?

You need to shutdown all running VMs in that cluster to change the EVC mode

14. What Are The Sub Plugins In Nmp?

• SATP and PSP are the two sub plugins of NMP
• SATP or Storage Array Type Plugins take care of the fail over mechanism of datastore and keeps track of paths available to a LUN or datastore
• PSP or Path Selection Plugins determines which physical path should be used to issue I/O requests to a storage device

15. What Is Nmp And Its Role In Vmware?

• NMP is Native Multipath Plugin
• It is the default multipath plugin in VMware
• Manages physical path claiming and unclaiming
• Registers and de-registers logical devices
• Associates physical paths with logical devices
• Processes I/O requests to logical devices

16. Which Is The Partition Type Used In Vmware Esxi Scratch Partition?

VFAT

17. What Is Pluggable Storage Architecture In Vmware?

• To manage storage multipathing, ESX/ESXi uses a special VMkernel layer called Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA)
• Handles I/O queueing to the logical devices. Handles physical path discovery and removal

18. How To Promote A Server To Domain Controller In Windows Server 2012?

• DCPROMO was the conventional tool used to promote a normal server to DC. This is now deprecated in Server 2012. 
• In Server 2012, you can convert a server into DC using the server manager console. Under Server Manager, add a new role “Active Directory Domain Services”

19. What Is Ipam Server In Windows Server 2012?

IPAM is IP Address Management server in Windows Server 2012. It enables central management of both DHCP and DNS servers. It can also be used to discover, monitor, and audit DHCP and DNS servers.

20. Can You Map A Single Virtual Switch To Multiple Physical Nics?

Yes. This method is called NIC teaming.

21. In Vsphere 5.5, Vmkernel Portgroup Can Be Used For..?

• vMotion
• Fault Tolerance Logging
• Management traffic

22. Can You Map A Single Physical Nic To Multiple Virtual Switches ?

No

23. Command Line Tool Used In Esxi To Manage Virtual Disk Files?

vmkfstools

24. What Is The Port Used For Vmotion?

8000

25. What Is The Log File Location Of Vmware Host?

varlogvmware

26. Which Is The Command Used In Esxi To View Live Performance Data?

esxtop

27. Which Is The Command Used In Esxi To Manage And Retrieve Information From Virtual Machines ?

vmware-cmd

28. The Active Directory Group, Where The Members Will Be Esxi Administrators By Default?

ESX Admins

29. When Is A Swap File Created?

When the guest OS is first installed in the VM

30. What Is ‘no Access’ Role?

 Users assigned with the ‘No Access’ role for an object, cannot view or change the object in any way

31. What Is The Port Used For Vcenter?

80,443,902

32. Which Networking Features Are Recommended While Using Iscsi Traffic?

• iSCSI port binding
• Jumbo Frames

33. What Is Default Time After Which The Dhcp Client Assigns Itself An Apipa ?

The client waits for 60 seconds before which it assigns automatic private ip address

34. How To Upgrade Esxi 5.1 To Esxi 5.5 ?

• Using vSphere update manager
• Upgrade interactively using the ESXi installer ISO image on CD/DVD or Flash drive
• Using vSphere Auto Deploy
• Using esxcli command-line interface

35. Dset Stands For?

Dell Server E-Support Tool (DSET) provides the ability to collect hardware, storage and operating system information from Dell PowerEdge server.

36. How To Update Dell Server Bios ?

Dell provides the update in different file formats. One for Windows , one for linux…If it is a VMware server, then download the Non-Packaged exe format from Dell website and copy it to a DOS bootable USB drive. Shutdown the server and boot from USB drive and execute the file.

37. What If All Gc In The Environment Are Down ?

• GC is required for multi domain forests – In a single domain infrastructure, the DCs will not contact the GC for authenticating. But in multi domain infrastructure, GC is required for authentication.
• Universal Group Membership evaluation – Universal Group Membership which exists in a multi domain forests works only with GC.
• UPN resolution – The users cannot login to the domain using the username abc@example.com

38. What Happens When A Standalone Host Is Taken Into Maintenance Mode ?

The activity will wait until all VMs are shutdown.

39. How Can I Add New Hdd Space To An Existing Drive ?

Convert the drive from Basic to Dynamic

40. How Is An Iscsi Device Connected To A Server ?

An iscsi device can be connected using the iqn number.

41. What Is Das ? How Is It Connected To The Server ?

DAS is Direct Attached Storage. DAS is available with many vendors. When a server has exhausted all its storage resource, we can connect a DAS solution to it. DAS can be connected to a server using SAS cable.

42. Can We Setup An Ad Site Without A Dc ?

Yes..

43. In Raid 5, Which Activity Is Faster – Read Or Write ?

•  Good Read performance but slower Write operations due to parity calculation.
• RAID 0 and RAID 1 has got excellent Read and Write performance

44. What Is The Difference Between Raid 1 And Raid 5 ?

•  RAID 1 – Mirroring – This RAID configuration gives you maximum redundancy as the same data is written into two disks at a time. But this solution will be costly as you always need to have disks double of what you actually require. Minimum 2 disks required.
• RAID 5 – This RAID is the most popular RAID configuration. This works on the parity principle. Minimum 3 disks required. Even if one disk fail, the data of the failed disk can be calculated from the parity stored in the other 2 disks.

45. How To Replace A Failed Raid Controller ?

This depends on the type of controller used. If you are using modern RAID controllers and are trying to replace with the same model, then the RAID should work without any issues as the RAID configuration or metadata is stored in the disk array. But you should ensure that you are using the same model from vendor or a model which is compatible with the failed controller.

46. What Is The Use Of Ldp.exe?

This is a part of Windows Support tools which helps us to make any LDAP searches against the Active Directory

47. What Is Group Policy Preference ?

Group policy preference is a set of new settings that were released with Windows 2008, that allows IT administrators to do anything they want to configure in a corporate environment.

48. What Is Frs And Dfs-r ?

• File Replication Service (FRS), introduced in Windows 2000 server to replicate DFS and Sysvol folder in DC. FRS is no longer used in new versions.
• Distributed File System Replication (DFS-R), introduced in Windows 2008R2, came out as a replacement to FRS for replicating DFS and Sysvol.  

49. What Is An Ip Helper Address Feature And Why Is It Required In A Dhcp Environment ?

• IP helper-address helps to implement DHCP relay agent in Cisco routers
• This is configured at the network interface of the router containing the DHCP client
• The IP helper-address intercepts the DHCP discover message from the client and unicasts it to the DHCP server after adding ‘Option 82’.
• With the help of Option 82, the DHCP server identifies the client network and assigns an IP from that network.

50. How Many Passwords By Default Are Remembered When You Check “enforce Password History Remembered”?

24

51. Difference Between Everyone And Authenticated Users?

• Authenticated Users – Include all Users and Computers whose identities have been authenticated.
• Everyone – For Windows 2003 and above, ‘Everyone’ includes all Authenticated Users including Guest accounts. Before Windows 2003, ‘Everyone’ includes all Authenticated Users , Guest accounts and Anonymous account.

52. What’s The Number Of Permitted Unsuccessful Logons For Administrator Account?

Unlimited – Only for Administrator, not for others in Administrators group

53. What Is The Schema Version Of Windows 2008 R2 ?

• Windows 2003 R2 – 31
• Windows 2008       – 44
• Windows 2008 R2 – 47
• Windows 2012       – 56
• Windows 2012 R2 – 69

54. What Is Urgent Replication In Ad ?

Normally, a change in a DC (say DC1) is notified to its replication partner(say DC2) after 15 seconds. Once the change is notified, DC2 makes the change in its database. DC2 then notifies its replication partner after another 15 seconds. If it’s a multi-site setup, the 15 seconds delay would cost a big delay for the final recipient DC. Suppose if the change was an ‘Account Lock Out’, this big delay will be a pain. Here comes Urgent notification. Urgent notification bypasses the change notification delay and processes the change immediately across all DCs.

55. How To Migrate Ad Location To Another ? (from C:ad To D:ad)

• First, stop the Active Directory Domain Services
• Open Command Prompt with Admin privilege
• Run ntdsutil tool
• In the ntdsutil prompt, type Activate instance ntds
• Then type files
• In the next prompt (file maintenance), type move db to D:AD
• Once the database is moved, move the logs using the command move logs to D:AD
• Once completed, start the Active Directory Domain Services

56. Can You Explain Netlogon Services ?

The Netlogon services help the client servers to connect to the Domain

57. Can You Connect Active Directory To Other 3rd-party Directory Services? Name A Few Options.

• Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS)
• Forefront Identity Manager (FIM)

58. I Want To Look At The Rid Allocation Table For A Dc. What Do I Do?

Dcdiag.exe /TEST:RidManager /v | find /i “Available RID Pool for the Domain”

59. Why Can’t You Restore A Dc That Was Backed Up 4 Months Ago?

The reason is ‘Tombstoning’ . If a domain controller was restored from a backup that was older than the tombstone lifetime, then the domain controller might contain deleted objects, and because the tombstones are deleted from the replica, the deletion event does not replicate into the restored domain controller. This is why Backup does not allow you to restore data from a backup that is older than the tombstone lifetime.

60. Can I Deploy Non-msi Software With Gpo?

Yes, you can. Apart from MSI packages, GPO also supports deployment of ZAP files

61. How Frequently Is The Client Policy Refreshed ?

By default, group policy is updated in the background every 90 minutes.You can specify an update rate from 0 to 44,640 minutes (31 days). If you select 0 minutes, the computer tries to update Group Policy every 7 seconds. However, because updates might interfere with users’ work and increase network traffic, very short update intervals are not appropriate for most installations.

The refresh interval can be configured manually using group policy – GPO –> Computer Configuration –> Administrative Templates –> System –> Group Policy –> Set Group Policy refresh interval for Computers

62. How Does The Group Policy ‘no Override’ And ‘block Inheritance’ Work ?

No Override – This prevents child containers from overriding policies set at higher levels

Block Inheritance – Stops containers inheriting policies from parent containers

63. Which Esxtop Metric Will You Use To Confirm Latency Issue Of Storage ?

esxtop –> d –> DAVG

64. What Are Standby Nics?

These adapters will only become Active if the defined Active adapters have failed.

• Path selection policies in ESXi
• Most Recently Used (MRU)
• Fixed
• Round Robin

65. Recommended Iscsi Configuration Of A 6 Nic Infrastructure ? (answer Changes As Per The Infrastructure Requirements)

• 2 NICs for VM traffic
• 2 NICs for iSCSI traffic
• 1 NIC for vMotion
• 1 NIC for management network
• Post conversion steps in P2V
• Adjust the virtual hardware settings as required
• Remove non present device drivers
• Remove all unnecessary devices such as serial ports, USB controllers, floppy drives etc..
• Install VMware tools

66. Iscsi Port Binding Considerations ?

• Array Target iSCSI ports must reside in the same broadcast domain and IP subnet as the VMkernel port.
• All VMkernel ports used for iSCSI connectivity must reside in the same broadcast domain and IP subnet.
• All VMkernel ports used for iSCSI connectivity must reside in the same vSwitch.
• Currently, port binding does not support network routing.

67. What Is Iscsi Port Binding ?

Port binding is used in iSCSI when multiple VMkernel ports for iSCSI reside in the same broadcast domain and IP subnet, to allow multiple paths to an iSCSI array that broadcasts a single IP address.

68. Recommended Iscsi Configuration?

A separate vSwitch, and a separate network other than VMtraffic network for iSCSI traffic. Dedicated physical NICs should be connected to vSwitch configured for iSCSI traffic.

69. What Is Vsan?

It is a hypervisor-converged storage solution built by aggregating the local storage attached to the ESXi hosts managed by a vCenter. 

70. Explain About Backup Types?

Backup types:

• Full backup – Will take the backup of all selected files and reset the archive bit
• Copy backup – Will take the backup of all selected files but does not reset the archive bit
• Incremental backup – Will take the backup of files whose archive bits are set and resets it after backup
• Differential backup – Will take the backup of files whose archive bits are set but does not reset it after backup 

71. Explain About Raid?

• Redundant Array of Independent disks
• A category of disk drives that uses 2 or more drives in a combination for redundancy and performance
• Most common RAIDs: RAID 0(Striped), RAID 1(Mirroring), RAID 5

72. Explain About Global Catalog?

Global Catalog

• Global catalog (GC) is a role handled by domain controllers in an Active directory model. 
• The global catalog stores a full copy of all objects in the directory for its host domain and a partial copy of all objects for all other domains in the forest. 
• ‘Partial copy’ refers to the set of attributes that are most used for searching every object in every domain.
• All domain controllers can be promoted as a GC. 
• GC helps in faster search of AD objects.  
• The replicas that are replicated to the global catalog also include the access permissions for each object and attribute. 
• If you are searching for an object that you do not have permission to access, you do not see the object in the list of search results. Users can find only objects to which they are allowed access.
• Global catalog server clients depend on DNS to provide the IP address of global catalog servers. DNS is required to advertise global catalog servers for domain controller location.
• By default, first DC of in a forest will be a global catalog server

73. Explain Traverse Folder?

Allows or denies moving through a restricted folder to reach files and folders beneath the restricted folder in the folder hierarchy. 

Traverse folder takes effect only when the group or user is not granted the “Bypass traverse checking user” right in the Group Policy snap-in. This permission does not automatically allow running program files.

74. How Will You Clone A Vm In An Esxi Without Vcenter?

• Using vmkftools
• Copy the vmdk file and attach to a new VM
• Using VMware converter