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Fedora 14 on VMware and VMware Tools

2010/11/27 By 4 Comments

If you have tried to install VMware Tools on a VMware ESX (probably Workstation too) Fedora 14 virtual machine, then you probably noticed that there are no suitable pre-compiled VMware Tools modules available for the kernel version that the Fedora runs and also it is not that easy to make the modules to compile from the sources.

First of all, the VMware Tools configuration script is looking for header files of the running kernel. It goes without saying, that the kernel-devel package must be present on the system to proceed further. However, the configuration script is looking for a variable named UTS_RELEASE, which is not present in the latest Fedora kernel headers – the utsversion.h is just not there. A simple workaround for this is to add the UTS_RELEASE definition into version.h header file. Continue reading “Fedora 14 on VMware and VMware Tools” »

Filed Under: Linux, VMware Tagged With: esx, fedora, linux, virtual machine, VMware tools, vmxnet, workstation

Cisco Nexus 1000V and packet loss

2010/06/26 By Leave a Comment

The Cisco Nexus 1000V distributed virtual switch for VMware vSphere infrastructure brings quite a significant advantage to the networking implementation of the virtual environments. Comparing to the standard VMware vSwitch and DVS virtual switches, the Nexus family virtual switch adds most of the functionalities in the virtual environment that are found in today’s physical switch products. This fills up the gap between the physical network infrastructure and the virtual machine, allowing the network engineers to have more control on the virtual environments.

Despite that VMware and Cisco co-developed this solution for years, I would say that it is still in early stage and has some bugs out there. Those, of course, are rapidly being fixed by Cisco and new releases are coming one after another. Although, that is not an excuse and neither helps, when you face strange and hardly digestible issues happening in the production… Continue reading “Cisco Nexus 1000V and packet loss” »

Filed Under: VMware Tagged With: 1000v, cisco, dvs, infrastructure, lost, nexus, packet, switch, virtual, VMware, vsphere

Performance tuning Linux virtual machine

2010/05/16 By Leave a Comment

For my personal, development and testing purposes I am running around ten Linux virtual machines. Those are mainly based on RedHat Enteprise Linux / CentOS version 5. The virtualization platform setup is nothing close to exclusive – an IBM x345 server running VMware ESXi 3.5, custom-made NAS box based on OpenSolaris with ZFS. All together, the setup is not pouring extensive amount of computing resources, neither I/O performance. Therefore, good optimization of whatever possible is pretty much required and I like to experiment in this field too.

In this post I will not go deep into overall performance tuning stuff I have done on the ESX and storage side, but will focus more on the Linux OS tips, that personally for me makes some difference comparing to running a standard installation. Continue reading “Performance tuning Linux virtual machine” »

Filed Under: VMware Tagged With: esx, fifo queue, hypervisor, linux, noop, os tips, performance, scheduler, virtual machine workstation, virtual machines, virtualization, vm, VMware

VMware Tools HGFS and Terminal Services profile issue

2010/05/02 By 1 Comment

The VMware Tools is a good set of optimized virtual device drivers and utilities for the virtual machine environment. If during VMware Tools setup the complete installation option is chosen, the shared folders, or HGFS, functionality will be included together with all the essential components. However, HGFS is not supported on ESX and the bad thing is that turning it on will probably make bad things, especially if the virtual machine serves as a terminal server.

When a user with a roaming profile logs-on to such a terminal service server, the user profile for the session is being synchronized on the terminal server. Afterwards the HGFS system drops in a hgfs.dat file on the user profile directory. The issue begins when the user tries to log-out of the system. During this process the roaming profile is being synchronized and will probably fail to copy the hgfs.dat file, throwing out an error message that the file cannot be accessed.

This situation also causes the profile directory to be left on the system and whenever the same user will log-on to the system – a separate (e.g. user.000, user.001 and etc.) profile directory will be created. In the end, all in all this issue will make some mess in the system. Continue reading “VMware Tools HGFS and Terminal Services profile issue” »

Filed Under: VMware Tagged With: duplication, esx, hgfs, profile, services, terminal, tools, VMware

Microsoft Windows NT 4 on VMware vSphere – networking problems

2010/04/06 By 1 Comment

It is correct, that the Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 is already “end-of-life” for quite some time, but believe me – there are still some systems on Earth running it. And still, VMware ESX / ESXi 4.0 supports it as a guest operating system. But, the sad part is that the VMware Converter 4.0.1 does not support it as a source…

Despite of that, if you managed to migrate a NT 4.0 from an older ESX version, you will probably face problems with network connectivity. That happens due to virtual machine hardware upgrade from version 4 to 7. Because NT 4.0 lacks some support plug-and-play specifications. A re-install of the network adapter can be a solution. Continue reading “Microsoft Windows NT 4 on VMware vSphere – networking problems” »

Filed Under: VMware Tagged With: connectivity, networking, NT, problems, virtual, VMware, vmxnet, vsphere, Windows

VMware vSphere Communication Map

2010/04/03 By Leave a Comment

Recently I got several questions from my colleagues, asking about the TCP/IP ports various VMware products uses and how they interact with other components.

A good guide is provided by VMware in their knowledge base – VMware KB 1012382 – where all the communication between the VMware components and their dependencies are described in writing.

However, written information is harder to digest comparing to a visual one. I have found a very good diagram, made by Dudley Smith, which basically represents in a visual way the information provided in the VMware knowledge base. Continue reading “VMware vSphere Communication Map” »

Filed Under: VMware Tagged With: Converter, DMZ, esx, esxi, firewall, ports, vcenter, VMware, vsphere

VMware Converter and failed P2V migrations

2010/03/17 By Leave a Comment

Successful server migrations to the virtual environment is an essential part of all virtualization initiatives. In this post I will try to consolidate some experience and information about VMware Converter conversion process problems and possible solutions.

Some consolidated general tips from VMware that could help to solve problems that could occur during migrations to virtual environment: Continue reading “VMware Converter and failed P2V migrations” »

Filed Under: VMware Tagged With: conversion, Converter, esx, migration, P2V, Standalone, tips, vcenter, VMware

VMware vCenter 4 database migration

2010/03/10 By Leave a Comment

There could be several situations, which would require to move the VMware vCenter database from one SQL server to another. Here is an action plan for moving the VMware vCenter database properly (by VMware): Continue reading “VMware vCenter 4 database migration” »

Filed Under: VMware Tagged With: database, DSN, migration, move, ODBC, SQL, vcenter, VMware

VMware ESX 4.0 Kick-start

2010/02/20 By 4 Comments

Congratulations to me and my first public blog post – now I can truly say that I am very much into nowadays IT things (though a little bit late, I guess…).

During the days I had a lot of things to do with VMware vSphere. My virtualization journey started due several reasons, which are not that important, but led me to do some hands-on activities on this subject. Despite that I own VMware Certified Professional certification on vSphere, I can truly say that now I have a strong practical knowledge on a quite wide area of subject of this virtualization solution.
But let’s start from simple things… I will share some ESX 4.0 kickstart script, which was done by me for a specific situation. I know that there are lots of examples, blog posts about this ESX kickstart scripts – this will be some kind of backup of the script for my own reference. But who knows, maybe it will also bring some value to someone… Continue reading “VMware ESX 4.0 Kick-start” »

Filed Under: VMware Tagged With: deployment, esx, kickstart, kickstart installation, script, unattended, VMware, vsphere