Tag: VMware

How to update ESX 3 with yum

esxupdate –force –easy -r http://host.domain.com/build/esx/esx301 … epos.32039 update If not outright stupid, it is a bit idiotic to do this on a production box. What you can do is point your yum.conf to the CentOS servers and download their updates for Redhat Enterprise Linux and update the packages since ESX is just a modified version of Redhat. Here’s how you do it. [base]
name=CentOS-$releasever – Base
baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/3.8/os/$basearch/ #released updates
[update]
name=CentOS-$releasever – Updates
baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/3.8/updates/$basearch/]]>

How to get tcpdump from Virtual Switches in ESX 3

1) Install VMware-esx-supptools-3.0.0-1.i386.rpm from the ESX 3 cd.

2) You can then run “/usr/lib/vmware/support/esxnet-support man” and learn how to use the tool, but …

3) To get a trace from the portgroup, you’ll need to run:

/usr/lib/vmware/support/esxnet-support trace -z -p Network0

Network0 of course will need to change to your portgroup name.

Another thing you can do is create a portgroup and put it in promiscuous mode. Then, run tcpdump in that guest that’s in that portgroup.

vmx file parameters

http://www.vmts.net/article/parameters.htm monitor_control.disable_apic= “TRUE” |”FALSE”
Disable VM APIC (interupt) Mode workload=”TerminalServices”
Enable support for Windows Terminal Service e Metaframe tools.syncTime= “TRUE” |”FALSE”
Enable/Disable Time Synchronization keyboard.typematicMinDelay = µs
Delay auto repeat autostart=”poweron”
Autostart VM when ESX start tools.remindInstall = “FALSE” |”TRUE”
Turning Off Warning about VMware Tools Version autostart.delay=”n”
Wait n seconds before to start autostop=”poweroff” | “poweron”
Autostop VM when ESX stop Gui.ExitOnCliHlt= “TRUE” |”FALSE”
Wait n seconds before to stop autostop=”poweroff” | “poweron”
Autostop VM when ESX stop autostop.delay=”n”
Wait n seconds before to stop gui.restricted = “TRUE” |”FALSE”
restrict user access to the GUI edit logging = “FALSE”
Disabling Logging for a Virtual Machine Created by ESX Server log.filename = logfile
Changing the Virtual Machine’s Log File Location on a GSX Server
for Linux Host or ESX Server System gui.maxconnection = “n”
Set n console max connection svga.noOffscreen =”TRUE” | “FALSE”
enables/disables the off-screen display buffer for a VM]]>

VMs don’t power up in Cluster in a Box ESX 3 – new disks.

http://kb.vmware.com/vmtnkb/search.do?c … SAL_Public Error message: Cannot open the disk ‘/vmfs/volumes//my.vmdk’ or one of the snapshot disks
it depends on.
Reason: Invalid argument. Fix:
To fix this issue, run the command: # vmkfstools -c -d eagerzeroedthick This recreates the virtual machine without a lazy-zero configuration.]]>

Virtual Center 2.0 DB settings

[2006-04-27 11:54:37.236 ‘App’ 1160 error] Failed to intialize VMware VirtualCenter. Shutting down… You need to make the change in your registry in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\VMware\VirtualCenter\DB
the third one should be your password in a hash. You can just reset it to and then reset the password to on the SQL server as well to get VC started up. You then go into Admin / System Settings to change your password after that.]]>

How to install VMware Tools in Trustix Secure Linux

How to install VMware Tools

This is taken from: http://www.trustix.net/wiki/index.php/VMwareTools

How to install VMware Tools

This has (so far) only been verified to work on VMware Workstation v5.5 and a TSL 3.0 installation with the following groups installed: “Minimal with SSH”, “Commonly used local utilities” and “Commonly used network utilities”; a typical, almost minimal, TSL system.

Required packages

You need the following packages installed on the system to get VMware Tools to compile the needed modules (other packages may be installed due to dependencies):

make
gcc
glibc-devel
kernel-source

All in one using swup:

swup --install make gcc kernel-source glibc-devel

n.b. –ignore-filter may be required on TSL 2.2 to allow kernel-source to be installed.

Configure kernel-source

VMware tools won’t compile if you have not configured and prepared the kernel-source.

  • The kernel-source installs itself in /usr/src/kernel-source-<version>. You should link this folder to /usr/src/linux:
cd /usr/src
ln -s kernel-source-<version> linux

We also need to copy the kernel config file into our kernel-source:

cp /boot/config-<version> /usr/src/linux/.config
  • Lets prepare the kernel-source for VMware Tools:
cd /usr/src/linux
make oldconfig
make modules_prepare

n.b. With TSL 2.2 use ‘make dep’ in place of ‘make modules_prepare’.

Install VMware Tools

Having your TSL 3.0 installation active, release the lock (CTRL+ALT) and go to the menu and choose:

VM -> Install VMware Tools..

Mount the virtual CD-ROM containing the VMware tools and install the rpm there. Then unmount it.

mount /mnt/cdrom
rpm -Uhv /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-<version>-i386.rpm
umount /mnt/cdrom

Compile and configure VMware modules for TSL

To finish the VMware Tools installation we run the VMware tools configure script and it will compile the VMware Tools modules:

vmware-config-tools.pl

Answer yes to all questions and all but the X Windows display driver is configured. See below for X Window driver support.

Optimized network driver – VMXnet

When TSL 3.0 was installed as guest OS it found and installed the pcnet32 driver. You could stick with it, but I would recommend you change it for the optimized vmxnet driver which was just compiled. The following instructions are displayed after vmware-config-tools.pl finish to help you replace the network driver:

service network stop
rmmod pcnet32
rmmod vxnet
vi /etc/modprobe.conf /etc/mkinitrd/modules <-- change vmnics to vmxnet
tsl-fixboot.sh --install <kernel-version>
depmod -a
modprobe vmxnet
service network start

X Window

You need the following packages installed to have the X Window driver compile (other packages may download and install due to dependencies):

xorg-x11
xorg-x11-devel

As always, you may install them all in one using swup:

swup --install xorg-x11 xorg-x11-devel

Now run vmware-config-tools.pl again to compile the svga driver:

vmware-config-tools.pl

NB! You may get a warning about not being able to compile the vmxnet driver. Just ignore that. You already have it installed if you followed the instructions above.

Please note, this will only give you a minimalistic xorg-x11 without gnome or another DE/WM. I would recommend you check out the Desktop Environment section to get a fully working and useful desktop.

If you get the error when compiling the tool: “The kernel defined by this directory of header files does not have the same address space size as your running kernel.”

The way I fixed it was just by using a newer version of VMware-tools. I used the source from ESX 3.0 and you can search on the web and you should be able to find it.

ESX3 – remote console not coming thru – everything else ok

Problem: From the Virtual Infrastructure Client, I log in and can do whatever I want except see a VM’s console. The VM can power up, I can modify the VMs, but when I go to the console, it just gives me a black blank screen. When I use open console, I get a timeout. I set up the vmx file so that I could use vnc to connect to the console and it works fine. When using the webAccess, I can see the console just fine too. What gives?

In the VI3 server, connections are handled a little differently. Incoming RC connection go to port 902 in the COS: vmware-authd service Then, the MKS (mouse, keyboard, screen) connection happens on port 903 – vmware-vmkauthd listens on port 903. Since connections to port 903 are forwarded to COSShadow, COS would not see those packets. The client actually makes a request on port 902, but then, the server gives a redirect to the client to connect on port 903. If there’s any type of NAT in between or some other network tweak, it could cause this to fail.

Here’s the workaround:

1) Open up the /etc/vmware/config file and append to the bottom:

vmauthd.server.alwaysProxy = “TRUE”

2) Restart the management agents by running:

/etc/init.d/mgmt-vmware restart

3) Disconnect and reconnect the Virtual Infrastructure Client or VirtualCenter from the ESX server.

This will avoid the authd redirection and it should allow your remote console to function properly.