Archive
Linux Kernel 3.7 and VMware Tools issue
I got aware of this issue last week after installing a Fedora 18 virtual machine on Fusion 5. The installation of the Tools went as expected but when the install process launched the vmware-tools-config,pl script I got the typical error of not being able to find the Linux Kernel headers.
Searching for a valid kernel header path... The path "" is not a valid path to the 3.7.2-204.fc18.x86_64 kernel headers. Would you like to change it? [yes]
I installed the kernel headers and devel packages with yum.
[root@fed18 ~]# yum install kernel-headers kernel-devel
Fired up again the configuration script and got the same error. The problem is that snce kernel 3.7 all the kernel header files have been relocated to a new path and because of that the script is not able to find them. To solve it just create a symlink of the version.h file from the new location to the old one.
[root@fed18 src]# ln -s /usr/src/kernels/3.7.2-204.fc18.x86_64/include/generated/uapi/linux/version.h /lib/modules/3.7.2-204.fc18.x86_64/build/include/linux/
With the problem fixed I launched the config script again and the tools finally got configured without problems.
[root@fed18 ~]# vmware-config-tools.pl Initializing... Making sure services for VMware Tools are stopped. Stopping Thinprint services in the virtual machine: Stopping Virtual Printing daemon: done Stopping vmware-tools (via systemctl): [ OK ] The VMware FileSystem Sync Driver (vmsync) allows external third-party backup software that is integrated with vSphere to create backups of the virtual machine. Do you wish to enable this feature? [no] Before you can compile modules, you need to have the following installed... make gcc kernel headers of the running kernel Searching for GCC... Detected GCC binary at "/bin/gcc". The path "/bin/gcc" appears to be a valid path to the gcc binary. Would you like to change it? [no] Searching for a valid kernel header path... Detected the kernel headers at "/lib/modules/3.7.2-204.fc18.x86_64/build/include". The path "/lib/modules/3.7.2-204.fc18.x86_64/build/include" appears to be a valid path to the 3.7.2-204.fc18.x86_64 kernel headers. Would you like to change it? [no]
Juanma.
How to upgrade the vMA 5
Last week vSphere 5 Update 1 was released by VMware, along with the main products some of the SDKs and automation tools were also updated, including the vMA.
As you should remember from my first post about vMA 5 the classic vma-update utility is no longer available. So to be able to update our vMA to the new version we have to use the Web UI. Following is the procedure to perform the upgrade.
First access the web interface using the vi-admin user as always.
From the main screen go to the Update tab. In the Status screen click on Check Updates.
After a few seconds a message will appear showing the new update available.
Click on Install Updates and after asking for confirmation the update process will start.
Once the update process is complete the appliance will ask for a system reboot.
Go to the System tab and perform the reboot. After the reboot is done you can check the new version in the appliance console,
And in the vma-release file, located at /etc.
vi-admin@vma:~> cat /etc/vma-release vMA 5.0.0 BUILD-643553 Copyright (C) 1998-2011 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more U.S. Patent Numbers D617,808, D617,809, D617,810, D617,811, 6,075,938, 6,397,242, 6,496,847, 6,704,925, 6,711,672, 6,725,289, 6,735,601, 6,785,886, 6,789,156, 6,795,966, 6,880,022, 6,883,095, 6,940,980, 6,944,699, 6,961,806, 6,961,941, 6,970,562, 7,017,041, 7,055,032, 7,065,642, 7,069,413, 7,069,435, 7,082,598, 7,089,377, 7,111,086, 7,111,145, 7,117,481, 7,149,310, 7,149,843, 7,155,558, 7,222,221, 7,260,815, 7,260,820, 7,269,683, 7,275,136, 7,277,998, 7,277,999, 7,278,030, 7,281,102, 7,290,253, 7,343,599, 7,356,679, 7,386,720, 7,409,487, 7,412,492, 7,412,702, 7,424,710, 7,428,636, 7,433,951, 7,434,002, 7,447,854, 7,447,903, 7,467,067, 7,475,002, 7,478,173, 7,478,180, 7,478,218, 7,478,388, 7,484,208, 7,487,313, 7,487,314, 7,490,216, 7,500,048, 7,506,122, 7,516,453, 7,529,897, 7,543,301, 7,555,747, 7,565,527, 7,571,471, 7,577,722, 7,581,064, 7,590,715, 7,590,982, 7,594,111, 7,596,594, 7,596,697, 7,599,493, 7,603,704, 7,606,868, 7,620,523, 7,620,766, 7,620,955, 7,624,240, 7,630,493, 7,636,831, 7,657,659, 7,657,937, 7,665,088, 7,672,814, 7,680,919, 7,689,986, 7,693,996, 7,694,101, 7,702,843, 7,707,185, 7,707,285, 7,707,578, 7,716,446, 7,734,045, 7,734,911, 7,734,912, 7,735,136, 7,743,389, 7,761,917, 7,765,543, 7,774,391, 7,779,091, 7,783,779, 7,783,838, 7,793,279, 7,797,748, 7,801,703, 7,802,000, 7,802,248, 7,805,676, 7,814,495, 7,823,145, 7,831,661, 7,831,739, 7,831,761, 7,831,773, 7,840,790, 7,840,839, 7,840,993, 7,844,954, 7,849,098, 7,853,744, 7,853,960, 7,856,419, 7,856,531, 7,856,637, 7,865,663, 7,869,967, 7,886,127, 7,886,148, 7,886,346, 7,890,754, 7,895,437, 7,908,646, 7,912,951, 7,921,197, 7,925,850; patents pending. VMware, the VMware "boxes" logo and design, Virtual SMP and VMotion are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. vi-admin@vma:~>
The above procedure use the default VMware repository and your appliance must be able to resolve public DNS addresses and access the internet in order to download de upgrade bits.
Juanma.
Win a free pass for VMworld 2012 or Microsoft TechEd 2012 thanks to Veeam
Yes, you have heard correctly. The people from Veeam are willing to kindly give a free full pass to VMworld or TechEd 2012, you choose the conference and they provide the pass.
The promotion is called Virtualization Lovers and you only have to register at their website:
You have until March 26, 2012.
Good luck!
Juanma.
Voting time! The Top VMware & Virtualization election is open!
Once again my colleague at HP Eric Seabert (@ericsiebert) has opened up the polls to elect the Top VMware and Virtualization blogs.
This year yours truly is lucky enough to be on the list of candidates so if you feel that my work here have been of help I’ll be grateful. However I’m a guy with his feet on the ground and I am perfectly aware that there are a ton of great blogs out there.
My personal Top Five are:
- Virtually Ghetto by William Lam (@lamw)
- DoubleCloud by Steve Jin (@sjin2008)
- Nickapedia by Nick Weaver (@lynxbat)
- Scott Lowe’s blog (@scott_lowe)
- Frank Denneman’s blog (@FrankDenneman)
Now go to http://vote.vsphere-land.com/ and vote for your favorite blog!
Juanma.
List packages installed in ESXi 4.1 and 5.0
Today a co-worker has asked me how to list the packages installed in an ESXi 4.1 Update 1 server, in the ESX COS we had the RedHat rpm command but in ESXi there is no rpm and of course there is no COS.
His intention was to look for the version of the qla2xxx driver and my first thought was to use vmkload_mod, the problem is that with this command you can get the version of a driver already loaded by the VMkernel and we wanted to look for the version of a driver installed but no loaded.
I tried esxupdate with no luck.
~ # esxupdate query ----Bulletin ID----- -----Installed----- --------------Summary--------------- ESXi410-201101223-UG 2011-01-13T05:09:39 3w-9xxx: scsi driver for VMware ESXi ESXi410-201101224-UG 2011-01-13T05:09:39 vxge: net driver for VMware ESXi ~ #
Then I suddenly thought that the ESXi Tech Support Mode is based on Busybox. If you have ever use a Busybox environment, like a QNAP NAS, you will probably remember that the way to install new software over the network is with ipkg command and to list the software packages already installed the syntax is ipkg list_installed.
~ # ipkg list_installed emulex-cim-provider - 410.2.0.32.1-207424 - lsi-provider - 410.04.V0.24-140815 - qlogic-fchba-provider - 400.1.1.8-140815 - vmware-esx-drivers-ata-libata - 400.2.00.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ata-pata-amd - 400.0.2.4.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ata-pata-atiixp - 400.0.4.3.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ata-pata-cmd64x - 400.0.2.1.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ata-pata-hpt3x2n - 400.0.3.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ata-pata-pdc2027x - 400.0.74ac5.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ata-pata-serverworks - 400.0.3.7.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ata-pata-sil680 - 400.0.3.2.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ata-pata-via - 400.0.1.14.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-block-cciss - 400.3.6.14.10.1-2vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-char-hpcru - 400.1.1.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-char-pseudo-char-dev - 400.0.0.1.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-char-random - 400.1.0.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-char-tpm-tis - 400.0.0.1.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ehci-ehci-hcd - 400.1.0.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-hid-hid - 400.2.6.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ioat-ioat - 400.2.15.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ipmi-ipmi-devintf - 400.39.2.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ipmi-ipmi-msghandler - 400.39.2.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ipmi-ipmi-si-drv - 400.39.2.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-bnx2 - 400.2.0.7d-3vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-bnx2x - 400.1.54.1.v41.1-2vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-cdc-ether - 400.1.0.0.1-2vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-cnic - 400.1.9.7d.rc2.3.1-2vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-e1000 - 400.8.0.3.2-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-e1000e - 400.1.1.2.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-enic - 400.1.4.0.261-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-forcedeth - 400.0.61.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-igb - 400.1.3.19.12.2-2vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-ixgbe - 400.2.0.38.2.5.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-nx-nic - 400.4.0.550.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-s2io - 400.2.1.4.13427.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-sky2 - 400.1.20-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-tg3 - 400.3.86.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-net-usbnet - 400.1.0.0.1-2vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-ohci-usb-ohci - 400.1.0.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-sata-ahci - 400.2.0.0.1-5vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-sata-ata-piix - 400.2.00ac6.1-3vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-sata-sata-nv - 400.2.0.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-sata-sata-promise - 400.1.04.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-sata-sata-sil - 400.2.0.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-sata-sata-svw - 400.2.0.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-aacraid - 400.4.1.1.5.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-adp94xx - 400.1.0.8.12.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-aic79xx - 400.3.2.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-bnx2i - 400.1.8.11t5.rc2.8.1-4vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-fnic - 400.1.1.0.113.2-4vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-hpsa - 400.3.6.14.45-4vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-ips - 400.7.12.06.1-3vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-iscsi-linux - 400.1.0.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-lpfc820 - 400.8.2.1.30.1-58vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-megaraid-mbox - 400.2.20.5.1.4-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-megaraid-sas - 400.4.0.14.1-18vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-megaraid2 - 400.2.00.4.1-4vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-mpt2sas - 400.04.255.03.00.1-6vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-mptsas - 400.4.21.00.01.1-6vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-mptspi - 400.4.21.00.01.1-6vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-qla2xxx - 400.831.k1.28.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-qla4xxx - 400.5.01.03.1-10vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-sample-iscsi - 400.1.0.0-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-uhci-usb-uhci - 400.3.0.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-usb-storage-usb-storage - 400.1.0.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-usbcore-usb - 400.1.0.0.1-1vmw.1.4.348481 - vmware-esx-drivers-vmklinux-vmklinux - 4.1.0-1.4.348481 - Successfully terminated. ~ #
There you are :-) There is one gotcha to get the version, it starts just after the 400.
Next task of course was to do the same in ESXi 5.0.
~ # ipkg list_installed -sh: ipkg: not found ~ #
Ouch! Ipkg has been removed from ESXi 5.0. The key to get the same list is esxcli.
~ # esxcli software vib list Name Version Vendor Acceptance Level Install Date -------------------- ---------------------------------- ------ ---------------- ------------ ata-pata-amd 0.3.10-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ata-pata-atiixp 0.4.6-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ata-pata-cmd64x 0.2.5-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ata-pata-hpt3x2n 0.3.4-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ata-pata-pdc2027x 1.0-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ata-pata-serverworks 0.4.3-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ata-pata-sil680 0.4.8-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ata-pata-via 0.3.3-2vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 block-cciss 3.6.14-10vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ehci-ehci-hcd 1.0-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 esx-base 5.0.0-0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 esx-tboot 5.0.0-0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ima-qla4xxx 2.01.07-1vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ipmi-ipmi-devintf 39.1-4vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ipmi-ipmi-msghandler 39.1-4vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ipmi-ipmi-si-drv 39.1-4vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 misc-cnic-register 1.1-1vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 misc-drivers 5.0.0-0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-be2net 4.0.88.0-1vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-bnx2 2.0.15g.v50.11-5vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-bnx2x 1.61.15.v50.1-1vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-cnic 1.10.2j.v50.7-2vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-e1000 8.0.3.1-2vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-e1000e 1.1.2-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-enic 1.4.2.15a-1vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-forcedeth 0.61-2vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-igb 2.1.11.1-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-ixgbe 2.0.84.8.2-10vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-nx-nic 4.0.557-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-r8168 8.013.00-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-r8169 6.011.00-2vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-s2io 2.1.4.13427-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-sky2 1.20-2vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 net-tg3 3.110h.v50.4-4vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ohci-usb-ohci 1.0-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 sata-ahci 3.0-6vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 sata-ata-piix 2.12-4vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 sata-sata-nv 3.5-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 sata-sata-promise 2.12-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 sata-sata-sil 2.3-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 sata-sata-svw 2.3-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-aacraid 1.1.5.1-9vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-adp94xx 1.0.8.12-6vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-aic79xx 3.1-5vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-bnx2i 1.9.1d.v50.1-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-fnic 1.5.0.3-1vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-hpsa 5.0.0-17vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-ips 7.12.05-4vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-lpfc820 8.2.2.1-18vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-megaraid-mbox 2.20.5.1-6vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-megaraid-sas 4.32-1vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-megaraid2 2.00.4-9vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-mpt2sas 06.00.00.00-5vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-mptsas 4.23.01.00-5vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-mptspi 4.23.01.00-5vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-qla2xxx 901.k1.1-14vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 scsi-qla4xxx 5.01.03.2-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 uhci-usb-uhci 1.0-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 tools-light 5.0.0-0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2011-09-07 ~ #
A final thought for all of you starting with vSphere 5, esxcli is the key in ESXi 5.0 shell.
Juanma.
DNS configuration with esxcli
With release of ESXi 5.0 the esxcli command has been also vastly improved. One of this new capabilities is the possibility to manage the DNS configuration of the server.
The basic syntax for dns is:
~# esxcli network ip dns
This gives you two namespaces to work with:
- search
- server
With the first one you can manage the suffixes for DNS search and the second is for the DNS server to be used by the ESXi.
- Server operations
- List the servers configured:
Add a new server:
Remove a configured server:
- Domain search operations
List configured domain suffixes:
Add a new domain:
Remove a configured domain:
Juanma.
Arrakis, my not built on purpose ESXi whitebox
If you are willing to see a so great whitebox like Phil Jaenke’s (@RootWyrm) BabyDragon I’m sorry to say that you’ll be terribly disappointed because unlike Phil’s beauty mine wasn’t built on purpose.
I’ve been running all my labs within VMware Workstation on my custom made workstation, whihc by the way was running Windows 7 (64-bit). But recently I decided that it was time to move to a more reliable solution so I converted my Windows 7 system in an ESXi server.
Surprisingly when I installed ESXi 4.1 Update 1 everything was properly recognized so I thought it could be of help to post the hardware configuration for other vGeeks out there that could be looking for working hardware components for their homelabs.
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550. Supports FT!
- Memory: 8GB
- Motherboard: Asrock Penryn 1600SLI-110dB
- Nic: Embedded nVidia NForce Network Controller. Supported under the forcedeth driver
~ # ethtool -i vmnic0 driver: forcedeth version: 0.61.0.1-1vmw firmware-version: bus-info: 0000:00:14.0 ~ #
- SATA controller: nVidia MCP51 SATA Controller.
~ # vmkload_mod -s sata_nv vmkload_mod module information input file: /usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod/sata_nv.o Version: Version 2.0.0.1-1vmw, Build: 348481, Interface: ddi_9_1 Built on: Jan 12 2011 License: GPL Required name-spaces: com.vmware.vmkapi@v1_1_0_0 Parameters: heap_max: int Maximum attainable heap size for the driver. heap_initial: int Initial heap size allocated for the driver. ~ #
- HDD1: 1 x 120GB SATA 7200RPM Seagate ST3120026AS.
- HDD2: 1 x 1TB SATA 7200RPM Seagate ST31000528AS.
Finally here it is a screenshot of the vSphere Client connected to the vCenter VM and showing the summary of the host.
The other components of my homelab are a QNAP TS-219P NAS and an HP ProCurve 1810G-8 switch. I also have plans to add two more NICs and a SSD to the server as soon as possible and of course to build a new whitebox.
Juanma.
Running ESXi 5 on ESXi 4.1? Yes you can!
If you are wondering if you can run your vSphere 5 lab nested on ESXi 4.1, the answer is yes.
I used Eric Gray’s (@eric_gray) procedure VMware ESX 4 can even virtualize itself to create the VMs. For the guest OS type I tried Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (64-bit) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (64-bit) and both worked without a glitch.
Here they are running on top of my whitebox, which is running ESXi 4.1 Update 1, the left one (esxi5) is created as RHEL6 and the right one (esxi5-02) RHEL5.
I added also the monitor_control.restrict_backdoor option but have not try yet to run nested VMs. I’ll do later and will update the post with the results.
Juanma
Time is over… vSphere 5 is here and it comes with its own VSA
Today has been a great day for the people of VMware, they presented vSphere 5 in a huge online event and a lot of new interesting features have been finally unveiled.
- Storage DRS.
- Profile-Driven Storage.
- VAAI v2.
- vSphere Auto Deploy.
- Software FCoE initiator.
- Up to 32 vCPUs and 1TB of RAM per virtual machine.
- VMFS5.
- New vSphere HA framework.
- vSphere Web Client (we’ve been expecting something like this for Linux ad Mac OS X)
- vCenter Server Appliance. On Linux!
- New vSphere Storage Appliance.
All of them are incredibly cool features however there is one that instantly got my attention:
“VSA – VMware vSphere Storage Appliance” a virtual appliance that will allow to turn the DAS storage of the server into shared storage in those customers with no budget to purchase a full working SAN or where the performance is not a key factor. Wait a minute this sounds familiar.
This is not a new feature. In fact HP, and Lefthand Networks before it was acquired by HP, and VMware have been provided this feature for years through the HP P4000 VSA. After HP/Lefthand other vendors, like NetApp, have released their own VSAs, not as feature rich as the HP appliance of course ;-)
This is an interesting movement by VMware but I think it has its cons. The VSA is not included by default with the vSphere software, you have to pay for it, this is not bad of course since you also have to pay for the P4000 VSA.
That said, what is the advantage of running the VMware provided VSA instead of the HP one? The only one I can think of is the integration of the management interface with the vCenter Server and vSphere Client but with the HP Insight Control for VMware vCenter Server you can also manage, at least in part, your VSAs and I believe the HP CMC interface is rich-feature enough to use it.
Anyway, I’m dying to get my hands on this storage appliance and test it against my beloved P4000 VSA. In the meantime a nice introduction and a couple of videos of the product can be found here.
Like Calvin (@HPStorageGuy) said today in a tweet “Welcome to the past” ;-)
Juanma.
There is still time! Join VMware in the next step forward in Cloud infrastructure!
Tomorrow, Tuesday July 12th, VMware CEO Paul Maritz and CTO Steve Herrod will host a worldwide online event titled “Raising the Bar, Part V”. In this event they plan to make an announcement about the next generation of Cloud infrastructure.
There will be an online streaming of the event, five breakout deep dive sessions and finally a Q&A session by some of the most respected experts of the industry like Eric Siebert, David Davis or Bob Plankers.
The attendees of the online event will also have the chance to win a free VMworld pass! How cool is that!
So remember, there is still time to join! Go here and register because this is going to be huge!
Juanma.
