Virtual on sigtar.com

Unifi Video Controller NVR for UNRAID

Thu, 26 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +1300

If you run UNRAID at home and you have a UniFi Camera system then check out my latest container….

https://hub.docker.com/r/superd/unifi-nvr/

A dockerised UniFi NVR

Ubiquiti UniFi-Video-Controller (NVR) – Docker Container

Ubuntu 16.04, UniFi-Video-Controller 3.8.3

Setup / Quick Start

docker run \
--net=host \
-v /var/lib/unifi-video/:<YOUR DATA DIR> \
-v /var/log/unifi-video/:<YOUR LOG DIR> \
superd/unifi-nvr

Troubleshooting

UNRAID - If you have issue with MongoDB continually restarting please check your data mapping. I have seen issues where user shares do not work correctly. Please try mapping direct to a single disk or to cache drive to ensure smooth operation.

my first few docker containers

Fri, 13 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +1300

This is my first dabbling in creating my OWN git hub (for the code) and docker hub (for the orchestration / build)

https://hub.docker.com/u/superd/

I have created a container for Unifi-Video NVR and storj. Yet to update documentation on Storj container.

I’m currently working on building containers for a news indexer, either newsnab or nzedb. There is another docker project called pynab which was an interesting idea, but seems to have gone stale over time. It used to be almost hands free indexer that ran reasonably efficiently. I’m hoping to re-create something similar soon.

netdata - live server metrics

Sun, 16 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +1300

If your looking for a really good opensource realtime resource monitoring tool check out netdata.io

Very light, looks great and is super fast. I have it running as a docker instance on my unraid server (which runs this website, and a couple of other docker instances).

If you want to show extra info about containers / docker running on your host add the following host mappings;

container <- host

/var/run/docker.sock <– /var/run/docker.sock /host/proc <– /proc /host/sys <– sys

Docker - Running Ubiquiti NVR and Plex

Mon, 23 May 2016 00:00:00 +1200

Bye bye virtual machines and their inherent OS bloat. Docker and containerization is here…

The trick to containerization is picking the right workload (as with most things). Think about data, its state and where it lives and whether there are any benefits to running as a container.

Both Ubiquiti’s NVR and Plex’s media server software run’s some base application, this app within its own container then maps to data (which can exist outside the instance) that is consistent.

setup vmware environment

Sat, 08 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +1300

One of the scripts i use to standardise our vmware host deployments;

# Author : Darren T # v1 : Setup vcenter parameters # Usage ; # Please manually connect to vCenter, use "Connect-VIServer" -- this promotes usernames and passwords not being saved with script. # Modify Variables below before running. # ------------------- VARIABLES ------------------------- # Database Retention Policy $Days_Retension = "30" # Set SMTP Server & Sender Account $SMTP_Server = "192.168.9.10" $Sender_Account = "administrator@company.co.nz" # ------------------- CODE ONLY BELOW ------------------- # Database Retention Policy -- Enable limits # Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity $defaultVIServer | where {$_.Name -match "^task.|^event."} Write-Host "Setting Database Retension... " -NoNewLine; Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity $defaultVIServer -Name "event.maxAge" | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value $Days_Retension -Confirm:$false Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity $defaultVIServer -Name "event.maxAgeEnabled" | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value $true -Confirm:$false Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity $defaultVIServer -Name "task.maxAge" | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value $Days_Retension -Confirm:$false Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity $defaultVIServer -Name "task.maxAgeEnabled" | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value $true -Confirm:$false # Set SMTP Server & Sender Account Write-Host "Setting SMTP Server & Sender Account... " -NoNewLine; Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity $defaultVIServer -Name "mail.smtp.server" | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value $SMTP_Server -Confirm:$false Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity $defaultVIServer -Name "mail.sender" | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value $Sender_Account -Confirm:$false

nested hypervisor (on ESXi 5.1)

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +1300

Sometimes you might want to run a hypervisor on a hypervisor for testing purposes…. this is how you pass through the required CPU extensions in ESXi 5.1

Remember you will also need to enable promiscuous mode on the networking side also.

http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2012/08/how-to-enable-nested-esxi-other.html

There are some changes with Nested Virtualization in vSphere 5.1 also officially known as VHV (Virtual Hardware-Assisted Virtualization). If you are using vSphere 5.0 to run Nested ESXi or other nested Hypervisors, then please take a look at the instructions in this article. With vSphere 5.1, there have been a few minor changes to enable VHV.

The new Virtual Hardware 9 compatibility will be required when creating your nested ESXi VM, Virtual Hardware 8 will not work if you are running ESXi 5.1 on your physical host. You will still need to enable promiscuous mode on the portgroup that will be used for your nested ESXi VM for network connectivity.

vhv.allow = “true” is no longer valid for ESXi 5.1 to enable VHV. A new parameter has been introduced called vhv.enable = “true” that is now defined on a per VM basis to provide finer granularity of VHV support. This also allows for better portability between VMware’s hosted products such as VMware Fusion and Workstation as they also support the vhv.enable parameter.

You can now enable VHV on a per VM basis and using the new vSphere Web Client which basically adds the vhv.enable = “true” parameter to the VM’s .VMX configuration file.

vmware - powercli enable remote scripts

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +1300

Neccesary commands to get vmware vsphere power cli scripts runnign in power cli;

(post installation of vsphere power cli extensions)

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -InvalidCertificateAction “Ignore” -Confirm:$false

http://blogs.vmware.com/vipowershell/2011/06/back-to-basics-part-1-installing-powercli.html

HP Gen 8 servers and networking issues - TG3 driver

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +1300

There is a bug in the tg3 driver on the ESXi hosts (1gbit broadcom cards in the new hosts). If the network card is put under load and netqueue is enabled it will sometimes decide to drop all traffic. Essentially i’ve disabled netqueue and the problems have gone away…. as per this vm kb :

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2035701

The isues will present themselves as log entires like so;

2012-11-19T18:58:52.137Z cpu17:4155)<6>tg3 : vmnic8: RX NetQ allocated on 1 2012-11-19T18:58:52.138Z cpu17:4155)<6>tg3 : vmnic8: NetQ set RX Filter: 1 [00:50:56:71:46:87 0] 2012-11-19T18:58:52.138Z cpu17:4155)<6>tg3 : vmnic7: RX NetQ allocated on 1 2012-11-19T18:58:52.138Z cpu17:4155)<6>tg3 : vmnic7: NetQ set RX Filter: 1 [00:50:56:71:46:87 0] 2012-11-19T18:59:12.139Z cpu21:4155)<6>tg3 : vmnic4: NetQ remove RX filter: 1 2012-11-19T18:59:12.139Z cpu21:4155)<6>tg3 : vmnic4: Free NetQ RX Queue: 1 2012-11-19T18:59:22.137Z cpu24:4155)<6>tg3 : vmnic4: RX NetQ allocated on 1 2012-11-19T18:59:22.138Z cpu24:4155)<6>tg3 : vmnic4: NetQ set RX Filter: 1 [00:50:56:71:46:87 0] 2012-11-19T18:59:42.138Z cpu21:4155)<6>tg3 : vmnic7: NetQ remove RX filter: 1 2012-11-19T18:59:42.138Z cpu21:4155)<6>tg3 : vmnic7: Free NetQ RX Queue: 1 2012-11-19T18:59:42.140Z cpu21:4155)<6>tg3 : vmnic4: NetQ remove RX filter: 1 2012-11-19T18:59:42.140Z cpu21:4155)<6>tg3 : vmnic4: Free NetQ RX Queue: 1 2012-11-19T19:00:02.139Z cpu28:4155)<6>tg3 : vmnic8: NetQ remove RX filter: 1

vmware - copy networking port groups to another host

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +1300

You might be able to do this via “host profiles” but if you do not have the licensing for it, this is the alternative. Very handy if you have over 50 or so port groups. It can be re-run to add to additional hosts as needed.

Install powercli, run the following to obtain your current list of virtual port groups off existing host;

Get-VirtualPortGroup -VirtualSwitch vSwitch0 -VMHost esx-01

Grab the output and place into CSV file or copy straght into Excel…

vmware - updating vcenter email alert for monitoring

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +1300

I’ve used the following powershell script to assist with setting up a consistant email alert on various vmware envionrments.

# Usage ; # Please manually connect to vCenter, use "Connect-VIServer" -- this promotes usernames and passwords not beings saved with script. # Update below variable with email(s) use comma as delimita $MailtoAddresses= “monitoring@company.com”

#—-These Alarms will send a single email message and not repeat —- $LowPriorityAlarms=“Timed out starting Secondary VM”,` “No compatible host for Secondary VM”,` “Virtual Machine Fault Tolerance vLockStep interval Status Changed”,` “Migration error”,` “Exit standby error”,` “License error”,` “Virtual machine Fault Tolerance state changed”,` “VMKernel NIC not configured correctly”,` “Unmanaged workload detected on SIOC-enabled datastore”,` “Host IPMI System Event Log status”,` “Host Baseboard Management Controller status”,` “License user threshold monitoring”,` “Datastore capability alarm”,` “Storage DRS recommendation”,` “Storage DRS not supported on host”,` “Datastore is in multiple datacenters”,` “Insufficient vSphere HA failover resources”,` “License capacity monitoring”,` “Pre-4.1 host connected to SIOC-enabled datastore”,` “Virtual machine cpu usage”,` “Virtual machine memory usage”,` “License inventory monitoring”

vmware - list all IPs on guest machines

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +1300

If DNS is failing you…. You can run the following powercil script to list all IP’s to virtual machines within vmware….

$IPaddresses = @()

foreach($vm in Get-VM){ $vm.Guest.VmName | %{ $IPaddresses += $_ } $vm.Guest.IPAddress | %{ $IPaddresses += $_ } }

$IPaddresses

HP Flex 10 - Setup on VMWare

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +1300

Some really good info at this site : http://kennethvanditmarsch.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/understanding-hp-flex-10-mappings-with-vmware/

A bit more around his finding during some tests : http://kennethvanditmarsch.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/testing-scenarios-vmware-hp-c-class-infrastructure/

Wan Acceleration Appliances

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +1300

There are some really good products out there in the market at the moment…

Exinda - low cost, really good QOS / prioitisation and visibility. Falls short on acceleration (at the moment) Riverbed - One of the key players in the acceleration market. Optimized algorithms for specific traffic. Silver Peak - Relatively new, work well as a capture all acceleration device with QOS / prioritisation included.

One to watch - traffic squeezer. I’m always a fan of open source getting into new technologies, and this project seems to be a good start. Its still early days but I’m hopeful this will take off and become a contender in the future ahead.

Optimising Windows 7 Images for use in VDI

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +1300

Cool tool for optimizing win7 VDI - http://blogs.technet.com/b/deploymentguys/archive/2010/08/31/optimising-windows-7-images-for-use-in-vdi.aspx

The beta of this tool is available from http://www.autoitscript.com/files/tools/VDIOptimizer.zip but please remember The tool is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, confers no rights, and is not supported by the authors or Microsoft Corporation.

vmware 4.x esxi - kill virtual machine stuck powering off

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +1300

Logon to SSH or console and complete the following (WINXP-12 is name of machine causing me greif)

~ # ps | grep WINXP-12 39770348 vmm0:WINXP-12 39790829 39799011 mks:WINXP-12 /bin/vmx 39790834 39799011 vcpu-0:WINXP-12 /bin/vmx

~ # kill -9 39790834

vmware : IDE to SCSI

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve found that vmware converter (this may be fixed in newer verions) creates vmware guests with an IDE controller. There can be performance issues if you choose to remain with this particular controller… Best bet is to change it to one of the various vmware SCSI controllers…

Depending on which windows operating system you are running depends on which controller you use…. http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1006621

Guest Operating System	Adapter Type
Windows 2003, 2008, Vista	lsilogic
Windows NT, 2000, XP	buslogic
Linux	lsilogic

vmware - finding orphaned files

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +1300

Use following script for finding orphaned files in your vmware env…

# # Purpose : List all orphaned vmdk on all datastores in all VC's # Version: 1.1 # Author : HJA van Bokhoven # Modifications: LucD

$arrayVC = @(“server”) $report = @()

foreach ($strVC in $arrayVC) { Connect-VIServer $strVC $arrUsedDisks = Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine | % {$_.Layout} | % {$_.Disk} | % {$_.DiskFile} $arrDS = Get-Datastore | Sort-Object -property Name foreach ($strDatastore in $arrDS) { Write-Host $strDatastore.Name $ds = Get-Datastore -Name $strDatastore.Name | % {Get-View $_.Id} $fileQueryFlags = New-Object VMware.Vim.FileQueryFlags $fileQueryFlags.FileSize = $true $fileQueryFlags.FileType = $true $fileQueryFlags.Modification = $true $searchSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostDatastoreBrowserSearchSpec $searchSpec.details = $fileQueryFlags $searchSpec.matchPattern = "*.vmdk" $searchSpec.sortFoldersFirst = $true $dsBrowser = Get-View $ds.browser $rootPath = "["+$ds.summary.Name+"]"

Vmware & HP MSA

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +1300

Here is a great guide on multipathing and iSCSI MSA

http://jpaul.me/?tag=vmware-multipathing

vmware - cpu ready (what to look for) and performance

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +1300

keeping things simple – below are the numbers to look for when your investigating cpu scheduling issues withing a vmware environment…

Look for the cpu “ready” counter which is a percentage of time that the virtual machine was ready, but could not get scheduled to run on the physical CPU. CPU ready time is dependent on the number of virtual machines on the host and their CPU loads.

These are the peak / average figures to watch for in vmware performance graphs. Anything above 5% cpu ready time is worth fixing. (Note : the sampling rate is different depending on which view you are looking at)

vmware and NLB (unicast vs multicast)

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +1300

Thought I’d get a bit of clarification around this one. VMWare states –

VMware recommends that you use multicast mode, because unicast mode forces the physical switches on the LAN to broadcast all Network Load Balancing traffic to every machine on the LAN.

There are some issues which come to the surface if you are using unicast. Where possible we should always try to use a Multicast NLB as Unicast can cause some complications around vSwitch configurations. (requirement to change switch notifications to “No” – and seemingly break port id teaming). Detail below;

EMC Celerra Optimizations for VMware on NFS

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +1300

go here http://blog.scottlowe.org/2010/01/31/emc-celerra-optimizations-for-vmware-on-nfs/

Turn on the uncached write mechanism for NFS file systems used as VMware datastores. This can have a significant performance improvement for VMDKs on NFS but isn’t the default setting. From the Control Station, you can use this command to turn on the uncached write mechanism: server_mount <data mover name> -option <options>,**uncached** <file system name> <mount point> Be sure to review pages 99 through 101 of the VMware on Celerra best practices document for more information on the uncached write mechanism and any considerations for its use.

vmware and load balancing NFS trunks

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +1200

Straight from the post below, this is the best way (currently) to load balance your NFS datastores… No MPIO magic here unfortunately.

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1466595#1466595

Basically you can setup IP alias on the NFS side and then setup multiple connections (using a unique IP) per datastore on each ESX host. This works well if you are using a team of nics running IP-hash load balancing…

Static EtherChannel.

My setup is as follows:

ESXi 4.0 U1, Cisco 3750 Switches, and NetApp NFS on the storage side.

I have a total of 8 nics. I divided the nics into 3 groups.

2 nics on vSwitch0 for Mgmt & vMotion 3 nics on vSwitch1 for VM’s (Multiple port groups (3 VLANS)) 3 nics on vSwitch2 for IP Storage (Mostly NFS, a little iSCSI) (One vSwitch3 I also have a VM port group for iSCSI access from within the VM)

Since I have 3 nics on my IPStorage port group I needed a way to be able to utilize all three nics and not have the server just use one for ingress and egress traffic. This was done by:

Setting up a static EtherChannel on the cisco switch (Port Channel). Configuring the cisco switch to IP Hash Configure the vSwitch to “Route based on IP Hash” as well.

The next part is to create multiple datastores on the NFS device. Each of my NFS datastores is about 500GB in size. Reason for this is that my larger luns are iSCSI and are access directly from the VM using the MS iSCSI initiator from the VM itself. My NetApp NAS has an address of, let say, 192.168.1.50. So all my data stores are accessible by utilizing the address of “\\192.168.1.50\NFS-Store#”. This will not be useful as the esx box and the cisco switch will always use the same nic/port to access the nas device. This is due to the algorithm (IP HASH) to decide what link it’ll go over. So to resolve the issue, I added IP aliases to the NFS box. NetApp allows to have multiple Ip addresses pointing to the same NFS export, I suspect EMC would do the same. So, I added 2 aliases 51 & 52. Now my NFS datastores are accessible by using Ip address 192.168.1.50,.51, & .52.

So I went ahead and added the datastores to the ESX box using the multiple IP addresses:

Datastore1 = \\192.168.1.50\NFS-Store1 Datastore2 = \\192.168.1.51\NFS-Store2 Datastore3 = \\192.168.1.52\NFS-Store3

If you have more datastores it’ll just repeat: Datastore4 = \\192.168.1.50\NFS-Store4 and so on…

Since having multiple datastores and address to each, the 3 nics on the ESX box dedicated to IP Storage get utilized. It does not aggregate the bandwidth but it does use all three to send and recieve packets. So the fastest speed you will get is 1Gbit, theoretically, each way for traffic but, it is better than trying to cram all the traffic over 1 nic.

I also enabled Jumbo Frames on the vSwitch as well as the vmNic for IP-Stroage. (need the best performance!) I should mention that your NFS storage device should have EtherChannel setup on it as well. Otherwise, you’ll be on the same boat just on the other end of it.

Hope it helps!

Larry B.

I should mention that you should not use different addresses to access the same NFS share (datastore). It is not supported and may cause you issues.

vmware - hp procurve lacp / trunk

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +1200

Cisco’s Etherchannel and HP’s LACP are very similar – probably why I assumed both are supported by vmware. But as per below – it is not the case.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1004048

From a procurve perspective the differences between a “trunk” and “static lacp” trunk is the total bandwidth per connection. A typical end point on a “trunk” trunk can transmit various connections down both pipes, but only receive down one – sometimes refered to as TLB (transmit load balancing). In vmwares case when you are using a “trunk” trunk you will have ip hash set as a load balancer, effectively meaning a different nic will be used on the vmware side for each connection a virtual machine makes.

Linux - install vmware tools onto guest

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +1200

fire up the vm, then run the following after initiating a vmware tools install…

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom cd /tmp tar zxf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-x.x.x.gz cd vmware-tools-disstrib ./vmware-install.pl

Then just follow the prompts through to the end.

If your running fedora or similar make sure your’ve got gcc and kernel headers…. (you’ll probably have to update kernel too)

yum update shutdown -r now yum install -y gcc make kernel-devel perl

Ubuntu 12.x

apt-get install open-vm-tools

monitoring changed blocks (CBT) for replication of vmware virtual machines

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +1200

Check this link for a great script to monitor changes made to a virtual machine via the vmware CBT API. This is perfect for finding culprit machines that are generating a lot of replication traffic if you are replicating over a WAN.

http://www.vmguru.com/index.php/articles-mainmenu-62/scripting/105-using-powershell-to-track-block-change-sizes-over-time

If you have some disks on a virtual machine you don’t want this script to capture then just set them as independent disks (so no snapshots can take place). This is handy if you have your windows page file on a separate disk that you don’t want to be measured as a part of the CBT changes.

vmware srm - replicating over a wan - optimizations

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve been working through a SRM setup and have been looking at ways to optimize the amount of traffic that is sent over the WAN. The first obvious move is to move your vmware swap files off the replicated LUNS.

Another way is to reduce the sync window. i.e. how often is yoru replication technology trying to keep the source and destination in sync? – Increasing this window can sometimes help you out. But that all depends on your delta’s.

vyatta as a virtual router

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1200

Some very nice examples by Gene on how to setup vyatta as a router on this page;

http://www.sonoracomm.com/support/19-inet-support/233-vyatta-cable

Masquerade Natting;

set service nat rule 10 source address 192.168.77.0/24 set service nat rule 10 outbound-interface eth0 set service nat rule 10 type masquerade

set service nat rule 20 source address 10.200.88.0/24 set service nat rule 20 outbound-interface eth0 set service nat rule 20 type masquerade

Essentially every thing leaving from these two networks will be natted via the eth0 interface. i.e. they will be using the same IP as eth0 for their requests.

vmware - replacing security server ssl cert

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +1200

This page is hard to find, but it has it all… http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1008705

To generate and import an SSL certificate on the VDM server:

Note: Certificates are only required for client‐facing systems (that is, standard, replica, or security VDM servers).

All the commands related to certificates need to be run in System Context. From a command prompt, run:at (In 24 hour format) /interactive cmd.exeFor example:at 21:45 /interactive cmd.exeThis opens a new command window in System Context.

On the VDM or security server, change the directory to C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware VDM\Server\jre\bin.

Run the following command to create a 1024bit self-signed SSL certificate:keytool -genkey -keyalg “RSA” -keystore keys.p12 -storetype pkcs12 -validity 360To generate 2048bit certificate, run the command:keytool -genkey -keyalg “RSA” -keysize 2048 -keystore keys.p12 -storetype pkcs12 -validity 360Note: The keys.p12 file is created in the current directory.

Run the following command to create a certificate signing request (CSR):keytool -certreq -keyalg “RSA” -file certificate.csr -keystore keys.p12 -storetype pkcs12 -storepass , w here is the keystore passwordNote: The certificate.csr file is created in the same location.

Send the CSR file (certificate.csr) to a certificate authority and request a certificate in PKCS7 format.Note: If the certificate authority does not offer PKCS7 as a format, see Exporting into PKCS7 format in this article for information about exporting the certificate data in the appropriate format.

Copy the contents of the file into a text editor and save it as certificate.p7. The content appears similar to:—–BEGIN PKCS7—– MIIF+AYJKoZIhvcNAQcCoIIF6TCCBeUCAQExADALBgkqhkiG9w0BBwGgggXNMIID LDCCApWgAwIBAgIQTpY7DsV1n1HeMGgMjMR2PzANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQUFADCBhzEL i7coVx71/lCBOlFmx66NyKlZK5mObgvd2dlnsAP+nnStyhVHFIpKy3nsDO4JqrIg EhCsdpikSpbtdo18jUubV6z1kQ71CrRQtbi/WtdqxQEEtgZCJO2lPoIWMQA= —–END PKCS7—–

Note: For more information about importing certificates issued by an OpenSSL CA, see Importing certificates issued by an OpenSSL CA (1007390).

Run the following command to import certificates issued by CA:keytool -import -keystore keys.p12 -storetype pkcs12 -storepass -keyalg “RSA” -trustcacerts -file certificate.p7Where is the keystore password (the password you used when exporting the certificate).

To configure the View Connection Server to use the new certificate, place the new certificate and copy the keys.p12 file (the keystore file) in C:\Program Files\VMware\View Manager\Server\sslgateway\conf.

Modify or create the following file:C:\ProgramFiles\VMware\View Manager\Server\sslgateway\conf\locked.properties

Add the following properties:keyfile=keys.p12 keypass=

Where is the keystore password (the password you used when exporting the certificate).

Restart the View Connection Server service.

Exporting into the PKCS7 format

To export into the PKXS7 format:

Open the certificate file.

Click Details > Copy to File.

Click PKCS7, then select Include Details of Certificate.

The file is saved with a .P7B extension.

vmware - virtualcenter server service fails to start on boot

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +1200

This happens when the virtualcenter service tries to start before some of its dependencies are up and running. Typically due to SQL Server not being in a running state when it tries to startup.

If your in windows 2008 you can choose the service to start automatically (delayed), and most of the time this will resolve the problem. If you want to do it properly, and in a more clean way…. you’ll need to add SQL as a dependency.

windows w2k8 R2 64bit - 32bit ODBC for virtual center server

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +1200

You must create your ODBC connection using the 32-bit ODBC program. It is not as simple as running odbcad32.exe from the run / search bar.

you must run the following to get the actual 32-bit version;

%systemdrive%\Windows\SysWoW64\Odbcad32.exe

Populate this with the details and you should see it in the virtual center installer.

vmware - measuring iscsi write performance

Fri, 07 May 2010 00:00:00 +1200

I picked this trick up off vmware support. If you’ve got your iscsi all setup you can drop to the shell (either ssh or console) and do this to measure your average write throughput.

time vmkfstools -c 10G /vmfs/volumes/san_vmfs/my_vm/fat_disk.vmdk -d eagerzeroedthick

Try larger a larger disk if this is too quick (free space permitting)

Essentially this will initiate the host to create a fat disk in the location above. You will then get a time recorded on how long it takes to execute this command. Then you can use your maths skill to work out the transfer rate…

vmware - XP as a virtual guest

Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve run into some issues lately with XP guests that are running off a IDE controller. If you want any kind of performance you must build your machine with the LSI drivers (parallel).

Here is a flp image with the required LSI drivers (Press F6 etc on xp boot)

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1499140#1499140

hyper-v to esx conversion

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +1200

V2V cold clone process for SBS / exchange / sql / DC’s etc….. (works in vSphere)

Steps to convert from hyper-v guest to vmware guest

Remove hyper-v integrated services while hyper-v guest is running. (if possible)
Note down NIC networking details first
Clean shutdown hyper-v guest
Use StarWind Converter (free) to convert VHD to “dynamically growing VMware” image and use “IDE” as type. Note “SCSI” does NOT work if you have not got the LSI / BUS drivers in the source image, just use the default options – dynamic vmware and IDE.
Create VMware guest shell (virtual machine equivalent to hyper-v specs but without the disks) – remove all hard drives, iscsi controller should also disappear.
Upload the VMDK to same data store as virtual machine and attach to the virtual guest in the right order. They should be detected as “IDE”
Start new vmware guest
If you could not remove integrated services (i.e. hot clone), then you MUST disable hyper-v services immediately.
Install vmware tools – reboot
Remove hidden NIC and other orphaned devices, and reconfigure network card as per original.
Windows may need to be re-activated - do this.

Note : converting a machine to use an IDE controller will limit its performance!

VMWare "Another task is already in progress" error

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

Straight from : http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/662

I’m using ESXi 4.0, and i was facing the problem of “Another task is already in progress” error, practically the VM could not be used at all (turn on restart or even force off).

in ESXi 4.0 SSH console, using the command “service mgmt-vmware restart” will do no good :-(

therefore the solution is by using: services.sh restart command, quite simple and it doesn’t kill the whole VM process which is currently running on production, the only thing that is affected is the VCB backup, it failed when that command issued. Finally in your vCenter console, right click on your ESXi host in which you run the command and then click on reconnect.

Jumbo Frames on your vSphere ESXi box

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

Continuing on from this /2010/02/04/vsphere-and-multipathing-iscsi/

you may want to implement jumbo frames to your iSCSI backend…

Enable jumbo frames on your iSCSI target and switches then complete the following on the ESXi hosts (iSCSI initiators)…

This to list your current switch details and port group names…

esxcfg-vswitch -l

The following to allow jumbo frames onto your vswtich (insert your vSwich in following)

esxcfg-vswtich -m 9000 vSwitch0

Then create your kernel port groups that you want to use for iscsi, my commands looked like this… (repeat for each iscsi kernel port you have) – note : DO NOT ADD ANY VMKERNEL(s) from the GUI, instead use the steps below

vSphere and Multipathing iSCSI

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +1300

This is just a quick reference to create a multiplathing iSCSI setup…

Create two virtual kernel switches, one called “iSCSI-1” and the other called “iSCSI-2” (and so on if you have more nics)

Then per kernel portgroup ensure that only one of the nics is active. For the “iSCSI-1” portgroup configure it to override the virtual switch settings and move nic 0 to active and nic 1 to unused. For the “iSCSI-2” portgroup configure it to override the virtual switch settings and move nic 1 to active and nic 0 to unused.

vmware - DVS

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +1300

Here is a good presentation about vmwares DVS technology. Essentially a new way to create a vSwitch over a cluster and just add the required hosts into it.

http://download3.vmware.com/vdcos/demos/DVS_Demo_800x600.html

boot esx from usb drive

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Its quite easy to boot esx from a usb device or flash card..

First download the .iso, then browse with winrar or similar. See if you can find the “big”.dd file this is the file we need.

i.e. the ESXi 4 file is called VMware-VMvisor-big-208167-x86_64.dd

Next grab WinImage and “restore image to physical harddrive” choose the .dd file the select your usb / flash drive.

Done.

create usb install for esx / esxi

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +1300

First format your usb / flash drive with FAT. Then copy all the contents of the installer .iso onto the drive.

Next delete isolinux.bin and rename isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg

Edit syslinux.cfg and append “usb” to the line starting with “append” … i.e. similar to this

append vmkboot.gz — vmkernel.gz — sys.vgz — cim.vgz — ienviron.tgz — image.tgz — install.tgz usb

Next grab the latest syslinux.exe (zip for windows) from here and run syslinux -s –ma :

vMA - Using HP Power Protector agent to shutdown virtual hosts

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Goal was to create a vMA which would send a shutdown signal to all the virtual hosts it knows about. I’ve assumed that ESX and management agents that live within the service console will eventually be phased out.

The steps…

Download and install the vMA from vmware - fire up the vm and setup the basic networking required
Create trusts within the vMA to each of the vmware hosts you wish to manage (sudo vifp addserver )
Install HP Power Protector (linux agent) - you could substitute for your UPS client software
Modify the shutdown script (may differ per vendor) to shutdown the esxboxs- “SDScript” (hostops.pl)

The 1st step is easy enough. Find the download at vmware and install (Deploy OVF Template…)

vmware - HA issues

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Most of the time your HA issues are going to be DNS related. So ensure that your vcenter can ping all your hosts by FQDN without issue. In some cases though a stubborn server may not want to play the game even when everything is configured properly.

This method is considered a “last effort” as you’ll need to run some CLI commands on the ESX box. But i have found it useful in a few situations.

vmware - issues stopping / starting a virtual machine

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +1300

I’ve had this issue in vSphere where a machine appears to be powered on (both to vCenter and ESXi) but is not actually running.

I get this when trying to power off the virtual machine “…cannot be performed in the current state (powered on)” - which is somewhat strange.

So i have resorted to CLI to check the machines status and then force it off.

This page at vmware explains the various methods (as you progress through them they get more extreme): http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1014165

vSphere - ctrl-alt-del greyed out

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +1300

This bug has hit me. Looks like users with roles like vm user / power user cannot send “ctrl-alt-del” via the console even though they have the correct permissions. Our users cannot use ctrl-alt-ins as they are connected via RDP to a machine that has the console installed.

Found this : http://communities.vmware.com/thread/220683;jsessionid=480C8A2C9B9EACA9FF2BB4E1BECA2D53?start=15&tstart=0

Looks like its a known bug and will be fixed in the upcoming VC4.0 update 1 sometime Q3 2009 :(

VirtualBox - crashing / freezing

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve had some problems since my upgrade to virtualbox 2.2.0 on OpenSolaris. After some time all of my linux boxes seem to just die. The virtual machine just stops responding. Strangely there was no problem with my windows vms after the update.

From what i can tell it looks like the upgrade turned off “IO APIC” - this is the bit that seemed to cause the problem. Re-enabling this on all of my linux boxes seems to have fixed the problem. I’ll continue testing for another week and update this post if any problems re-occur.

ESX - network utilization

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +1200

One of the best articles i have found on this subject is here : http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/07/16/understanding-nic-utilization-in-vmware-esx/

There is some additional information here on setting up an etherchannel on the cisco side : http://blog.scottlowe.org/2006/12/04/esx-server-nic-teaming-and-vlan-trunking/

This can be handy if you need a single VM to use both physical nics in a load-balanced manner - both outbound and inbound. Of course its not really that simple though. This will really only add a benefit if the VM is communicating to multiple destinations (using ip hash - a single destination from a single VM with one IP will always be limited to the same physical nic).

zfs compression and latency

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Since im using ZFS as storage via NFS for my some of my vmware environments i need to ensure that latency on my disk is reduced where ever possible.

There is alot of talk about ZFS compression being “faster” than a non-compressed pool due to less physical data being pulled off the drives. This of course depends on the system powering ZFS, but i wanted to run some tests specifically on latency. Throughput is fine in some situations, but latency is a killer when it comes to lots of small reads and writes (in the case of hosting virtual machines)

ESX 4 (vSphere) - installation issues

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve had a couple of installation issues with ESX4

One was particularly strange, the install process would freeze every now and again until i pressed a key on the keyboard. This was related to AMD’s power saving C1 mode - disable this in the bios to fix this problem.

Secondly it was a problem with my nic. Essentially i didn’t have card that was supported (realtek). After inserting a intel card all was well. This fires up a ambiguous error and cans the whole install. (lvmdriver error)

Citrix XenServer 5.5 - First impressions

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I had decided to try out Citrix Xen Server at home since i work a lot with vmware during my working week and felt like a change. It all seemed well… That is until i had to deal with snapshots. I suppose i have taken for granted almost all other virtual host software that provides a simple “revert to snapshot” option. From what i can tell this is totally absent from Citrix XenServer 5.5.

Opensolaris : Citrix XenServer / ESX - Hooking into ZFS

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

To share your zfs pool via NFS (that works with Citrix Xen / ESX) to a host called “esxhost”;

zfs set sharenfs=rw,nosuid,root=esxhost tank/nfs

Note : You MUST have a resolvable name from the opensolaris box. i.e. you should be able to ping it. I have tried with ip’s only and it will fail. I have edited the /etc/hosts file to include the following line for my config;

Using W2k3 R2 / W2k8 server as a NFS share for vmware

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

This is something i do in the lab so all of my vm’s are able to access iso’s etc (very handy for quick builds). Quite handy doing it through windows since its easiey enough to setup a windows network share to the same location and update various files via that.

This site has some good clear instructions : http://vmetc.com/2008/02/19/create-a-nfs-share-for-vm-iso-files-with-windows-2003-server-r2/

On the Windows 2003 Server make sure “Microsoft Services for NFS” in installed. If not you need to add it under Add/Remove Programs, Windows Components, Other Network File and Print Services
Next go to folder you want to share and right-click on it and select Properties
Click on the NFS Sharing tab and select “Share this Folder”
Enter a Share Name, check “Anonymous Access”
In VirtualCenter, select your ESX server and click the “Configuration” tab and then select “Storage”
Click on “Add Storage” and select “Network File System” as the storage type
Enter the Windows Server name, the folder (share) name and a descriptive Datastore Name
Done. Now you can map CD iso’s to your various vm’s.

VirtualBox - Dup on ping

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve had this with certain kernels (2009.06) on opensolaris. Seems there is some incompatibility between some kernels and the opensolaris virtualbox network emulation. This only seems to effect linux virtual guests.

When you try to ping an address you get something like this…

[root@VA-DHCPWEB ~]# ping 192.168.9.15 PING 192.168.9.15 (192.168.9.15) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 192.168.9.15: icmp_seq=1 ttl=128 time=1.85 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.9.15: icmp_seq=1 ttl=127 time=1.88 ms (DUP!)

ESXi 4 - new features

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1200

ESXi 4 has been released under a new infrastructure name “VMware vSphere 4.0”

Some of my favorite features so far;

Host Profiles - Finally you can just apply a host profile to a newly created vmhost. Previously this was a pain to setup all the storage / vlan configuration on each host.
Thin Provisioning - Awesome, now disk can be allocated dynamically allocated as needed. Just like it is on vmware virtual server. Perfect for a lab environment where performance is not needed.

http://vmware.com/

Opensolaris 2008.11 and xvm

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve been dabbling with virtual box up until this point. But have decided to take it to the next step by using xvm to run my virtual machines. I have taken a guide from BDerzhavets at this site : http://bderzhavets.blogspot.com/2008/12/xvm-on-opensolaris-2008.html

First step is to open package manager and find the “vitalization” grouping. Install everything in this group. You’ll probably find some packages are already installed.

Next you’ll need to add the xvm kernel to the grub startup menu (menu.1st). This bit is a bit of blind faith from my perspective - its a shame that the xvm kernel package doesn’t add itself to grub? Anyhow… You need to add the following as another boot option in the /rpool/boot/grub/menu.lst file;

Opensolaris - where has my memory gone?

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Use this command in 2008.11 to get details on where your memory is currently being used…

echo ::memstat | pfexec mdb -k

Page Summary Pages MB %Tot ———— —————- —————- —- Kernel 263992 1031 34% ZFS File Data 91917 359 12% Anon 376867 1472 48% Exec and libs 11484 44 1% Page cache 3387 13 0% Free (cachelist) 9766 38 1% Free (freelist) 24807 96 3%

Total 782220 3055 Physical 782219 3055

Diskpart - resizing virtual machine system volumes (windows)

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Diskpart works quite well extending disk sizes - …unless its the system disk that you need to extend.

Luckily in the virtual world its somewhat easier to move your disks about. This is a quick list of the steps required to increase your system disk…

You will need to have another virtual machine available to boot into (windows 2003 etc)

Shut down the virtual machine with the system disk you wish to extend
Go into virtual machine settings and increase the system drive size to what you require
Now you need your spare w2k3 virtual machine or similar. While it is in a shutdown state add the system disk you wish to extend into this machine as another hard disk. Note: select “existing harddrive” and not the default option of “new harddrive”, and point to the system drive you wish to extend (It is possible to attach this disk as long it is not on and being used)
Power up the spare machine with the newly attached hard drive (the drive you wish to extend)
Logon, open up cmd prompt and type “diskpart”
Now you need to find and select your disk. Type “list disk” to see available disk numbers (most likely the last drive letter). Then type “select disk #” (# = the number you got from the list command)
Next select the volume, similar to above type “list volume” then “select volume #”
Type “extend”
Type “exit”
Done - shutdown the machine and disconnect the drive you just extended. Be carefull not to DELETE the drive, you only want to disconnect it.
Now you should be able to fire up the original machine and it will have a larger system drive.

There are obviously other 3rd party utilities to do this but this is handy to know and is actually quite fast.

Linux - Installing VirtualBox additions

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

The following works on CentOs / Fedora / redhat etc…

Logon to your distro. The packages you need are the kernel-devel.i686, kernel.i686 (if not the latest), and gcc.i386 (complier)

yum -y install kernel.i686 gcc.i386

reboot as the kernel needs to load, then logon again install the kernel dev;

yum -y install kernel-devel.i686

Now you want to present the virtualbox additions to the cdrom drive on your distro. Click “install additions” on the virtualbox guest console.

VMware Server 2.0 - Infrastructure Client

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

One thing i like about vmware server 2.0, is that you are not forced to use the web console in all cases.

If you are lucky enough to have access to VMware Infrastructure Client 2.5 you can connect via it using the following syntax at the logon screen;

IP address / Name : http://192.168.9.100

If you enter a URL in the host field, use your root and correct password you should be able to logon without issue. Welcome to a nice fast GUI admin console.

Linux - setting the time

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

How to set the time in Linux; (from a command line)

date -s “09/21/2007 09:20:00”

hwclock –systohc

the second command links the time back to the hardware clock.

Note: within a vm guest it is always advised to install the guest additions as the time on a guest can slowly move away from the correct time.

Virtual Appliance - Virtual Router

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

This is quite a handy app for creating small virtual routers. See the website for more detail… The commandline is similar to cisco - so its good for practice if you are going for your CCNA.

http://www.vyatta.com/products/virtualized.php

Oh - its open source and free!

I’m a bit lazy in most cases and just add a few virtual nics into my VM’s and do the routing though them. But some people may find this handy for a single point to manage networking.

VMWare - Converter Best Practices (p2v)

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

I found this on the web a while back, it sums up most of what you need to know before doing any P2V work (this generally talks about a windows physical to virtual conversion)….

http://www.vmware-tsx.com/download.php?asset_id=48

Converter Best Practices

What should I do after I successfully convert my virtual machine?

If you change from a multi-processor system to a uni-processor system you need to manually change the HAL on the Windows server after the conversion. To do this go into Device Manager after the machine first boots and discovers it’s new hardware and then click on Computer then right-click on the processor and select Update Driver. Then select Install from specific location and then Don’t search I will choose the driver to install. Then select show All compatible hardware and select the appropriate processor. For example, if you went from a dual cpu to a single cpu then select ACPI uni-processor PC instead of ACPI multi-processor PC. You will need to reboot once you change this. To verify what HAL you are using you right-click your hal.dll in c:\windows\system32 and select the Version tab and select Internal Name and it should say halmacpi.dll for multi-processor acpi and halacpi.dll for uni-processor acpi.

Next clean up all the non-present hardware after the P2V conversion. To do this go to a CMD prompt and type;

SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1

DEVMGMT.MSC

then select Show Hidden Devices. Delete any old grayed out hardware. Next remove any vendor specific applications/drivers. For example on a HP server you should go to Add/Remove programs and remove any HP management agents, survey utility, array config utility, version control agent, etc. Also check your NIC and make sure there are no vendor specific drivers there (ie. teaming). Check the Services to see if all there is anything vendor specific related there and disable any services that are.

VMWare Performance tips

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

these are tested from experience…. (the following is true on vmware server 1.0.6 on a linux host)

Always use only 1 Virtual CPU - i have found that most times even if you have heaps of cores to spare on the host, a single virtual core is faster.
Set the memory to the recommended level when possible - 256Mb sounds shit when you have 4gb, doesn’t matter - set it to 256Mb (increase only if excessive paging on the guest). Let linux and vmware manage the memory, in most cases it does a much better job than windows. Do not disable memory page trimming on any of the guests, this gives more memory back to the host to cache other more important activity (disk etc)
Never use 2gb split files for the virtual disk unless you have to transfer the vm onto a file system that doesn’t support larger files.
Load the latest drivers for your NIC on the host
Be nice to your physical disk - do not load all your VM’s on a single drive - the HDD is the slowest part of the system, dont saturate it. I use either a raid 0 running multiple vm’s (with backups) or dedicated drives per set of vm’s. This excludes enterprise level raids which can handle much higher level of simultaneous requests.
Install vmware tools on all guest machines

watch your pings - ping your guests… they should never loose a ping. If they do you are loading the cpu to high and the host cannot process the network queries. As above use only one virtual cpu. Also ensure you have the latest network driver loaded for your NIC on the host.