tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362697902008-09-24T11:46:31.271-07:00Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-48310910495368033642008-09-24T11:37:00.000-07:002008-09-24T11:46:31.320-07:00

Many things were announced at or before VMworld, Backup Tools were no different. Each major vendor has new versions of their software and this update to the backup guide looks at these new versions. Specifically version 2.0 from Veeam, 3.1.18 from PHD, and 3.4.2 from VizionCore. Look for more updates to this guide as new tools and versions of the products are released. Visit: http://

Texiwillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11446189501602364014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-87645497106453189032008-09-13T14:18:00.001-07:002008-09-13T14:21:07.462-07:00

A couple of readers wrote in to tell me that the new RCLI ( from Update 2 ) was incompatible with snapalert.pl. I had actually already changed how it worked ( it now scans an entire VirtualCenter vs a single Datacenter ) and the new version worked without any modifications in the new RCLI. The new version is available in the same place as the old one. Enjoy.

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-74436883945555441192008-09-13T13:58:00.001-07:002008-09-13T14:13:11.872-07:00

One of the downsides of moving from VMware ESX "Classic" to the svelte VMware ESXi Installable/Embedded is the loss of functionality of the service console, and the abiltiy to install 3rd party agents. When looking at the problem in depth, the only 3rd party software that was essential to how I worked on a day to day basis was the HP SIM agents which provided some hardware alerting that was hard

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-32342927800473944212008-08-13T14:01:00.001-07:002008-08-13T14:04:37.593-07:00

One of my co-workers made this as we ( they actually, I'm out on paternity leave ) worked on fixing the bug in ESX 3.5.0 Update 2 where the build times out on August 12th causing VMs not to power on, be VMotioned etc ( general havoc ). The cat is funny, but the problem... not so much.

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-86487036951916632022008-08-09T15:24:00.000-07:002008-08-09T15:48:26.548-07:00

With VMware ESX 3.5.0 Update 2, the VMware guys slipped in a feature named Enhanced VMotion Compatibility that will really prove to make virtual machines portable between hardware generations, potentially making hardware upgrades seamless to your end users. Enhanced VMotion Compatibility ( EVC for short ) is turned on at the cluster level, and it basically sets up a baseline ( lowest common

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-46836014679834943642008-08-09T15:15:00.000-07:002008-08-09T15:24:08.565-07:00

I have a feeling that not a lot of people have run into this issue yet, but as ESXi becomes more mainstream, this problem will crop up more and more. You see when you have an ESXi Embedded host that has no storage ( most likely a blade ) and you try to add that host to a HA cluster you get an error message similar to the following: HA agent has an error : Host in HA Cluster must have userworld

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-9623799783029704772008-06-06T13:44:00.000-07:002008-06-16T07:47:58.211-07:00

There is a new backup comparison (http://vmprofessional.com/index.php?content=esx3backups) that has been updated with Veeam Backup and some other odds and ends. I did add a new criteria to the list, and that is how well the software integrates with VC. While almost all can at least talk to VC, I have yet to find a tool that truly integrates into VC. My next update should be when I have time to

Texiwillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11446189501602364014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-63022082379516113302008-06-04T20:04:00.001-07:002008-06-04T20:13:54.548-07:00

To access the ESXi console in unsupported mode do the following. 1. Open the console of your ESXi host, you should see a screen that look something like the following ( altered to protect the innocent ): 2. Use the key-combo Alt+F1, and you'll bounce to a virutal terminal (vtty1) with some log messages in it. Though you won't get a response to any characters that you type in here type '

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-46334599754804670412008-06-04T19:32:00.000-07:002008-06-04T19:40:26.780-07:00

Tripwire Configcheck Tripwire made their move into the virtualization market today with the release of Tripwire Configcheck. Configcheck is a free utility that will audit your ESX host(s) and give recommendations on steps that you can make to ensure that your ESX host is in compliance with your security policies. Configcheck also offers detailed information on how to remediate any of items that

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-65420970140908835072008-06-04T19:20:00.000-07:002008-06-04T19:31:32.141-07:00

VMware released their latest round of patches for VMware ESX 3.0.1/3.0.2/3.5.0 today and as promised I'm right on top of it this time. All of the patchlist.txt's have been updated for the esx-autopatch.pl utility, you can get your updated copies here. ESX 3.5.0: Security Update to VMkernel and Multiple RPMs Update to VMware ESX Scripts Update to VMnix. Security Update to the Service Console for

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-87015540596241504172008-06-02T21:34:00.000-07:002008-06-03T07:13:45.407-07:00

A very useful, yet very undocumented feature of the Virtual Infrastructure Client is that it can be configured to automatically pass your Active Directory credentials without you typing them in. To use: create a shortcut to the Virtual Infrastructure Client, then right-click on it and edit the shortcut properties. You'll need to pass the program two arguments when calling it like so: "C:\

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-69778383487432803682008-06-02T21:26:00.000-07:002008-06-02T21:29:27.224-07:00

Sorry folks, I was offline for a while as I moved from one house to another. I'm just getting caught up now. I've uploaded new patchlist.txt files for ESX 3.5.0, 3.0.1 and 3.0.2 which you can find in the usual place. Happy patching.

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-43133706199247830672008-05-14T06:45:00.000-07:002008-05-14T06:51:02.606-07:00

The VMware ESX 3.x Backup Comparison article has been updated with new information about VCB and PhD esXpress. Lastly, Edward has added information about the backup capability of thei HP Virtual Machine Manager. This document will continue to grow, eventually including all the backup tools available. In the article, we explore the backup options available to System Administrators who deal with

Texiwillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11446189501602364014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-47726620379250986822008-04-21T20:54:00.000-07:002008-04-21T21:10:45.116-07:00

So I was off on vacation when the latest patches hit the street, and just finally got a chance to update the patchlist.txt files with the latest and greatest. Download your patchlist.txt here. Vizioncore updated it's vCharter Pro product, and by update I mean that it threw away the old one and built a new one from scratch with a much better interface and easier management. I've actually been

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-82975417021403535432008-04-11T20:02:00.000-07:002008-04-11T20:05:11.804-07:00

Snapshots are extremely useful to Virtual Machines, but keeping track of which VMs have snapshots can be problematic and/or time consuming. Snapshots that grow too large often degrade the I/O performance of the VM, lead to unbounded growth on the VMFS filesystem and can be difficult to commit when you decide you no longer need them. snapalert.pl is a perl script written to identify which VMs in

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-42892121531439690382008-04-11T19:23:00.000-07:002008-04-11T21:31:48.965-07:00

VMware Released two anticipated updates today VMware ESX 3.5.0 Update 1, VMWare ESXi 3.5.0 Installable Update 1 and VMware VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 1. The release date for these updates were accidentally posted briefly to the download section at VMware last week. A quick analysis of the release notes reveals: MSCS Clustering Support Support newer hardware Agents from Dell and HP 10GiB Ethernet

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-88716857529730242992008-03-31T18:34:00.001-07:002008-04-03T10:42:21.764-07:00

Trolling the VMTN forums today I came across something interesting, a script to balance the LUNs on your ESX hosts across multiple paths: for PATHS in 2 4 6 8 do STPATHS=${PATHS} COUNTER="1" for LUN in $(esxcfg-mpath -l | grep "has ${STPATHS} paths" | awk '{print $2}') do esxcfg-mpath --lun=${LUN} --path=$(esxcfg-mpath -q --lun=${LUN} |\ grep FC | awk '{print $4}' | awk '{

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-4869487813636530482008-03-31T07:30:00.000-07:002008-03-31T08:07:52.622-07:00

Scripted Install: Part I I manage a pretty sizable Virtual Infrastructure, and one of the questions that I find myself answering the most often is how to deploy and/or redeploy my hosts using a scripted installation. The answer to that is actually a little complex, and has a lot of minor details that are critical to make it all function well. Over the next few weeks I'm going to share my

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-91412183429367914792008-03-19T20:13:00.000-07:002008-03-19T20:26:40.388-07:00

Author: Edward L. Haletky ISBN: 0132302071 Published: January 8, 2008 For everyone looking for a solid book on server virtualization using VMware Virtual Infrastructure you can rest easy. Equal parts design guide, best practices, and cookbook this book is full of great background, pertinent info, and ways to make your infrastructure more reliable and secure. If this book were not so thorough

Mr Vmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-46143081193701264702008-03-18T20:40:00.001-07:002008-03-18T20:40:44.668-07:00

First and foremost, I'd like to give Edward L. Haletky ( texiwill to those of you from the VMTN forums ) author of VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers a warm welcome to vmprofessional.com. He has agreed to start writing for vmprofessional.com and has already generated an article that I think will be a staple in virtualization community: VMware ESX 3.

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-26015780465161515222008-03-10T19:06:00.001-07:002008-03-10T19:13:13.410-07:00

VMware has been busy dropping patches in the last week. On March 6th new patches were seeded for ESX 3.0.1/ESX 3.0.2 and today ( March 10th ) VMware dropped a whopping 18 patches for ESX 3.5.0, superseding every single patch that was released in January. There are a number of security patches in the bunch, but more notably, VMware released a patch to the thin provisioning bug with Storage VMotion

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-56523586180049477282008-03-03T21:35:00.000-08:002008-03-03T21:49:31.109-08:00

For any of you fortunate enough to go to VMworld 2008 Europe, you have my jealousy.... what a beautiful part of the world Cannes, France is! To recap the major announcements that took place there: VMware OEM Partners (HP, Dell, IBM) all announced their 3i systems with time lines: http://www.vmware.com/partners/oem-esx-server-3i.html VMware announced the availability of the Thinstall Beta (

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-15590827504506396452008-02-29T08:50:00.000-08:002008-02-29T10:36:46.624-08:00

On Feburary 20th VMware released an updated version of the ESX 3.5.0 ISO image with the same build number, and no additional release notes. It appears that VMware has finally clarified what changed in this new ISO image: The download bundle available for ESX Server 3.5 from the VMware Web site is an update from the original release download bundle. The updated download bundle fixes an issue that

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-79419872900353007942008-02-28T14:40:00.000-08:002008-02-28T14:47:06.591-08:00

I've had a number of visitors write in to inquire about esx-autopatch.pl, and when I would update the script to support ESX 3.5.0. To be honest I didn't really plan to update the script since VMware's Update Manger seems to be doing an adequate job of filling that need. But if you need to get the patches installed at build time, or don't have VirtualCenter at your disposal I still believe

Dominic Riveranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36269790.post-79975826425255364362008-02-26T07:49:00.000-08:002008-03-09T13:12:04.273-07:00

I've started rolling scripts around most of the administrative tasks here, mainly so I'm not always the guy who has to pull the trigger on things. It also helps with consistency and makes integrating the changes into an automated build easier. Here's a set of scripts I recently created to help me with managing and updating my Emulex HBA's with ESX 3.0.2. Specifically I use the HP Emulex LPe1105

Mr Vmnoreply@blogger.com