A. Mikkelsen VMware ESX scripts, commands, tools and other nice to know things that will make your virtualization days easier!!!!

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Troubleshooting VMware snapshots

Filed under: ESX Migrate/Upgrade,ESXi,Hardware,Linux Commands,Tools,Virtual Center,vSphere (ESX),White Papers,Workstation — A. Mikkelsen @ 10:24 am

Eric Siebert has writen a very good and explaining guide on how to troubleshoot snapshots on ESX 3.x.

Virtualization administrators can use snapshots on VMware ESX to travel back in time and figure out what went wrong with their virtual machines (VMs). But what do you do when your snapshots start acting funny? In this tip, we’ll troubleshoot potential problems that may come up when using snapshots on ESX.

Read it here or read my local copy.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The ultimate SATA controller list for ESx 3.x

Filed under: Hardware,vSphere (ESX) — A. Mikkelsen @ 8:57 am

Dave.Mishchenko  has “reversed enginered” the RPM’s shipped on the ESX CD and created a list of all the SATA controller drivers that is shipped with ESX 3.x.
You can see the entire list in the discussion http://communities.vmware.com/message/839577?tstart=0#839577

A. Mikkelsen

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Create your own updated ESX 3i – bootable USB stick….

Filed under: ESXi,Hardware,Tools,vSphere (ESX),White Papers — A. Mikkelsen @ 13:11 pm

VCPaul has been so nice to share how he was able to create a bootable USB stick with the latest ESX 3i.

You can read his post in the VMware Community at
http://communities.vmware.com/message/825686

Or read it here:

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Requirements:

  • 1 GB USB flash drive
  • WinImage
  • IZArc

Of course you can use your favourite tools and larger USB flash drives, but 1 GB is enough space for the boot image.

Perform the following steps to create a bootable ESX Server 3i USB flash drive:

  1. Download ESX Server 3i Installable ISO
  2. Extract INSTALL.TGZ from the root directory of the ISO image using an IZArc
  3. Extract /usr/lib/vmware/installer/VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd.bz2 from INSTALL.TGZ using IZArc
  4. Extract VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd from VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd.bz2 using IZArc
  5. Attach the USB flash drive and make sure you no longer need the data on it
  6. Use WinImage to transfer VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd to the USB flash drive
    1. Disk->Restore Virtual Hard Disk image on physical drive…
    2. Select the USB flash drive (Warning: If you select the wrong disk you will lose data!)
    3. Select the image file VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd
    4. Confirm the warning message
    5. Wait for the transfer to complete
  7. Unplug the USB flash drive (Warning: If you forget to unplug the flash drive from the PC you might lose the data on your hard drives the next time you boot!)
  8. Attach the USB flash drive to the machine you want to boot (Warning: If ESX Server 3i recognizes local drives, you might lose the data on it, so make sure you don´t need it anymore or unplug all hard drives!)
  9. Turn the machine on and make sure the USB flash drive is selected as boot device
  10. Watch ESX Server 3i boot
  11. Configure
  12. Enjoy!

I cannot be held responsible for any damage or loss of data this procedure might cause.

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Hope anyone can use this 🙂
I know I can….

A. Mikkelsen

Monday, August 13, 2007

What features can we expect to see in the next release of ESX VI (3.1.0)

Filed under: ESX Migrate/Upgrade,Hardware,Tools,Virtual Center — A. Mikkelsen @ 10:23 am

The people at www.virtualization.info have put together a list of the new features in ESX 3.1.0.
http://www.virtualization.info/2007/08/vmware-esx-server-31-virtualcenter-21.html

The only thing now is when will it be released.

A. Mikkelsen

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Upgrading my test hardware.

Filed under: Hardware — A. Mikkelsen @ 22:34 pm

After running my ESX test enviroment with a single core CPU and one harddrive, for about two months, I desided that it was time to upgrade it. It was running a bit slow.

Since my motherboard supported dualcore CPU’s I bought a Athlon 64 X2 4200+ for about $200,00.
Also wanting to boost the disk IO i bought three 160GB Samsung SpinPoint S166 (This is just a test enviroment).

After adding the new hardware and reinstalling ESX 3.0.1 I was ready to see the difference, and what a difference it was.
Now the system runs smoothly and without CPU or disk IO bottlenecks.

I therefore recommend not running ESX with only one single core CPU.

You can see my hardware list and configuration here.

A. Mikkelsen

Monday, May 7, 2007

SATA controllers that work with ESX 3.0.1

Filed under: Hardware — A. Mikkelsen @ 19:55 pm

Here is a short list of SATA controleres that will work with ESX 3.01

  • LSI MegaRAID 150-4
  • LSI MegaRAID 150-6
  • Intel SRCS16
  • Adaptec 2610SA
  • Adaptec 2410SA

For more info take a look at VMwares system guide.
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_systems_guide.pdf

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