sigtar.com

Using a CDN at home for free!

Mon, 27 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +1200

Cloudflare are nice enough to provide a free tier to their CDN service which is perfect for those of us that still host websites at home. The free teir provides some basic benefits - DDOS protection and caching. Check out the details here - https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/#overview

If you utilize their tunneling solution, you’ll also be able to host websites behind a dynamic IP. You’ll no longer need a static IP. This means the traffic goes like so;

Solar v2 - choosing the components

Sun, 03 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +1300

Since my first attempt at solar, I have learnt a few things and several new bits of tech have been introduced into the market. Some of the new tech include; all-in-one inverters, bigger “better” batteries, shingled solar panels and micro-inverters…

Time to take the learnings from my first solar project and scale-out

New Parts

An all-in-one solar inverters can include the following functions in a single device;

Solar Controller - MPPT (2x string inputs)
Inverter - Converts DC (48v) to AC (pure sine wave @230v, 50 hertz)
Battery Charger -
- from Grid (AC -> DC)
- from Solar Panels (DC -> DC)
ATS / Line mode - Flicks over to Grid if solar or batteries are low
BMS, Timers and Controls - Can program battery types, priorities and timers depending on how you want to power your loads and utilize your batteries.
Stats / Alerts - WIFI enabled

Visual Studio Code - Adding GitLab repository

Sun, 04 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +1300

How do you setup a GitLab repo on Microsoft Visual Code?

There are two main scenarios -

You have the code on your workstation and you want to push into a clean / new repository
You want to pull code from an existing gitlab repository onto your workstation

First go to your local folder on your workstation (either empty or full of code)

git init 
git add .
git remote add origin https://<username>:<usertoken>@gitlaburl.com/project/repo.git

The above commands tell git to run initial setup, add current folder as content then add associated remote gitlab repository.

emergency reboot a hung Linux host

Thu, 10 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +1200

Sometimes you need something that can kick a host a bit harder than the standard reboot command. Even if you include the -f switch to force, a hung task can prevent your host from rebooting.

Try this - first enable the sysrq setting, then trigger. Your host should reboot immediately.

sudo echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq
sudo echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger

Note : This is effectively a hard reset which does not cleanly shut services or tasks down. You may need to check your disk on some operating systems.

HEVC media optimization

Tue, 30 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +1200

Do you have a large collection of video media files not using HEVC (H265) yet? There is a massive amount of disk space coming your way if you flick over to the new video codec format.

HEVC definitely lives up to its name, for most media you can expect a 70% or more disk savings from transcoding from an old codec. There are some catches though… If you want your TV to play it direct (i.e. straight off the file) the codec will need to be supported by it. You can of course get around this by using a media server such as Plex or Emby which will transcode from HEVC back to a compatible format.

Solar - In Summer

Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +1300

Power generation is up in summer :)

The last stat “Total Power (1M-7d)” gives me a view of how much power was generated over a 30 day period 7 days ago (so i can tell if power generation as an average is going up or down). Right now it power generation this on a downward trend.

(see previous post for winter generation)

Solar - modifications complete

Tue, 06 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +1200

Two recent modifications to my solar system have changed the daily generated power considerably.

First section highlighted above - i added the ATS and 24/7 load (this server)

Second section highlighted above - moving the 6 panels from east and west to north facing roof. (only reason i didn’t do this initially is north facing roof is a lot higher and i hate heights!)

Copper wire gauge and max amps

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +1200

Do not skimp on your wiring across your solar installation. Pushing too many amps across a wire that is too small can cause fires and short your installation - this is dangerous!

A rightly sized wire reduces resistance and can assist with reducing voltage drop.

For example, in my system i have a 1000W inverter attached to my 24v battery. If i’m pulling 1000W, then amps 1000W / 24V = 41.67A. Meaning i should be using a 6 gauge wire (see below) between my battery and inverter.

ATS - 24/7 power loads on solar!

Sat, 20 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +1200

By hooking up my ATS in my solar system, I’m nearing the end of my solar experiment. I cannot recommend the ATS (automatic transfer system) more, such a brillient device.

By installing the ATS i am keeping my solar power generated off grid, but with on grid backup for any loads i attach to it. Also keeps me away from any danger introduced by back filling the grid

So i can run a 24/7 load which will automatically flick over to main power when the batteries are low. At the moment i am powering my attached server (the load) approx 33% of the day. I could power my server for longer if i had a larger battery attached to solar. Its currently winter, so sunlight hours are also limited.

lead acid battery "state of charge" chart

Sat, 20 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +1200

Lead acid batteries do not like being completely discharged. I have used the following chart for reference, in most cases i only discharge my battery to 50% DOD (depth of discharge).

Even deep cycle lead acids life (max charge cycles) will be extended if it is not completely discharged. It is also generally recommend to completely charge your battery after use - i.e. take the battery back to full charge in a single cycle.

Home Solar Experiment

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +1200

So I’ve been busy building a new solar array, mostly as a hobby and its been crazy fun. Electrocuted my self twice, but luckily nothing too bad.

I’ll write up some more detail round the build, the metric collection and the things i have learnt over my time.

Keep in mind that NZ is in the southern hemisphere, so its winter as i’m writing this. Low sun hours! Stats publicly available via grafana here - https://grafana.sigtar.com

M365 Electric Scooter - must have mods

Sat, 29 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve been riding my m365 xiaomi scooter for quite some time now… over its time i have made a few mods to make it a better and more reliable ride…

First - The tyres.

Sticking with pneumatic are best, they are lighter and generally have better grip when they are in good shape (i.e. not plastic). The only downside is the tube puncturing every now and again. The slime you can inject into your trye also is pretty average, it increases weight slowing you down.

Mi / Xiaomi Scooter Error codes

Mon, 06 May 2019 00:00:00 +1200

Scooter beeping? - check out these codes for a hint at what might be wrong…

Error code	Description	Malfunction part
10	Dashboard and control board communication abnormal，check connected cable	Dashboard、control board
11	Motor A phase current abnormal ，check control board	control board
12	Motor B phase current abnormal ，check control board	control board
13	Motor C phase current abnormal ，check control board	control board
14	Throttle hall abnormal，check electric throttle、dashboard and connected cable	dashboard 、electric throttle
15	Brake hall abnormal，check electric barke、dashboard and connected cable	dashboard、electric brake
16	Battery change MOS abnormal，check control board	control board
17	External battery change MOS abnormal，check control board	control board
18	motor hall abnormal，check motor、control board、connected cable.	control board、motor
19	Battery voltage abnormal，check battery、control board、connected cable.	control board、battery
20	External battery voltage abnormal，check battery、control board、connected cable.	control board、battery
21	Battery communication failed，check battery、control board、connected cable	battery
22	Battery code failed，change battery	battery
23	Battery default serial number，change battery	battery
24	System voltage test abnormal，check control board	control board、battery、external battery
25	Undefined
26	Flash saving error，check control board	control board
27	Control code error，change control board	control board
28	Motor driver mos up-bridge short circuit	control board
29	Motor driver mos down-bridge short circuit	control board
30	Undefined
31	Program skip error，check control board	control board
32	Undefined
33	Undefined
34	Undefined
35	Unit has default serial number，change control board	control board
36	Undefined
37	Undefined
38	Undefined
39	Battery temperature sensor abnormal，change battery	battery
40	Control board temperature abnormal，check control board	control board、battery
41	Exteral battery temperature abnormal，change external battery	external battery
42	Exteral battery communication error，check external battery、control board、connected cabel	control board、external battery
43	Exteral battery code error，change external battery	external battery
44	External has default serial number，change external battery	external battery

Brave Browser - another non-ad web alternative?

Wed, 24 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +1200

Brave is a web browser that has been about for while, but i only happened across it when it made its way onto the android platform.

It presents another concept which supports web content creators without subjecting viewers to horrendous ads, both in their content and in their speed detriment.

Check their site out here - https://brave.com

Crypto mining failed me (see coin hive here), ads are annoying and more and more likely to be blocked via various plugins and tools. The Brave browser blocks all ads by default and builds up a profile on where you are spending your time on the web. Contributions are then made to the various sites if they are registered to the “BAT” system, which is a way of rewarding the content providers.

time to disable coinhive - hysteria ensues

Mon, 29 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +1300

See my previous post here - /2017/10/13/coinhive-alternative

So the trial of coinhive and associated monero browser mining has come to an end. It seems most corporate firewalls and security appliances detect and block access to my domain just being associated with the coinhive java-script.

Even though i was being a polite net citizen and disclosing it on the site - firewalls with strict polices dont give it a chance. Several public DNS servers have also block listed the site - hopefully this will be undone soon.

moving wordpress to http2 (via https)

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +1300

I just moved my wordpress site to http2 (via https). Some advice on steps to moving your site ;

Run it behind nginx + lets encrypt - offload ssl certs and get http2 performance
Setup nginx default to redirect all http -> https
update your WordPress site to correct URL (via admin / settings / general) i.e.
Run WP plug-in to change all media / links to new https links. Else you get mixed secuirty (some http, some https)
- I used - https://wordpress.org/plugins/velvet-blues-update-urls/

SSL caching and redirects in chrome

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +1300

While setting up SSL reverse proxy using lets encrypt and nginx i had a few troubles with testing via googles Chrome browser.

Chrome caches some SSL responses which can be cleared by deleting your browsing data via settings or Ctrl+Shift+Del.
Chrome also caches http -> https redirects, you can see these by going to chrome://net-internals and select “HSTS” from the drop down. Enter the domain name under “Delete domain” and press the Delete button

The easiest thing to do during testing is use incognito mode. You will not need to clear the cache every time you change config or re-issue certificates.

bye bye http - hello letsencrypt

Thu, 11 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +1300

I’ve been a fan of HTTP and caching since my dial-up modem.

Skip to today where google returns HTTPS sites higher in its search results. Its could also be possible that you cannot trust a man in the middle HTTP cache any longer either right? :)

SSL certs have traditionally been expensive, but say welcome to lets encrypt which provides a free way of securing all of your websites. If you haven’t heard of it check it out here - https://letsencrypt.org/

steamcache for gaming

Mon, 05 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +1300

Assuming you have docker running at home, check out these two docker projects - one is the cache (powered by nginx), the other is the dns servcie (which intercepts steam calls)

When you have all three up and running you can confirm HITS to the cache by running the following against the steamcache container;

docker exec -it steamcache tail -f /data/logs/access.log

This is great if you have a gaming cafe or LAN over at your house on occasion, all steam games will be cached to local disk so that your internet pipe gets a break. ;)

Ubuntu - Disable Firewall

Wed, 08 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +1300

if your working with Ubuntu in lab or test env, you may want to disable firewall…. two simple commands;

sudo ufw disable

sudo apt-get remove ufw

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
ufw
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
After this operation, 838 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
(Reading database ... 64052 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing ufw (0.35-0ubuntu2) ...
Skip stopping firewall: ufw (not enabled)
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...

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.

coinhive - alternative to ad revenue?

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

I’m attempting to use coinhive as an alternative to ad revenue on my blog.

I have it set throttle to 50% at moment, hopefully it doesn’t disrupt a casual browser on this site.

Check out the details here - https://coinhive.com/

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.

eachine 250 quad racer - PIDs

Mon, 11 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +1300

Building a new FPV racer i have quickly found myself tweaking the firmware and PID settings. Here are some of best bits i have found around the Eachine 250 racer.

http://wikirotors.com/index.php?title=Eachine_Racer_250

Roll: Kp 0.0034 Ki 0.0119 Kd 0.000046

Pitch: Kp 0.00454 Ki 0.01589 Kd 0.000061

Yaw: Kp 0.00794 Ki 0.01509 Kd 0.000067

These are designed for use with a 1500 mAH Lipo mounted on the lower plate. Note: these are not tuned for use with Gopro or other camera.

change windows 2012 to core mode

Fri, 14 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +1200

Found yourself considering hyper-v? Microsoft has come a long way and is now becoming more popular as a serious contender in the hypervisor area. My preference is still VMware, but some businesses may find their Microsoft allegiance makes hyper-v a valid option.

Note, i do not consider Microsoft a “cheaper” solution in any circumstance. The current state of hyper-v, SDN options, clustering and VMM management falls very short of what VMware has out of the box. Anyhow, if you do choose windows, here is how you remove the GUI - hopefully saving you a little bit of RAM and reducing the running footprint open for attacks and vulnerabilities….

Finding orphaned GPO policies

Wed, 08 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve used the following attached script to find orphaned GPOs.

It can do the following;

GPOs that exist within SYSVOL but not within the GPO management console.
Also vice versa - GPOs in management console but not in SYSVOL.

Very handy. GPO Check

pc engine - pfsense as router / firewall

Thu, 26 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +1300

Just built a pfsense router on a pc engine to replace my aging 7390 fritzbox…. Very very awesome and fast!

Perfect for UFB (ultra fast broadband) here in New Zealand - FTTH has arrived :)

I’m currently running these services on it (2 x 1GHZ cpu, 4GB RAM, 16GB msata SSD);

dhcpd - DHCP server
miniupnpd - UPnP server
ntpd - NTP server
squid - Transparent Proxy & Reverse Proxy
snort - IDS (Intrusion Detection System) / IPS (Intrusion Prevention System)
ssd - SSH server
unbound - DNS Server
ipsec - IPsec VPN (site to site VPN)
openvpn - Open VPN (client VPN)

Check these links for some great advise…

Creating a .pem with the Private Key and Entire Trust Chain

Sun, 01 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +1300

You may find you install a SSL cert, but certain browsers show the connection as unsafe (i.e. mobile browser has issues but desktop browsers are happy)

This generally points to not having the cert chain correct. You can check your cert chain at sites like -

https://ssltools.websecurity.symantec.com/checker/views/certCheck.jsp

https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-checker.html

Download your Intermediate and Primary Certificates.
Open a text editor (such as notepad) and paste the entire body of each certificate into one text file in the following order:
1. The Private Key - your_domain_name.key
2. The Primary Certificate - your_domain_name.crt
3. The Intermediate Certificate - gd_bundle_g2_g1.crt
4. The Root Certificate - TrustedRoot.crt
Make sure to include the beginning and end tags on each certificate. The result should look like this:

-—-BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY—– (Your Private Key: your_domain_name.key) —–END RSA PRIVATE KEY—– —–BEGIN CERTIFICATE—– (Your Primary SSL certificate: your_domain_name.crt) —–END CERTIFICATE—– —–BEGIN CERTIFICATE—– (Your Intermediate certificate: DigiCertCA.crt) —–END CERTIFICATE—– —–BEGIN CERTIFICATE—– (Your Root certificate: TrustedRoot.crt) —–END CERTIFICATE—–

Save the combined file as your_domain_name.pem. The .pem file is now ready to use.

unraid smart check - dead WD green drive

Thu, 30 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +1300

errors on unraid GUI - sometimes its a loose cable, sometimes its an issue with the drive.

Run this command to check smart status

smartctl -a -d ata /dev/sda or if you are using a newer SATA controller smartctl -a -A /dev/sda

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Troubleshooting

unfortunately in my case, looks like drive is pretty much dead… not too bad for a drive almost 5 years old.

its pretty typical of a WD green drive in its default config to die in this type of environment, no plans to replace it with a similar type drive. You can see below the incredibly high LCC count which indicates the drive header has parked this many times over its life. This is probably part of the problem - there is a tool you can run (check this vid, link for WDIDDLE3 also in comments - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2eYyRI_F98) which disables the intellipark feature of the green drive. I never disabled the park timeout before this drive died (which defaults to 8 seconds!) – note: i have disabled it completely on my other green drives.

SQL Server Setup - Error code 0x84B30002

Fri, 18 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +1200

SQL Server Setup has encountered the following error: No feature were uninstalled during the setup execution. The requested features may not be installed. Please review the summary.txt logs for further details.

Error code 0x84B30002.

Follow the below steps it may help to uninstall, Before follow this procedure please make sure you have some idea about registry

1. Open Registry Editor 2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\ 3. Browse Ids one by one and identify the GUIDs for SQL Server 2008 4. Run the below command for all SQL Server 2008 Guids one by one

SQL Express - Backup Plan

Thu, 26 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +1200

SQL express doesn’t have the luxury of SQL maintenance plans, but you can still write a SQL script to dump a database to a particular location and run it via task scheduler on a daily basis.

Create SQL query and save it to a particular location… (NightlyBackup.sql)

DECLARE @pathName NVARCHAR(512)

SET @pathName = ‘D:\SQL Backup\database_’ + Convert(varchar(8), GETDATE(), 112) + ‘.bak’

BACKUP DATABASE [database] TO DISK = @pathName WITH NOFORMAT, NOINIT, NAME = N’db_backup’, SKIP, NOREWIND, NOUNLOAD, STATS = 10

ERROR: No forward-proxy ports configured

Tue, 11 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +1300

I had the above issue after a squid upgrade and after changing from http_port 3128 transparent to http_port 3128 intercept.

Add “http_port 8080” line to squid.config to avoid this message, if you are not already using that port.

The changes in security require that a separate port be setup for forwarding proxy requests

nginx - and gzip

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +1300

i only have vdsl at home and host my website via it… the following graphs shows when nginx started serving faster than the vdsl connection could handle (which is about 9Mbits)

ngnix with cache enabled, gzip enabled and set to 6

http://loadimpact.com/load-test/sigtar.com-6a246200e28f354c64582cf2c0b6ce46

ngnix with cache enabled, gzip enabled and set to 9 (maximum)

http://loadimpact.com/load-test/sigtar.com-1422b3e7250c4e3acb7868177f2b2056

ngnix with cache disabled, gzip enabled and set to 9 (maximum)

http://loadimpact.com/load-test/sigtar.com-19561e7422e24f35fb557c662d20beac

nginx - setup as reverse proxy

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

Previously to take down this wordpress site all you needed to do was hold down F5 for about 20 seconds then the site would take about 5 mins to recover.

There were a few factors causing this and quite a few different methods to solving the problem. Wordpress itself is run on php / apache, apache has an evasive mod which can block certain IPs depending on the defined abusive behavior (typical DDOS attack). Since i like to run a few websites behind a single IP i looked at fixing the issue closer to the perimeter….

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

activate windows from command line - slmgr

Fri, 07 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +1300

Temporarily extend evaluation period (limited execution - see output below)…

C:\Windows\System32>cscript slmgr.vbs /rearm

C:\Windows\System32>shutdown -r -t 1

Show detailed license information…

C:\Windows\System32>cscript slmgr.vbs /dlv

License Status: Initial grace period Time remaining: 43200 minute(s) (30 day(s)) Remaining Windows rearm count: 0

Activate windows…

C:\Windows\System32>cscript slmgr.vbs /ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

C:\Windows\System32>cscript slmgr.vbs /ato

Will require access to the internet - most of the time the issues are either time sync or connectivity to internet.

Active Directory- redirect default Containers to Organisational Units

Thu, 19 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +1200

One really useful tidbit I picked up last week –

Redirusr & redircmp

Configures the default OU for computers and users so they don’t appear in the default containers when they are added (effectively meaning they only get root domain policies).

As you would guess – it helps keep the default AD containers clean by placing machines straight into an OU and also applying any policies attached.

windows 2012 change key from evaluation to standard

Mon, 12 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +1200

get current version;

dism /online /get-currentedition

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool Version: 6.2.9200.16384

Image Version: 6.2.9200.16384

Current edition is:

Current Edition : ServerStandardEval

dism /online /set-edition:ServerStandard /ProductKey:xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx /AcceptEula

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool Version: 6.2.9200.16384

Image Version: 6.2.9200.16384

Starting to update components… Starting to install product key… Finished installing product key.

Removing package Microsoft-Windows-ServerStandardEvalEdition~~31bf3856ad364e35~~amd64~~6.2.9200.16384 [==========================100.0%==========================] Finished updating components.

Starting to apply edition-specific settings… Finished applying edition-specific settings.

The operation completed successfully. Restart Windows to complete this operation. Do you want to restart the computer now? (Y/N)

windows 2012 - dedup

Wed, 07 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +1200

If you have some archive data that you would like to copy onto a win 2012 server, but dont know how to estimate the end volume size (if VM etc). Start small - about 1/2 of the total capacity of the drive. Robocopy the data onto the drive until nearly full, manually run dedupe, wait until complete, continue robocopy, repeat and rinse. There will be occasions where you will run out of disk space at that point its time to extend your disk.

Equallogic - 6.0 Feature List

Sun, 28 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +1200

http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/campaigns/equallogic-software

Features introduced in release 6.0:

• Synchronous Replication • Snapshot Space Borrowing • Volume Unmap • Volume Undelete • Support for SED drives and IPsec

Features you have come to rely on:

• Data Center Bridging • Automatic load balancing • VMware® Thin Provisioning awareness • Auditing of administrative actions • Microsoft® Active Directory integration • Peer storage architecture • Rapid provisioning • Storage pools • Roles-based administration • Thin clones • SAN Data Copy Offload • SAN Zero Offload and Scalable Lock Management for VMware • Intelligent tiering of data across models that combine solid-state drive (SSD) and hard drives • Integration with the VMware® vStorage APIs • Nondisruptive array upgrades • Nondisruptive array removal • Online data and volume movement • Automatic RAID placement • Thin provisioning • Instant volume restore • Multivolume, writable snapshots • Snapshot and point-in-time replication scheduler • Volume cloning • Volume consistency sets • Auto-start disk monitoring system • Email home • Enclosure monitoring system • Performance monitoring

use nmap to port scan / find free IPS

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +1200

I use angry IP scanner in windows, linux has a good util for port scanning an ip range called nmap;

Grab nmap from usual repositories

sudo nmap -sP 192.168.9.0/24 (will show hosts up and resolve mac addresses to vendors)

sudo nmap -v -sT 192.168.9.0/24 (will show hosts up and the various open ports)

sudo nmap -v -sT 192.168.9.104 (will show particular host and the various open ports)

Starting Nmap 6.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2013-07-12 11:48 NZST Initiating ARP Ping Scan at 11:48 Scanning 192.168.9.104 [1 port] Completed ARP Ping Scan at 11:48, 0.00s elapsed (1 total hosts) Initiating Parallel DNS resolution of 1 host. at 11:48 Completed Parallel DNS resolution of 1 host. at 11:48, 0.00s elapsed Initiating Connect Scan at 11:48 Scanning win2012-veeam.fritz.box (192.168.9.104) [1000 ports] Discovered open port 111/tcp on 192.168.9.104 Discovered open port 445/tcp on 192.168.9.104 Discovered open port 3389/tcp on 192.168.9.104 Discovered open port 135/tcp on 192.168.9.104 Discovered open port 139/tcp on 192.168.9.104 Discovered open port 49155/tcp on 192.168.9.104 Discovered open port 1063/tcp on 192.168.9.104 Discovered open port 2049/tcp on 192.168.9.104 Discovered open port 3260/tcp on 192.168.9.104 Completed Connect Scan at 11:48, 4.21s elapsed (1000 total ports) Nmap scan report for win2012-veeam.fritz.box (192.168.9.104) Host is up (0.00059s latency). Not shown: 991 filtered ports PORT STATE SERVICE 111/tcp open rpcbind 135/tcp open msrpc 139/tcp open netbios-ssn 445/tcp open microsoft-ds 1063/tcp open kyoceranetdev 2049/tcp open nfs 3260/tcp open iscsi 3389/tcp open ms-wbt-server 49155/tcp open unknown MAC Address: 00:50:56:9C:68:FA (VMware)

nsswitch.conf SMF config

Thu, 11 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +1200

# svccfg svc:> select dns/client svc:/network/dns/client> setprop config/search = astring: \ (“us.company.com” “eu.company.com” “companya.com” “companyb.com” “company.com” ) svc:/network/dns/client> setprop config/nameserver = net_address: \ ( 138.2.202.15 138.2.202.25 ) svc:/network/dns/client> select dns/client:default svc:/network/dns/client:default> refresh svc:/network/dns/client:default> validate svc:/network/dns/client:default> select name-service/switch svc:/system/name-service/switch> setprop config/host = astring: “files dns” svc:/system/name-service/switch> select system/name-service/switch:default svc:/system/name-service/switch:default> refresh svc:/system/name-service/switch:default> validate svc:/system/name-service/switch:default> # svcadm enable dns/client # svcadm refresh name-service/switch # grep host /etc/nsswitch.conf hosts: files dns # cat /etc/resolv.conf # # opyright (c) 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. #

powershell - move machine types to certain OUs in active directory

Thu, 11 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +1200

-------------- select additional parameters ----------------------

Get-ADComputer -Filter * -Properties ipv4Address, OperatingSystem, OperatingSystemServicePack | Format-table name, ipv4*, operatingsystem

-------------- move script -----------------

[cmdletbinding()]

param ( [parameter(mandatory=$true)] $TargetOU )

Import-Module ActiveDirectory $Domain = [ADSI]"" $DN=$domain.distinguishedName $SourcePath = "CN=Computers," + $DN $Computers = Get-ADComputer -Filter * -SearchBase $SourcePath if(!$Computers) { write-host "No Computers are found in default container" return } foreach ($Computer in $Computers) { if(!(Move-ADObject $Computer -TargetPath $TargetOU)) { $Status = "SUCCESS" } else { $Status = "FAILED" } $OutputObj = New-Object -TypeName PSobject $OutputObj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name ComputerName -Value $Computer.Name.tostring() $OutputObj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name SourcePath -Value $SourcePath $OutputObj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name DestinationPath -Value $TargetOU $OutputObj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Status -Value $Status $OutputObj }

zfs share for Time machine backups

Thu, 11 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve tried using a share for time machine before, but due to the nature of how time machine works it eventually consumed all the spare space that is available on that particular share.

bring on zfs quotas… (my drive on my mini mac is 100GB, so 200GB should be enough for a few variations)

zfs set quota=200G unprotected/timemachine

This adds a artificial limit to your zfs filesystem, making sure that time machine does not consume more than 200 gigabytes of space.

Why is UNRAID cool for home?

Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve played with many storage technologies at home, ZFS being one of my favs when it comes to performance. But i’ve been looking for something that suits a typical home environment where power usage and capacity is usually more important than performance. Thats where UNRAID has come in…

UNRAID give me these advantages;

Different sized disks in a single pool (only requires largest disk as parity)
Files are distributed over all the disks - so even if you lost more than a single drive you still still have some of your data. Note : with parity drive you can handle a single drive failing without loosing anything, sorta like RAID4 - non distributed parity.
Power usage, since the files are stored on specific disks not all the disks need to power on to give you your file.
Runs on a USB stick - no large operating system required.
Crashplan module can be installed to provide backup options.

http://lime-technology.com/

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…

When Is A Trunk Not A Trunk?

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +1300

Very good article here - http://networkingnerd.net/2011/02/02/when-is-a-trunk-not-a-trunk/

Particuly like setting of Native vLAN and tagged networks over an HP trunk;

So, if HP refers to an uplink carrying multiple VLANs are a tagged port, then does HP have a “trunk”? In fact they do. In HPvania, a trunk is a logical construct that aggregates multiple ports into one logical link. For those of you that might be out there scratching your heads about this one, this means that when you “trunk” a group of ports on an HP switch, you are creating one LACP link from up to four individual ports. This kind of configuration should look like this:

tinycore - autostart rdesktop

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +1300

The directory for that purpose is hidden directly in your user folder, e.g. /home/tc/.X.d Create a file in there called rdesktop and put in it a command like

while x=0 do sleep 5 /usr/local/bin/rdesktop -f 192.168.1.100 done

Remember to make file executable with chmod

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”

squid - reverse proxy

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +1300

Great guide here - http://www.classhelper.org/articles/reverse-proxy-server-squid-debian/installing-squid-proxy-server.shtml

I’ve modified slightly for Ubuntu, but almost identical.

apt-get install squid cp /etc/squid3/squid.conf /etc/squid3/squid.bak rm /etc/squid3/squid.conf nano /etc/squid/squid.conf

http_port 80 defaultsite=www.yoursite.com vhost forwarded_for on refresh_pattern ^ftp: 1440 20% 10080 refresh_pattern ^gopher: 1440 0% 1440 refresh_pattern . 0 20% 4320 cache_peer 192.168.0.13 parent 80 0 no-query no-digest originserver name=web1 acl sites_web1 dstdomain www.yoursite.com yoursite.com cache_peer_access web1 allow sites_web1 cache_peer 192.168.0.14 parent 80 0 no-query no-digest originserver name=web2 acl sites_web2 dstdomain www.anothersite.com anothersite.com cache_peer_access web2 allow sites_web2 acl all src 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 acl manager proto cache_object acl localhost src 127.0.0.1/255.255.255.255 acl to_localhost dst 127.0.0.0/8 acl SSL_ports port 443 acl Safe_ports port 80 # http acl Safe_ports port 443 # https acl Safe_ports port 1025-65535 # unregistered ports acl CONNECT method CONNECT http_access allow sites_web1 http_access allow sites_web2 http_access allow manager all http_access allow manager http_access deny !Safe_ports http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports #http_access deny all access_log /var/log/squid3/access.log cache_mgr support@yoursite.com

KMS count

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +1300

Getting the KMS count up over the initial threshold is a pain when you only have one server or one workstation to start with. Typically you need at least 5 servers or 25 client machine requesting activation before it will work.

This guy here as created a nice .exe that will trick KMS into thinking it has received all the required requests…

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/39665-KMS-Client-Emulator-for-Increasing-KMS-Server-Client-Count

KMS Client

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

cron job to re prioitize tasks

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

I’m using the following crontab script to renice my squid process….

Put following in script and call via cron (i’m doing every 10 mins)

*/10 * * * * /home/user/renice.sh

(renice.sh)

renice -15 $(ps -C squid3 -o pid=) renice -15 $(ps -C unlinkd -o pid=)

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/

opensolaris - setting up dhcp

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

You’ll need these two packages installed;

SUNWdhcs, SUNWdhcm

First ensure that the DHCP service is running. Go into the “services” gui and tick the box to enable the DHCP server.

now from commandline run…

dhcpmgr

From edit menu choose “network wizard”, step through the wizard (defautls are o.k i you have a fixed IP already assigned to your opensolaris box)
From edit menu choose “address wizard”

If you step through the wizard (the following is an example of what i have choosen)

Using netsh to create a transparent proxy

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

There are some good windows web proxies about. The only problem with them is they sometimes dont natively act as a transparent proxy. i.e. typically you’ll need to set your client machines to a specific IP and port.

I’ve used squid historically when setting up transparent proxies (mainly since it actually has a transparent mode) and this has worked well. Recently i thought i’d have a go at some of the windows solutions to see how they pan out.

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.

Windows 7 - Moving to SSD

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

Want to move your current disk image onto a SSD drive?

Quick, easy and free. Also aligns disk sectors :)

Tidy up your current HDD - delete / move any unneeded items to an archive disk
Shrink the C volume to under the size of the SSD (you do not need to shrink as small as possible, just shrink just under SSD size)
Run Windows Backup (win7 backup is very good, i.e. image backup) onto external USB Drive
Remove your current HDD and install SSD
Restore via Windows Backup — Boot install DVD, and choose Repair your computer, then select recover from windows backup image (use the image you backed up onto your USB drive).
Reboot, then expand the C volume to consume the full space of the SSD

Done.

windows 7 - whats preventing my machine from sleeping?

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

Run this elevated command to find out;

powercfg /requests

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.

LACP - HP vs Cisco

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +1300

Great article on setting up connection between HP & Cisco….

http://evilrouters.net/2011/08/12/configure-lacp-between-hp-procurve-and-cisco-catalyst-switches/

Cisco VTP on HP Switches?

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +1300

Want to propergate vLan information across multiple switches?

Easy in the Cisco world… Just use VTP - configure a server switch and your away… (it also has its risks if you introduce another server switch with a lower ID)

What does HP have? – GVRP (MVRP newer iteration).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_Registration_Protocol

Multiple VLAN Registration Protocol (MVRP), which replaced GARP VLAN Registration Protocol (GVRP), is a standards-based Layer 2 network protocol, for automatic configuration of VLAN information on switches. It was defined in the 802.1ak amendment to 802.1Q-2005.

HP Blade Switch - enable crossover

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +1300

HP GbE2c Ethernet Blade Switch for HP c-Class BladeSystem User Guide Click here to view the “HP GbE2c Ethernet Blade Switch for HP c-Class BladeSystem User Guide” (http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00701541/c00701541.pdf) HP GbE2c Layer 2/3 Ethernet Blade Switch for c-Class BladeSystem User Guide Click here to go to the “HP GbE2c Layer 2/3 Ethernet Blade Switch for c-Class BladeSystem User Guide” (http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00865010/c00865010.pdf)

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00700745/c00700745.pdf

Crosslinks

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00816246/c00816246.pdf

short stroking - v2

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +1300

I’ve run through this exercise again - my old findings here

4 x 500 WD Black drives – in one big RAID 0 (128K blocks)

and again only using 500GB of capacity (roughly 1/4 of each of the drives)

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

P4000 / Lefthand - v9.5 feature list

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +1300

The 9.5 release is a comprehensive release that includes enhancements in the following areas:

Application managed snapshots for VMware ESX Server and Microsoft Hyper-V Server
SAN Status Home Page — the SAN Status home page is the new home page for the CMC and presents key information for all management groups in the storage environment in a single view.
Zero to VSA automated installation and deployment — Single installer can install VSA, FOM and CMC. Go from “zero” to a fully functional virtual SAN in just a few easy steps. Scriptable install tool allows ROBO customers to script install once and deploy VSA quickly at multiple remote locations.
Peer Motion data mobility with cluster swap — Cluster swap allows users to replace or upgrade P4000 clusters. Edit cluster menu guides decisions about adding, removing, or exchanging storage systems. Easily migrate data online between tiers.
Remote Copy performance improvements — Improvements to remote copy times, the time required to scan volumes, ability to support more frequent snapshots, reduction of RPOs for DR solutions.
Storage Replication Adapter for Vsphere Site Recovery Manager 5.x — Supports automated failback and is included on the HP P4000 Application Integration Solution Pack
Best Practice configuration wizards — Configuration wizards guide towards highest availability configurations: add Failover Manager for 2–node configuration, configure disk RAID 6 for single-node configurations, recommends volume replication when expanding clusters to more than one storage system

allow root ssh login solaris 11 express

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

Change SSHD to allow root login;

vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config PermitRootLogin = yes

Allow remote logon for root user, comment out the following line;

vi /etc/default/login **

#CONSOLE =/dev/login

rolemod -K type=normal root

solaris - storage server

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +1200

http://p2v.it/2010/04/15/a-next-generation-multiprotocol-storage-for-your-homelab-on-a-budget-part-1/

Setup iSCSI target using comstar – pkg install -v storage-server pkg install pkg:/SUNWiscsit svcadm enable stmf svcadm enable svc:/network/iscsi/target:default itadm create-target reboot – -r

Create the iSCSI store — zfs create -V 100G DataPool/TestDatastore1 sbdadm create-lu /dev/zvol/rdsk/DataPool/TestDatastore1 stmfadm create-hg ESX4-group stmfadm add-hg-member -g ESX4-group wwn.2100001b329711bd wwn.2101001b32b711bd stmfadm add-view -h ESX4-group -n 0 600144F03EBEC50000004BA86E460001 stmfadm list-lu -v

How to create an ISO quickly and easily in windows...

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +1200

get folder 2 ISO - portable app that does what is says. No limits just works. http://www.trustfm.net/divx/SoftwareFolder2Iso.php

enable TRIM in windows 7

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +1200

This command will confirm if TRIM has been auto-enabled by windows 7

fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify

DisableDeleteNotify = 1 (Windows TRIM commands are disabled) DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Windows TRIM commands are enabled)

If you would like to force it on;

fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0

install crashplan on solaris

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +1200

http://support.crashplan.com/doku.php/getting_started/installing_crashplan

Move the downloaded tar.gz file into /var/spool/pkg/

mv CrashPlan_2010-03-08_Solaris.tar.gz /var/spool/pkg/

Unpack the archive.

tar -xzvf CrashPlan_2010-03-08_Solaris.tar.gz

Install the CrashPlan package:

sudo /usr/sbin/pkgadd

Start CrashPlan Engine:

sudo /opt/sfw/crashplan/bin/CrashPlanEngine start

Start CrashPlan Desktop:

sudo /opt/sfw/crashplan/bin/CrashPlanDesktop

To enable CrashPlan PRO as a service (as root):

svccfg import /opt/sfw/crashplan/bin/crashplan.xml

svcadm enable crashplan

check that the service has come online proplery (then load client)

svcs -a | grep crashplan

online 21:18:43 svc:/crashplan:default

email alerts on zpool failure

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +1200

simple but functional script to check if your zpools are healthy and send email if they are not…

http://blog.qcnetwork.com/2011/03/monitoring-zpool-with-email-alert.html

P4000 / Lefthand and Windows DSM (MPIO)

Wed, 04 May 2011 00:00:00 +1200

Steps to setup MPIO round robin and DSM with P4000 / Lefthand nodes

This example is windows 2008 with 2 x 1gbit nics

Install HP DSM driver onto windows 2008 (this should also install MPIO feature on windows 2008)
Setup 2 x IP’s on windows host - storage subnet (used with MPIO)
1. Confirm you can ping target from both (enable one at a time - ensure there is no routing on your other nics)
Provision storage and allow server read / write access to windows server (via initiator name)
Open iSCSI on windows 2008
Put in IP of target in discovery tab
On first tab confirm that iSCSI drive is presented to host
Click “connect” - check both auto-connect and use MPIO
1. click advanced - chose MS iSCSI initiator, choose first IP and target IP. Click o.k. / o.k
2. click advanced - chose MS iSCSI initiator, choose second IP and target IP. Click o.k. / o.k
3. Repeat above per additional Nic
Confirm via “devices” that there is x (as many targets as nics) targets per disk
1. Within devices choose MPIO - change from vendor specific to “round robin”
  1. Note : read / write access to LUN is required when using “round robin” MPIO opposed to the default “vendor specific” which works with read only access. Else you will get an error - “not supported”
2. Repeat above per “device”
Confirm on Lefthand / P4000 CMC that the LUN has one connection per initiator Nic, and that each connection also has its DSM children (visible in CMC if working).

Confirm that the connection are as expected…

zfs : accidentally adding cache drive to raidz zpool

Wed, 04 May 2011 00:00:00 +1200

http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=23127

Unfortunately if you have accidentally added a single drive into your raidz pool at the top-level there is no way to just remove the non redundant disk. Your pool is now dependant on this disk.

If you want your pool to be just raidz vdevs, then you will need to backup your data, destroy your pool, create a new pool, and restore your data.

There is no current way to remove a top-level vdev from a pool.

HP ProCurve 5400zl Switch Series - How to Enable Jumbo Frames?

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 +1200

I couldn’t find how to do this via the web GUI (hate the new 5400 web console - what happened to the performance graphs??) – anyhow this is the commands to do it via commandline…

5406zl-A# show vlan 200 Status and Counters - VLAN Information - Ports - VLAN 200 VLAN ID : 200 Name : VLAN200 Status : Port-based Voice : No Jumbo : No

5406zl-A# configure 5406zl-A(config)# vlan 200 jumbo 5406zl-A(config)# end 5406zl-A# sho vlan 200

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

How to test SMTP manually

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +1300

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323350

telnet 25 helo me mail from:email@domain.com rcpt to:youremail@yourdomain.com data

Type Subject:This is a test, and then press ENTER two times. Type Testing, and then press ENTER. Press ENTER, type a period (.), and then press ENTER.

quit

opensolaris - check syslog

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +1300

dmesg | tail

Shows the last few entries in the system log.

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;

Celerra - Unable to create, refresh, or delete checkpoint of a replicated destination file system

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +1300

I’ve been stuck with this error recently on a Celerra manager device : DpRequest_Max_VS_SuspendedCheckpointsReached

This can sometimes happen when a filesystem is held during a replication task. To check what filesystems are currently being replcated run the following command;

nas_replicate -info -all

Either wait until the replication has completed - check status. Or temporary stop the replication task (stop it from the source side if possible).

OpenSolaris is Dead

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +1300

http://sstallion.blogspot.com/2010/08/opensolaris-is-dead.html

OpenSolaris is Dead.

What follows is an email sent internally to Oracle Solaris Engineers which describes Oracle’s true intentions toward the OpenSolaris project and the future of Oracle Solaris.

This concludes over four years that I (and many other external contributors) have worked on the OpenSolaris project. This is a terrible sendoff for countless hours of work - for quality software which will now ship as an Oracle product that we (the original authors) can no longer obtain on an unrestricted basis.

I can only maintain that the software we worked on was for the betterment of all, not for any one company’s bottom line. This is truly a perversion of the open source spirit.

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.

opensolaris - increase swap

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1200

I found this on opensolaris forums…. A nice way to increase your swap without the need for a reboot.

First check your current swap size and details;

swap -lh

zfs list

Then create a temp swap zfs store and delete and increase swap

zfs create -V rpool/swp

swap -a /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swp

swap -d /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swap

zfs destroy rpool/swap

zfs create -V rpool/swap

swap -a /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swap

swap -d /dev/zvol/dsk/rpool/swp

zfs destroy rpool/swp

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.

OpenSolaris on HP server

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1200

A nice easy post by Evgeniy on getting opensolaris on HP kit….

http://www.eject.name/2009/07/opensolaris-and-hp-smartarray.html

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.

4k sector hard drives and zfs

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +1200

I hit this as a problem recently. One of my disks died in my raidz so i ran down to the store and grabbed me a replacement WD10EARS (Western Digital 1Tb Green) drive.

BUT…

The one thing the store didn’t mention to me is the new 4K cluster sizing on the drive. I guess they assume most people run windows (though the issues are also present in XP). See these posts…

opensolaris - pkg verify

Sun, 23 May 2010 00:00:00 +1200

I ran through a pkg verify the other day and came across a lot of errors. Running the subsequent pkg fix command presented me with this…

pkg: Requested “install” operation would affect files that cannot be modified in live image.

Please retry this operation on an alternate boot environment.

This is the fix….

mkdir /mnt/osol-134fix beadm create osol-134fix beadm mount osol-134fix /mnt/osol-134fix pkg -R /mnt/osol-134fix fix –accept beadm activate osol-134fix

opensolaris - default route

Tue, 11 May 2010 00:00:00 +1200

type the following to check your default routes…

netstat -rn

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!

opensolaris v134 - CIFS has gone walkies

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +1200

Errr, I cant find the CIFS service in the 134 build.

I know it was renamed to as per below but still cant see it anywhere?

> system/file-system/smb (was SUNWsmbfs*) > service/file-system/smb (was SUNWsmbs*)

Anyone have any ideas?

pkg search *smb gets me these… but i cant install them.

require depend service/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/redistributable@0.1-0.134 require depend service/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/storage/storage-server@0.1-0.134 require depend service/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/system/security/kerberos-5@0.5.11-0.134 require depend service/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/storage/storage-nas@0.1-0.134 require depend system/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/redistributable@0.1-0.134 require depend system/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/storage/storage-server@0.1-0.134 require depend system/file-system/smb@0.5.11-0.134 pkg:/slim_install@0.1-0.134

zfs - now has dedup!

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +1200

Cool. zfs as of version 21 has deduplication built in. And thats the good dedup - synchronous dedup. i.e. deduped on the fly!

How easy is it to turn on? - very!

Once you have upgraded your zpool to 21 or above you can run the following command at the pool level and deduplication will be over all your data from that point onwards.

zpool set dedup=on tank

Done

Note : Watch your performance, it will drop like a rock if you do not have enough ram for your dedup tables. Do some tests after enabling this feature.

iometer testing

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +1300

The following is some notes i have around the parameters i usually use during testing. There is a good document at ixbt labs on the various tests and settings….

For a 1GB test set the sectors to : 2048000

Typical benchmarks; (which you will need to add)

128K 100% Read - Sequential

128K 100% Write - Sequential

Remember to bump the workers up to 5 or so. You can set the mixes across all the workers if you select the PC object.

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

HDD short stroking - is it worth it?

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +1300

I’ve got some old 250Gb drives that are starting to show their age. I’ve currently got them setup in a 3x RAID 0 config which presents about 750Gb of space.

I’ve got everything on a single partition (meh, i’m lazy). I’ve done various speed tests in the current setup (with all space allocated), but i thought i’d re-image onto a short stroke partition.

I only use about 150Gb of space on my main machine (most of my data is on another box), so i’m going to try creating a 200Gb partition to test if this provides any kind of performance boost.

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…)

OpenSolaris - iSCSI

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Want iSCSI in opensolaris?

Grab SUNWiscsitgt via package manager.

enable the server via svcadm;

svcadm enable iscsitgt

create your zfs iscsi pool; (this command will limit iscsi drive to 500GB in size)

zfs create -V 500G tank/iscsi

set isci on via zfs command;

zfs set shareiscsi=on tank/iscsi

check that target is up and running;

iscsitadm list target -v

Done. Should be able to connect via ip from another machine. I have not covered CHAP or any client side configuration. Assumed isolated LAN.

FreeNAS - zfs in version 0.7

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +1300

If you want to give zfs a go and also want a dedicated file server this is the solution.

Check it out here;

http://www.freenas.org/

I’m still using opensolaris though as i like running a few virtualbox machines on the same box.

Opensolaris - ZFS recovery after kernel panic

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Recently i hit what i thought was a huge disaster with my ZFS array. Essentially i was unable to import my zpool without causing the kernel to panic and reboot. Still unsure of the exact reason, but it didn’t seem to be due to a hardware fault. (zpool import showed all disks as ONLINE)

When i tried to import with zpool import -f tank the machine would lockup and reboot (panic).

Opensolaris - white screen on logon

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +1300

I had this problem when i enabled 3d effects on my server. The screen just goes white and you cannot see anything. Even after a reboot as soon as you logon to gnome the screen goes white.

To fix you’ll need to logon using a “failsafe terminal” session, then run gnome-cleanup from the command line. This will blow away any of your gnome settings (although they are actually backed up to a file), but it’ll mean you’ll be able to logon again without issue.

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 :(

MediaPortal - Codecs

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +1200

SAF seems to be one of the best option out there, the author has a nice post here : http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/codecs-external-players-55/saf-v4-00rc1-standalone-filters-dxva-ready-mpeg2-h-264-vc-1-a-44614/

I was previously using the mega codec pack, but found lately there was some issues with it jerk zooming? - in dark scenes it was jumping in and out. I’ve gone through all the filter settings and ensured everything was disabled, but still the problem comes up. Installing SAF has removed these problems.

Opensolaris - Samba and Network browsing

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +1200

If you’ve setup samba (rather than the builtin cifs/smb) chances are that you can only browse to your samba shares directly on IP only.

If you want your box “network browseable” you’ll need to load nmbd.

You can find a really good write up on modifiying the SMF for samba to autostart the required service here : http://wikis.sun.com/display/BigAdmin/Enabling+Browsing+with+Samba+in+Solaris+10+Update+4

import this file samba.xml

run these commands;

# svcadm disable samba
# svccfg import samba.xml
# svccfg delete svc:/network/samba:default
# svcadm refresh samba:smbd
# svcadm refresh samba:nmbd
# svcadm enable samba:smbd
# svcadm enable samba:nmbd

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.

opensolaris - zfs PCI-e sata controller

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Time for me to add some more sata ports to my opensolaris build. I’ve been using the SI 3114 PCI cards (4x sata) up until now without any issue, but they are limited by the bandwidth on the PCI slot. Time to upgrade and boost my performance.

At the moment i’m looking at grabbing one of these UIO cards;

http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USAS-L8i.cfm

From what iv’e been reading these cards will work fine in a PCI-e slot (8x / 16x) after a bit of modding and display the drives straight to opensolaris without any additional drivers etc. (same chipset used in various sun servers)

PC Build - May be time to upgrade my rig soon

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +1200

This is my current gaming machine which i built earlier this year - i decided to have had a play with water cooling before i put anything too expensive into the case. :)

Its a Intel E8400 running at 4.14Ghz, i’ve only got 2Gb of ram and 2 x 120Gb HDD’s in raid 0

I’ll keep the case and water cooling setup when i move to i7. Probably just grab a 1366 mount kit for my fusion v2 waterblock.

Encoding Vids - Atomic advice on mencoder

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +1200

One of the writers for Atomic mag spent some time upscalling his dvd collection to 720p. This is the commandline he used in the end to get a great clear result.

commandline ;

mencoder -sws 9 -vf scale=1280:720,hqdn3d=6:5:8,unsharp=17x5:1,pp=ha:128:7/va/dr/al - ovc x264 -x264encopts subq=9:b_pyramid:weight_b:8x8dct:me=umh:cabac:partitions=all:trellis=2:mixed_refs:direct_pred=auto:psy-rd=1.0,0.2:qp=16:threads=2:nodct_decimate:nofast_pskip:bframes=6:frameref=6 -oac copy dvd://1 -o output.avi

Of course it may change depending on what you are encoding, but its a good place to start. Check the atomic fourms (au) for more detail etc…

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)

windows 2000 - ITMU / Windows Update Issues

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Get this when doing a windows update - Error number: 0xC8000408

First check the basics, ensure that windows update is a trusted site and the seucirty level is set corretely within the Zone - test with lower secuirty to see if that resolves the problem.

If that doesnt work try the following; 1) Added the user SYSTEM with every privilege to C: and subs 2) Stopped the “Automatic Updates” service 3) Renamed the C:\WINNT\SoftwareDistribution folder 4) Started the “Automatic Updates” service again

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)

OpenSolaris - Samba server

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Time to share your newly created ZFS volume via samba to your windows clients. There is some CIFS / SMB support built into the kernel now, but i’ve grown used to the SMB server…

Fire up add software - click filesystems - enable filter for “smb”, there are three packages generally. I get all three, but you only need the kernel update and the server package. The other is the SMB client.

opensolaris - network teaming

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Otherwise known as trunking or link aggregation. I believe it is the best way to get that additional boost out of your network server while providing a bit of redundancy on link failure. here is how to do it…

Official docs on the process here… http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-6990/gdysn?a=view and some good bits here http://blogs.sun.com/nickyv/entry/link_aggregation_jumpstart_post_install

dladm (data link admin) is the tool for the job. List the links you currently have…

dladm show-link

First shut down the links you are currently using.. (you will have to do this on the console)

SCCM - installing client via GPO

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

If you dont have sms / sccm client in your gold disk then GPO is the next best thing to get the SCCM client out into your environment.

This is a real nice and clean install script for IE 7 which i have modified to install SCCM. http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/installing-application-using-vbscript

object.Run(strCommand, [intWindowStyle],[bWaitOnReturn])  

'INSTALL MS INTERNET EXPLORER 7 USING VBScript    
Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
spath = objShell.CurrentDirectory

If fso.FileExists(spath & "\IE7-WindowsXP-x86-enu.exe") Then
	path = """" & spath & "\IE7-WindowsXP-x86-enu.exe" & """ /passive /norestart /update-no"
	objShell.Run(path, 1 ,True)
	i = 0
	'INSTALL MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER 7    
	i = objShell.Run(path, 1 ,True)
	If (i = 0) Or (i = 3010) Then 
		'WRITE EXIT CODE [0-success/3010-success&requires reboot] TO EVENTLOG
		objShell.LogEvent vbLogSuccess, sLogHeader & "Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 installation completed successfully." & VbCrLf & "Exit code: " & i
	Else
		MsgBox "The installation of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 returned an error: " & i & VbCrLf & _
		"Please contact IT Support to report this error.", vbOKOnly
		objShell.LogEvent vbLogError, sLogHeader & "Installation returned failure code: " & VbCrLf & "Exit code: " & i
	End If

Else
	WScript.Quit (1)
End If

set fso = Nothing
set WSHShell = Nothing
Wscript.Quit

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.

selinux - opening additional ports / or disabling

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

If you are having problems starting apache on a non-standard port you might find that the problem is related to selinux.

Type this command to check to see what http ports are currently allowed; (remove filter to show all rules)

semanage port -l|grep http

To add another port type the following (with the port you wish to add etc);

semanage port -a -t http_port_t -p tcp 81

If you want to disable selinux completely then go into /etc/selinux/config and set selinux=disabled. Save then reboot.

opensolaris - smbd issues?

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Hmm… i’ve been having problems since the 2009.06 (snv_111b) update with cifs.

Cant pin it exactly as it could be “load” related… hmmm.

found this ? http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=107681 this also may be a clue.. http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=92472&tstart=75

imapd ? might have to go back to 2008.11

You might get better performance if you enable oplocks but there are known issues with it but you can do it just to see if you see any difference:

svccfg -s smb/server setprop smbd/oplock_enable=boolean: true

OpenSolaris - Headless server

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve moved from a CentOS linux distro running vmware server 2.0 to OpenSolaris running VirtualBox. My previous system was totally headless and i wanted something similar to replace it.

I’ve just started getting into OpenSolaris for many reasons (Sun has some cool stuff - ZFS / VirtualBox). But I have always wanted to run OpenSolaris as a headless server, and from what i initially found VirtualBox didn’t have the easy to use autostart on boot features that vmware server had. But there are always ways to get things working…

fedora 11 - LAMP install

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Setting up LAMP on fedora 11… First install the required modules.

yum install -y httpd.i586 mysql.i586 mysql-server.i586 php.i586 php-mysql.i586 php-gd.i586

Next i’m copying my web source from another linux machine. I’ve run these commands from the destination machine…

cd /var/www/html

rsync -ave ssh 192.168.9.10:/var/www/html/ .

Now my mysql data…

cd /var/lib/mysql

rsync -ave ssh 192.168.9.10:/var/lib/mysql/ .

Accept the certificate and enter the source root password. Next fire up the services… I usually just go into “setup” then “system services” and enable both httpd and mysqld

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;

opensolaris / zfs - whitebox build

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve built a little server for home use, but it pales in comparison to this beast… This type of setup would be perfect for a lab / test environment that requires lots of fast and reliable disk. SCSI drives are fading out, SATA can perform if its setup right. When you look at the price of the entire build you wonder why corporations continue to spend the big bucks on the big storage names.

zfs - playing with various configs

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

If you dont have the disks available to build up a zpool and have a play with zfs you can actually just use files created with the mkfile command… The commands are exactly the same.

mkfile 64m disk1

mkfile 64m disk2

mkfile 64m disk3

mkfile 10m disk4

mkfile 100m disk5

mkfile 100m disk6

Now you can create a zpool using the above files… (i’m using raidz for this setup)

zpool create test raidz /fullpath/disk1 /fullpath/disk2 /fullpath/disk3

opensolaris - jumbo frames

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

If your keen on enabling jumbo frames in opensolaris this is the way…

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-6990/gdyqk?l=en&a=view

# dladm show-phys

LINK MEDIA STATE SPEED DUPLEX DEVICE

net0 ether up 100Mb full bge0

itops1 ether up 100Mb full qfe3

web1 ether up 100Mb full bge1

# dladm show-linkprop -p mtu web1

LINK PROPERTY VALUE DEFAULT POSSIBLE

web1 mtu 1500 1500 –

# ifconfig web1 unplumb

# dladm set-linkprop -p mtu=9000 web1

# ifconfig web1 plumb 10.10.1.2/24 up

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.

Gaming - Sept PCG 09 cover

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Heres the cover for september 09 PCG. Apparently it is due to contain a 10 page article on Supreme Commander 2.

Truely looking forward to this one, might give me an excuse to update my gaming rig! :)

Gaming - Starcraft 2 says bye bye to LAN networking

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

A few days ago the NDA’s were lifted on Star Craft 2. One of the most shocking features was that there is NO LAN option for multi player? (i’m ignoring the split into 3 games thing - as i don’t really mind that too much)

Was just a bit worrying to me, since myself and quite a few of my friends still continue with the dying tradition of LAN parties. I can under stand blizzards move from a business perspective, as rumour has it they wish to get a piece of the pie when it comes to large competitive gaming events.

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!)

True Image - Machine cannot log into domain

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve used true image for testing packages etc then reverting back to a standard image for further testing. But there can be a problem if the machine updates it domain password then you revert back to the original image. It will not let you logon to the domain if the passwords don’t match.

The way to prevent this is to disable password update so that hte machine does not change its password as per the domain policy.

Cisco - adding a static route to router

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1200

To show what routes your cisco router currently has loaded type the following command (from the enable prompt) ;

show ip route

To add any new static routes you need to use the following command (from the config terminal prompt) ;

ip route 10.10.20.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.100.1

the syntax as above is ip route network netmask gateway

Cisco - MLS (QoS) on a switch

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1200

If you find alot of MLS entries in your running-config file you may have QoS enabled. Within the lab i dont require QoS (Quality of Service) to be enabled so have disabled it via this command (config t);

no mls qos

Note: this was a 2960G switch.

Remember to save running config to startup config. Done.

A good reference page here…

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst2960/software/release/12.2_37_ey/configuration/guide/swqos.html#wp1021247

Cisco - Stop console messages

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Sometimes when logged into a router or switch via the null modem (console port) the console messages make it hard to see the commands you are trying to run.

There is a way to turn off the messages on the console session. Log on to your switch router, enter into configuration terminal mode then type…

no logging console

Done

Squid - optimizing cache hits

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1200

The first place to look for increasing your hit ratio is the refresh_pattern parameter within the squid.conf file.

Note: the following applies to squid 3.0 and higher only….

I have found a really good page here http://linux.com/archive/feature/153221 that explains some good setups if you with to increase your cache hits…

refresh_pattern ^ftp: 1440 20% 10080 refresh_pattern ^gopher: 1440 0% 1440 refresh_pattern -i \.(gif|png|jpg|jpeg|ico)$ 10080 90% 43200 override-expire ignore-no-cache ignore-no-store ignore-private refresh_pattern -i \.(iso|avi|wav|mp3|mp4|mpeg|swf|flv|x-flv)$ 43200 90% 432000 override-expire ignore-no-cache ignore-no-store ignore-private refresh_pattern -i \.(deb|rpm|exe|zip|tar|tgz|ram|rar|bin|ppt|doc|tiff)$ 10080 90% 43200 override-expire ignore-no-cache ignore-no-store ignore-private refresh_pattern -i \.index.(html|htm)$ 0 40% 10080 refresh_pattern -i \.(html|htm|css|js)$ 1440 40% 40320 refresh_pattern . 0 40% 40320

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/

DHCP Client - Error 5: Access is denied.

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve had this on a few windows 2003 machines, where the “DHCP client” service refuses to start and prompts with an access denied window.

Unsure of the cause at this point (it may be a security patch), but here is the fix…

Give the local “network service” account full rights to the following registry key;

hkey_local_machine\system\currentcontrolset\services\dhcp

Now try starting the service, should work. In some cases you may also need to add the rights to the following key..

McAfee - Setting ePO via client package

Tue, 26 May 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve been doing a bit of work recently on McAfee 8.7i enterprise and ePO 4. I wanted to push out the McAfee client via SMS straight after a gold disk build…

First you need to export the repository sitelist.xml and the various keys from your ePO server…

The security keys must be located in the same folder as the site list. Use ePolicy Orchestrator to export the files:

Export the siteinfo file:

Select Software | Master Repository.

Click Export Sitelist.

Save the file to a new location.

Export the security keys:

Select Configuration | Server Settings | Security Keys, and click Edit.

Select Master Agent-server secure communication key, and click Export.

Save the files to the same location as the siteinfo file.

Flashing si3114 to sata only bios

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 +1200

This is the perfect controller for adding additional sata drives into opensolaris (well in terms of price, the bandwidth of the PCI slot is the only negative part). The si3114 comes with the default bios that supports various raid configs, but this requires additional drivers to be loaded.

Essentially the “raid” on the card is called fakeraid as it does not actually process any data itself, but hooks into the cpu via a driver and lets your cpu do all the work.

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;

WPAD - Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol

Sun, 17 May 2009 00:00:00 +1200

When using wpad there are some things that you should take note of;

DHCP wpad will override DNS wpad
DHCP 252 option can in some cases be slightly slower to resolve than DNS - there may be a patch for WinInet to resolve this.
You should always use lower case - wpad.dat (it is case sensitive)
DHCP will allow either a URL or a file location for wpad.dat

Within IE on the LAN settings tab if you have WPAD “automatically detect settings” enabled and also configure a proxy server the WPAD should override the manual proxy configuration.

Opensolaris : SMF and Squid

Sat, 16 May 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Decided to create a SMF manifest for squid so that it autostarts on boot.

Command to start squid : /usr/squid/sbin/squid

Command to stop squid : /usr/squid/sbin/squid -k shutdown

This site has a good starter on SMF creation : http://blogs.sun.com/observatory/entry/mouting_windows_shares_at_startup

I’ve taken a copy of the /var/svc/manifest/network/smb/server.xml file for my squid manifest and placed it at /var/svc/manifest/network/squid/squid.xml

Import the XML using this command;

svccfg import /var/svc/manifest/network/squid/squid.xml

Update: i’ve stopped this work as i missed the fact that squid already comes with a SMF manifest! :) No idea how i missed that one. You can enable via ;

svcadm enable svc:/network/http:squid

This is the manifest for the above service;

Windows Cluster - removing orphaned .dll file

Tue, 05 May 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Recently i uninstalled scanmail off an exchange 2007 cluster environment but had issues when trying to reapply a newer version. The problem was related to an orphaned .dll file that scanmail had left behind, seems the uninstall was not as clean as i had hoped.

Within the cluster management MCC the cluster appears in a partially active state. If you go to cluster resource types you can see the .dll that hasn’t loaded properly (the orphaned file). To remove this issue make a note of the .dll that is not loading and its display name. Drop to a CMD and type the following…

Opensolaris - configuring squid as a transparent proxy

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

I used to have a virtual machine that acted as a transparent proxy, but as of late thought i’d move squid onto my host box (opensolaris). This way hopefully increasing the amount of free ram available to the host while also taking advantage of ZFS etc…

So this is a very brief guide on how to configure your opensolaris 2008.11 box as a transparent proxy. Essentially meaning if you set the solaris box as the default gateway all web traffic will be cached as it goes through it before it goes onto your dls router or outside connection.

sntp - fixing time issues within a windows domian

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +1200

I’ve had some problems with dcdiag failing on the advertising check, and this relates back to the DC not getting its time from the PDCE properly.

Fixing timesync is different according to the machine type…

If it’s a standard Domain Controller then behave as if its a member server (below)

If it’s a PDCEmulator then make sure you allow port 123TCP/UDP outbound on your firewall and configure the external sntp site by entering this at the command line (note: i use pool.ntp.org instead of default microsoft sntp)

squid - your transparent proxy friend

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Still my favourite light and fast web proxy is Squid. Its very easy to setup and get running on almost all flavours of linux. You can find it here http://www.squid-cache.org/ but will probably find it in your local package manager…

This is for more my own reference… as i don’t think too many people have the need for a transparent proxy. You only need one NIC configured on your VM / machine as its most probably on the same subnet as your dsl etc…

Offine Files - Remove prompt about excluded files error

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +1300

You may get an error such as this popup during a offline files sync…

Offline files (\\server\share on server): Unable to make ‘archive.pst’ available offline on \\server\share\folder. Files of this type cannot be made available offline.

Microsoft have said that even if the file is in the excluded list then by design offline files will still complain about it when it tries to sync.

There is a way to remove the warning prompt for specific files; (you may need to update your machine to the latest support pack in some cases)

Opensolaris - Managing Boot Environments with beadm

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +1300

To get a list of all of your boot environments within Opensolaris use beadm like so….

beadm list

Assuming you know the name of the boot environment that is causing issues you can use the following command (using its name) to remove the ones you think are suss. Note: you need to boot up in the environment that you wish to keep first.

beadm destroy opensolaris-2

If you destroy an environment that is active on boot it will be changed to another be that is available. You can use the following command to set it to a specific boot environment;

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

Opensolaris - Updating solaris with the development repository

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Want to keep your opensolaris on the “edge” of developments? Most of the experience i have had is that the “dev” repository contains mainly stable releases that are being held until the next official release (every 6 months).

This is how you do it…

Launch Package Manager - and choose “settings” then “manage repositories”

Add the dev repository URL and give it a name.

NOTE: The name cannot contain any spaces!

Router on a stick - Adding VLANs to a cisco router

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Telnet to your cisco router, enable then go into config t. Passwords may be required depending on how it has been configured…

config t

Ensure that ip routing has been enabled…

ip routing

To create the VLAN adapter you’ll need to run the following commands to create a “router on a stick”… Note: the .2 after the interface name creates a virtual adapter on the interface.

interface FastEthernet1/1.2 description “VM Host Network” encapsulation dot1Q 2 ip address 172.25.2.1 255.255.255.0

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.

zfs - java management gui

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +1300

It hasn’t made it into opensolaris yet. But from what i’ve heard it should be making an appearance over from the solaris 10 OS soon. Here is a screenshot of what it looks like…

Should make managing zfs a bit easier - though its already quite easy. Perhaps if you have quite alot of zpools / zfs file systems it will look prettier. ;)

Troubleshooting - Time Slider (zfs snapshots)

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +1300

1. snapshot complains about no access to cron

This problem i came across was after i was playing with crontab. It looks like the zfs snapshot service uses an account called “zfssnap” and if it doesnt have access to cron then it will have issues creating / checking snapshots. Check the file /etc/cron.d/cron.allow and ensure that “zfssnap” is in there. The issues i had looked like this in the log… (check the logs via the log file viewer)

Windows / Linux - File Migration Tools

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

In Windows i use robocopy…

This is the syntax to copy from one location to another… (i like how robocopy uses UNC paths)

robocopy \\192.168.9.70\videos \\192.168.9.101\videos /e /r:2 /w:10 /sec robocopy \\192.168.9.70\software \\192.168.9.101\software /e /r:2 /w:10 /sec

Note: i always copy instead of the move. Run multiple times before switch over to shorten time for final sync. Always use the /SEC to copy over the NTFS permissions. I have had problems with the non X010 version of robocopy not copying NTFS permissions across. Check NTFS permissions before removing the source files. You can update files NTFS permissions with /SECFIX switch if required.

Linux - routing examples

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

set ip_forward to 1 to enable routing between nics. type ‘route’ to insure both networks are routed as expected (connected route added with nic)

Setup a script with the following (CHMOD 0755 the script so it executes)

iptables -F (clears previous iptables stuff) iptables -P INPUT DROP (will set default policy to DROP all INPUT packets - Incoming to local NICs) iptables -P OUTPUT DROP (will set default policy to DROP all OUTPUT packets - Outgoing to local NICs) iptables -P FORWARD DROP (will set default policy to DROP all FORWARDed packets - Routed via local NICs)

Windows - Port forwarding

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Just wanted to note here that there is a tool for windows to ‘port forward’ Its a command MS ships that enables IPv6 to work on IPv4, but can be used as a port redirector…. so as long as you have IPv6 support on your box, you can do this.

syntax as follows;

netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=443 connectaddress=targetmachine connectport=3389

so the machine above listens on 443 and redirects traffic to 3389 on targetmachine.

zfs - checking your zpool throughput

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

This is quite a good diagnostic for checking your disk throughput. Try copying data to and from your zpool while your running this command on the host…

zpool iostat -v unprotected 2

capacity     operations    bandwidth
pool         used  avail   read  write   read  write
----------  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----
unprotected  1.39T   668G     18      7  1.35M   161K
c7d0       696G   403M      1      2  55.1K  21.3K
c9d0       584G   112G      8      2   631K  69.3K
c7d1       141G   555G      8      2   697K  70.0K
----------  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----

The above command will keep displaying the above output every 2 seconds (average during that time). I’ve used it a few times to ensure that all disks are being used (in write operations) where needed. Of course read op’s may not be typically across all disks as it will depend where the data is…

OpenSolaris cifs/smb server - configuring ACL’s on shares - Part 2

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

I have done most of the explaining in another post on how the permissions work with a zfs cifs share - link here.

In this post I’m going to show an example of how to add multiple groups / users to a specific folder. Which then recursively adds its ACL’’s to any child objects. Its essentially like the other commands i used, but with an extra line per user or group you want to configure;

OpenSolaris cifs/smb server - configuring ACL's on shares

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

O.k. from this point I’m assuming you have created your zfs shares via the zfs command and renamed appropriately like so….. (if you havent setup cifs yet then check read this)

zfs set sharesmb=on protected/backup

zfs set sharesmb=name=backup protected/backup

Now to check your current shares type…

sharemgr show

zfs

zfs/protected/backup backup=/protected/backup

zfs/protected/photos photos=/protected/photos

Now its time to look at NFSv4 ACL’s. This page has a great explanation of ACL’s and how to set things up. http://cuddletech.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=939

OpenSolaris - Migrating from samba to cifs

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

OpenSolaris 2008.11 has a cifs/smb server built into the kernel. From what i have been reading (and discovering) this is a much more efficient and faster way to get your files out into the network.

Previously i have run a dedicated samba service to share my files as I’ve come from various linux distros which require it. Seems i should be doing things differently on OpenSolaris.

The dedicated samba service is called;

OpenSolaris - RTL8111/8168B issues

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

I’ve got an integrated RTL8111 nic which seemed to work fine under opensolaris 2008.11. But if the nic was put under load for a various length of time it seemed to just drop off the network.

At first i thought it was my SMB service dying, but after a quick ping i relised i had lost the entire TCP/IP stack on that particular card. Hmm…

It does come back online if you are patient and wait for about 5mins or so.

Linux - Add DHCP and DNS

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

How to install DHCP and DNS on Fedora / Centos / Redhat box;

yum -y install dhcp.i386 bind.i386

Set services to auto start using ntsysv – services are called “dhcpd” and “named”.

How to configure dhcp;

nano /etc/dhcpd.conf — configure as per sample provided. The sample is usually located in the same directory. service dhcpd restart - should start without problem if done correctly

Note: dhcp range has to be on the same network as your adapter. You can run dhcpd from the command line to diagnose any issues.

OpenSolaris - Manual Network DNS issue

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

If you have tried to setup a manual IP on your opensolaris box you may find that DNS is not working as you would expect in some cases. nslookup resolves the name to an ip, but pinging doesnt make it to the box…

How to fix;

Edit your /etc/nsswitch.conf file and add the word “dns” to the hosts and ipnodes lines If you make a backup of /etc/nsswitch.conf you can also just copy /etc/nsswitch.dns over it…

Linux - Wireless networking

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

if your card is natively supported type ;

iwconfig

iwlist scanning – should also show you the wireless networks that are in range (will work if driver is loaded)

you should see wlan0 if all is good; (grab your wireless details)

iwconfig wlan0 mode managed (should already be in this mode)

there are some cool options here like “secondary” mode which the node acts as a backup master/repeater. “Repeater” - the node forwards packets between other wire-less nodes

ZFS - Creating snapshots

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

There is some funky ways of modifying the default “time slider” services to do the work for you, but i like a bit more hands on. Generally so i know what is happening in the background, but the time slider can be sometimes overkill creating snapshots every 15 mins if not configured properly.

On a side note i’ve yet to get my head around the SMF stuff properly… Anyhow onto creating snapshots.

Corporate Firewall - SSH and port 443 goodness

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

Things you’ll need; (basic instructions) SSH - either Linux or Open SSH for windows (set this up first and ensure its working!). I have only used Linux, so i do not know the details of setting up a Open SSH box on windows (good luck).

Router with pinhole or port forwarding abilities. – forward your external 443 port to internal 22 on your SSH box

Putty.exe - use this to test your SSH connection locally (you should be able to connect on port 22 locally or 443 externally)

ZFS - Removing all snapshots

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

To list all of your current snapshots;

zfs list -t snapshot

This is a handy script to remove all snapshots….

for snapshot in `zfs list -H -t snapshot | cut -f 1` do zfs destroy $snapshot done

As always : at your own risk. ;)

fakeRAID vs Software RAID (windows)

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

O.k. here is the latest from atomic magazine… I’m talking about RAID 0 (stripe) here.

Software RAID (i.e. windows stripe) is faster (both in throughput and seek time) than the “hardware” fake RAID built in to most new mother boards. Apparently it doesn’t matter about the stripe size of your raid either…. Software raid still wins??

I’m a bit skeptical about this, and will have to en devour on a few tests to conclude whether this is true or not…

Remotely Enable Remote Desktop

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1300

I work in a lab environment, so most of the windows XP machines i enable remote desktop for easy access. All new machines have remote desktop enabled via group policy.

The GP is located here; (link were appropriate in AD structure)

Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Terminal Services, – > Allows users to connect remotely using Terminal Services setting. Enable this.

If you don’t have a domain or don’t have group policy implemented you can still enable remote desktop via the reg command in XP. Here is an example;

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.

Cisco - Switch Reference

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

Setting up a trunk between switches

Enable Switch to enable mode Configure Terminal Enter global configuration mode

Interface FastEthernet0/1 Entering interface configuration for port 0/1. This is where you pick the port you want to trunk.

Switchport mode trunk Set port to trunking mode.

Switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q Set trunk type to 802.1q. If your switch only supports either ISL or 802.1q, this command does not exist because there is nothing to specify. This command only works when you can choose between the two.

Linux - crontab

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

Time to schedule some tasks!

First you need to make sure your in the /etc/cron.d/cron.allow file. If you are not SU to root and add yourself into it.

Now to create your new crontab file;

crontab -e

You are in vi in your newly created crontab file (note if you do not have access to do this it will say so)

Now, i’m no expert at using vi, but if you press i you will go into insert mode. Do this, then type the cron job details. A typical cron job will look like this

Linux - Hard Drive Performance

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

Or lack of.

You must insure that your drives are using the sata driver (if they are sata disks), quickest way to check is that they will be called sda sdb etc…. and not hda hdb, as this is the default IDE driver and will slow down the performance majorly.

How to check performance;

hdparm -tT /dev/hda

Modern drives should be getting over 50MB/s easily. If your getting about 5MB/s you have the problem.

Linux - mapping to a windows share (SMB)

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

As per below. First you will need to install samba client.

In Fedora / Centos …

yum -y samba-client

then use the mount command to mount the share to a directory…

mount -t cifs -n //192.168.9.70/software /mnt/sharename -o username=guest,password=

It will be similar in other distros. Remember to create the /mnt/sharename directory before trying to mount any share to the directory. Directories are created like so;

mkdir /mnt/sharename

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.

ZFS - Error 16 : Inconsistent filesystem structure

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

Oh no. I’ve managed to get this error before. And it was right after i applied compression to the rpool zfs filesystem. Upon the next reboot i was greeted with this error message;

Error 16 : Inconsistent filesystem structure

For me it was a show stopper and i had to go into recovery. So i’ve learnt my lesson - Not to touch the rpool zpool.

I was lucky enough to have put my data within a zfs filesystem (rpool/virtual) i created within the default rpool zpool. I use this spot for my VirtualBox virtual machines.

about

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1300

This site is mainly used as a reference for myself. I would appreciate any advice if there is ever anything obvious or easier i could be doing.

Warning : My thoughts, experiments and conclusions maybe and sometimes are … (insert disclaimer)

ZFS basics

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1300

I’ve had a play with WHS but eventually got annoyed with its lack of performance. Yes i know its not built for performance and typically is used just as a backup / simple store with duplication as redundancy, just i couldn’t stand the speed of the thing. If you were ever unlucky enough (even post power pack 1) to do a copy during the “data moving” the performance was even worse. On a positive note nothing beats it if you have a heap of non-similar sized disks that you want to put together (with redundancy) as a single shared storage pool.

ZFS compression types

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1300

ZFS compression as of OpenSolaris 2008.11 has a few types to choose from.

lzjb (default) | gzip | gzip-[1-9]

They are used via the zfs set compression=gzip poolname command.

The following test was quickly done out of personal interest - and is in no way scientific!

I have a AMD cpu with 3 cores (2.4Ghz). The data i copied to each of the shares consisted of video / documents / pictures and music. The first test i have done is based on compression only (i have not measured throughput)

OpenSolaris - Autologon

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1300

There are two ways to setup the auto login for OpenSolaris (2008.11);

One - You can fire up the GUI using gdmsetup. Update : this didnt actually work when i tried it recentely - it might not be in this release of opensolaris.

Two - go to /etc/x****11/gdm/custom.conf (in newer releases its just /etc/gdm/custom.conf) and manually modify the required fields in the [daemon] section and add the following;

[daemon] AutomaticLoginEnable=true AutomaticLogin=username

OpenSolaris - SMF and VirtualBox

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1300

So… i’m looking for a way to fire up some VirtualBox machines after a reboot on OpenSolaris. SMF is the key. Just need to create some XML docs that fire up a couple of headless vm’s.

Shouldn’t be too hard. Lets see what i can come up with.

Here is a good pdf about migrating Legacy RC services into SMF, which has given me a few pointers….

how to shutdown a vm;