2 Days Left? – No more guesses?
Really, I assure you, it will be very anticlimactic.
Author: Cody Bunch
The Service Console: Part 3 – ESXi
Well now. We’ve come a long way since parts 1 & 2 haven’t we? That is all well and good considering, and makes for some light background reading. However, the game changes with ESXi, as there is no “Supported” Service Console on it’s platform.
In reality, the vmkernel runs a busybox executable. (Busybox is a linux in an executable binary sort of thing), and you can enable DropBear SSH, and the like on it. Doing this however, will likely void your warranty or support agreement, or prevent you from getting your per incident support taken care of, so I strongly recommend against it.
With that said then. How does ESXi handle all of the communication we talked about before, how do you make it redundant, and how do you interact with ESXi in a meaningful way? Let’s take a look at the first two, the last will be covered in a future post.
ESXi 3.5 Update 3 API’s Unlocked By Accident
Found out from VM/Etc and a few other sources today, that the recent opening of the ESXi 3.5 Update 3 API’s was an accident, and they’re going to be locked down again soon. That sucks.
Virtualization Bookshelf – The Books Every VMware Admin Needs
Found this on Roger Lund’s site It seems that Edward L. Haletky has put together a wiki site with essential books and references for VMware Professionals. It’s pretty light so far, but he’s got an area for suggestions. VMware * Edward L. Haletky. VMware ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers. Prentice
-> Continue reading Virtualization Bookshelf – The Books Every VMware Admin Needs
VMware Security Resources
Because all one-hundred of these questions will come up, often, here is a link to VMware’s VIOPS Top 100 Security Questions. 25. How do you ensure that only certain administrators can connect to the ESX Service Console? (Dan Eason) Implementing TCP Wrappers ensures only certain IP address or Subnets can connect to the SSHD and
-> Continue reading VMware Security Resources
3 Days… 3 Ways To Setup a vSwitch
What happens in 3 days? You know, don’t you? Well, I’m sure you do. That said, here are 3 ways to configure a vSwitch. (Yes there are more ways than this, but alas… one has to stick with the theme.). Using the Virtual Infrastructure Client: Using The VI Toolkit (PowerShell) Before: PowerShell: PS C:\>
-> Continue reading 3 Days… 3 Ways To Setup a vSwitch
Share and Share Alike – Sharing VMDK’s Between Virtual Machines
This can be used to enable ‘MSCS’ in a box, in a lab scenario, or any other sort of setup, where more than one VM will require access to the same disk. Careful here though, your file system will need to support this as well. Read on for more.
Even More VIX Awesomeness
I will really have to install this soon to give a few examples as to how it all works. Until then, here are some examples from VMware’s VIX Blog team. Use case: Restarting a service on Windows. This one’s really easy so I’ll just show it without explanation. Example 3: Restart a service on
-> Continue reading Even More VIX Awesomeness
More PowerShell Goodness
One of the greatest things about working with/on VMware is the attention they pay to the community that has built up around their products. The community itself becomes a great resource for feedback to the company and for support to new users. Their PowerShell community is no exception to this. Here is a post on
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Installing VM Tools Without Reboots
Hal is amazing, he truly is. As part of this amazing, he brings us a VI Toolkit for Windows script that will install the VM tools without rebooting the VM’s. $cluster = "< >" # Enter the required cluster name $installerArgs = ‘REBOOT="ReallySuppress"’ Get-Cluster -Name $cluster | Get-VM | % { (Get-View $_).UpgradeTools_Task($installerArgs) } Pretty
-> Continue reading Installing VM Tools Without Reboots
Sorry.
Sorry, that I chose a budget host before starting down this road. The budget host, doing what budget hosts do, had a badly handled failure. This in turn caused the site to be down since yesterday at 2p PST.We’re back up for now… but we’ll see. Here is a link to their issue page: Spacey
-> Continue reading Sorry.
4 Days – 4 Uses for VMware VIX (vmrun)
Know what’s coming yet? No? Here are some wonderful VMware VIX things you can do while you think on it. Install VMware Tools Set IP Snapshots Reboot VM These are all on one line. Note, the first two work, the second two at the time of this writing report “Error: Unknown error” (ESX in VIX
-> Continue reading 4 Days – 4 Uses for VMware VIX (vmrun)
Where Is The VDI Post?
With the rest of the VMware blog scene talking about VDI/VDM, and VMware’s new View, why don’t I have a post? Simply because I have no experience in this area of virtualization, and don’t want to steer you in the wrong direction, or provide you with misinformation on the subject. If you would like, however,
-> Continue reading Where Is The VDI Post?
Sunday Turtle Blogging – Are Turtles Dangerous Pets?
The FDA seems to think so. While we wondered if the FDA was simply crying ‘wolf’ on the safety of turtles as pets to cause some press to come their way, it turns out that the FDA’s claim that turtles can be unsafe as pets is completely valid. According to an article written Consumer
-> Continue reading Sunday Turtle Blogging – Are Turtles Dangerous Pets?
5 Days – 5 PowerShell One-Liners You Can’t Live Without
5 Days now… Till? Guessed yet? If not, here are 5 PowerShell one-liner’s you cant live without. get-vm | get-snapshot | where { $_.Created -le (Get-Date).AddDays(-7)} get-vm | get-view | %{ $_.Config } | select Name,Uuid get-vm | Get-CDDrive | Set-CDDrive -Connected:$false -Confirm:$false get-template MyTemplate | new-vm -vmhost esxserver01 -name MyVM -OSCustomizationSpec MySpec get-vmhost –name
-> Continue reading 5 Days – 5 PowerShell One-Liners You Can’t Live Without
6 Days left – 6 Things to Love about VMware/Virtualization
Instead of guessing today, list the 6 things you love most about VMware/Virtualization. Here’s mine: vMotion Storage vMotion Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) VI Toolkit for Windows (PowerShell) Snapshots Clone VMs (Live) What are yours? Tell me in the comments.
VMware HA Problem with Update 3
This is taken from Mr. Scott Lowe, and the VMware KB. To fix the problem, users have two options: 1. Disable virtual machine failure monitoring within the VMware HA cluster. 2. Reconfigure the host to change the heartbeat delay. To reconfigure the host to change the heartbeat delay, follow the steps below:
-> Continue reading VMware HA Problem with Update 3
Book: Managing VMware Infrastructure With Windows PowerShell: TFM
Keep an eye out for this one early next year. I’ve been tech reviewing it since the beginning, and can tell you it’s something that you’ll want to keep next to your pillow at night. Ok, so maybe I’m the only one who does that, but it is nonetheless a good read. (I may even
-> Continue reading Book: Managing VMware Infrastructure With Windows PowerShell: TFM
VMware VIX – Changing IP’s of a Guest VM
As a demonstration of the power of VIX, I’ve chosen to show you how to change IP addresses of a Windows VM. You may want to buckle up for this. First, grab the VIX API installable from VMware’s site. In this case we’ll be using the Windows version (because that is the VM I happen
-> Continue reading VMware VIX – Changing IP’s of a Guest VM
VMware VIX – More API’s
So this will need further investigation on my part. On the surface it looks really cool: “The VIX API allows development of scripts and programs to automate operations in guest virtual machines.” Read that again. Now process. Automate operations IN the guest VM. Go here for the release notes.