VMware on General Ramblings

How to copy custom attributes when migrating vmware vcenter to new database

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:19:05 +0000

I recently had to move hosts and guests to a new vcenter server as the old server had become corrupt and full of issues.

The current vcenter has a few custom attributes and notes that would not be transferred as part of the move.

So I wanted to use powercli to read the attributes out and put them back.

To export the attributes I used the script below.

You will need to add as many Key Value pairs as you have custom attributes

Creating a Two Node Mysql Cluster On Ubuntu With DRBD Part 2

Wed, 11 May 2011 22:23:00 +0000

This blog is a follow on from a blog post I wrote ages ago and have eventually got round to finishing it off In this part of the process we will create the disks and setup the DRBD devices First we need to connect to the Virtual Machines from a terminal session as it makes life much easier and quicker when you connect remotely. You will need to make sure that your servers have static IP addresses. For this document I will be using the following IP addresses for my servers.

ESX Trunk VLAN config for Storage

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:47:21 +0000

I was struggling with an install of ESXi on a cisco 6509 switch where the management and VM LAN connectivity worked just fine but for some reason the SAN NFS VLAN just did not want to communicate with the Nexenta on that VLAN.

After some searching and trial and error I was able to utilise this post http://blogs.egroup-us.com/?p=2453 to get the port-channel and the ports configured correctly. I did not use all the settings from this post but it did remind me to check my port0-channel config.

Connecting ESXi 4.1 to extreme x650 10G switches

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:48:35 +0000

I am busy working on a contract with a company that is implementing a 10G network for their ESX cluster.

We have been using extreme X650 10G copper switches for the core.

Migrating the current servers to the 10G environment was relatively easy and went with minimal issues.

Over the last 2 weeks I have been trying to get a new server to connect to the cluster and have been frustrated. I have been unable to get the server communicating on the management VLAN. the server was configured correctly and so was the switch or so I thought.

Creating a Two Node Mysql Cluster On Ubuntu With DRBD

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:00:11 +0000

Creating a Two Node Mysql Cluster On Ubuntu With DRBD To create this cluster you will need 2 ubuntu node servers installed as follows.

I am creating this cluster inside of vMware so I created 2 VM's with:

1GB RAM

1 10GB hdd for the root (/) partition.

1 20GB hdd for the database store.

I downloaded the ubuntu 9.10 server iso and presented this to the VM's and started the install.

Standing up and being counted.

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:04:26 +0000

I have for some time now been wondering how many people actually use Bongo.

The reason for this is that we have had images available for a while and I am still non the wiser as to how many people actually use them.

I faithfully spend hours and hours building packages and getting them out the door but have no markers to see if they are being used.

While reading the docs for the ESVA appliance (http://www.global-domination.org/esva) I noticed that they have a cronjob that downloads a file and immediately deletes it. This allows for roughly seeing who is using their appliance .

vMware workstation 6.5.3 on openSUSE 11.2

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:18:39 +0000

I have just upgraded to 11.2 from ubuntu 9.10 on my IBM / Lenovo T61 laptop. ( I will post a better blog about that later)

What I wanted to mention here is that the current vMware workstation 6.5.3 does not want to run on my system.

I have found this post http://k-----k.blogspot.com/2009/09/install-vmware-workstation-653-on.html

Which has steps for compiling the modules yourself but by the look of things is based on 32bit openSUSE.

Great News About rPath Images

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:27:47 +0000

I have great news about the images on the rPath system.

I have been able to get Bongo 0.6.1 to build on the rPath system with a json patch from Alex.

I have promoted it to the QA and RELEASE repo's so it should be available for you guys.

Please test and let me know if you have any issues.

You can find the images here

Bongo 0.5.2 Package Released on rPath

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:21:24 +0000

The new Bongo package has been compiled, packaged and promoted so it should now be available to those running the images.

This version has a number of fixes that were highlighted by the change to the cmake compiler.

Thanks to the hard work of Alex and Patrick we are now in a position to say the the mail store is now stable. I can't wait for the changes that we will now be implementing on the web front.

Bongo Images and the 0.5 release

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:19:44 +0000

Bongo Images and the 0.5 release

I have been working on the images for the 0.5 release of Bongo and I have now completed them.

They can be found here http://www.rpath.org/rbuilder/project/bongo/latestRelease

There is a change however in how we will be implementing the images from now on.

I have decided that to make it easier on you guys and also to limit the number of hours I have to work on them I will create a version 1.0 of the images which I will not change for the foreseeable future.

Bongo Images for 0.4.0 have been fixed

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:14:33 +0000

I have been able to rework the Bongo images to make them work.

I would appreciate any testing that could be done as I do not have all the vm technologies to test.

So I hope you have fun .

Here is a link to the downloads

Bongo Images for 0.4.0 Broken

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:20:00 +0000

Due to a server error where the images get built an error has crept in that make the images useless.

This error has been prevalent for some time and so it has caused the images to break.

I have therefore pulled the images and will try to fix the problem as soon as I can.

I will post again when things get better

Over 7000 Downloads

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:56:50 +0000

This evening Stu Gott dropped a bombshell on me, not literally but it had a similar impact. The people at rPath have run a report on our little project and I was shocked to say the least when I found out that the Bongo appliance has been downloaded 0ver 7000 times. I seem to remember thinking this is a nice small project for me to help the Bongo-Project with, it will never take off as much as the packages that Andrew and the others are creating but will allow me to do my part.

Vmware Server 2

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:01:38 +0000

I have been running the release version of VMware Server 2 and I must say I am impressed. the only problems I had were with existing VM's and upgrading the tools on them. And also VM's that have open-vm-tools installed.

After updating the tools the systems all have been functioning just fine over the last few weeks and the host system has been under less load with more vm's installed.

Looking to virtualise at home

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 08:10:33 +0000

Ever since vmware made ESXi a free download I have wanted to install and run it at home so I can P to V my systems at home. And save money on electricity. And before you ask I have looked at the Xen and Virtualbox and Kvm solutions but have found them not quite ready fro my prime time.

I had been running vmware server in the past with reasonable success.