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VMware View: Neue Perpektiven für virtuelle Desktops – Newsletter
VMware View: Neue Perpektiven für virtuelle Desktops
VMware View:
Neue Perpektiven für
virtuelle Desktops
Die nächste Generation der Virtuellen Desktop-Infrastruktur von VMware
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
mit der bewährten Lösung VDI setzte VMware bereits
Maßstäbe für virtuelle Desktops bezüglich Sicherheit, Verwaltung und
Verfügbarkeit. VMware View geht nun noch einen Schritt weiter und bietet Ihnen folgende zusätzliche Vorteile.Bis zu 95% weniger Speicherplatz
durch Trennung in Master (mit Betriebssystem- und Standard-Anwendungen)
und Desktop-Clone mit individuellen Konfigurationsdaten.Schnelle Migration und Updates: Sie führen Basis-Systemänderungen nur noch auf dem Master durch.
Volle Kontrolle über Anwendungen:
Mit der integrierten ThinApp-Technologie erstellen Sie virtuelle
Ausführungsumgebungen für beliebige Anwendungen und haben diese zentral
im Griff.Virtueller Druck mit Thinprint:
Die bewährte Architektur sorgt für treiberlose, individuelle
Druckoptionen (Nutzung lokaler Drucker) und entlastet das LAN
erheblich.Offline Desktop – Die große Freiheit für unterwegs: Arbeiten Sie auch ohne Internetzugang »wie zu Hause« – VMware View synchronisiert Ihren Desktop automatisch.
Informieren Sie sich hier über VMware View sowie über aktuelle Ein- und Umstiegs-Angebote!
VMware View.
IT wird noch einfacher.
VMware Infrastructure 3 Documentation
VMware Infrastructure 3 Documentation
VMware Infrastructure 3 Documentation
VMware ESX 3.5 Update 2 or ESX 3.5 Update 3
vCenter Server 2.5 Update 2 or vCenter Server 2.5 Update 3
Features |
Technical Papers |
Knowledge Base |
VMware Infrastructure Community |
Downloads
VMware Infrastructure 3 version 3.5 offers three server versions —
ESX, ESXi Embedded, and ESXi Installable. The documents listed on this
page cover ESX and vCenter Server. There are separate Web pages for the
ESXi Embedded / vCenter Server and ESXi Installable / vCenter Server
combinations.
The documents in this documentation set use the term ESX Server when presenting concepts, behaviors, and tasks that apply to all ESX types. When a behavior, concept, or task applies only to ESX and not to ESXi, the documents use the term ESX Server 3.
Deutsch, 简体中文, and 日本語 sites offer localized documentation for Release Notes and the main documentation set as available.
Product Name Changes in Documentation
VMware recently changed some of its product names. However, the
software, documentation titles, and documentation text continue to
refer to the affected products by their old names. For your reference,
here is a list of new and old product names.
New Product Name | Old Product Name |
---|---|
ESX | ESX Server |
vCenter Server | VirtualCenter |
VMware vCenter Update Manager | VMware Update Manager |
VMware vCenter Converter | VMware Converter Enterprise for VirtualCenter 2.5 |
Compatibility Guides
• Learn about hardware compatibility:
The Hardware Compatibility Lists are now available on the Web-based Compatibility Guide at
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility. This new format is a single point of access for all VMware
compatibility guides. The previous PDF versions will no longer be updated. The Web-based Compatibility
Guide provides the option to search the guides, and save the search results in PDF format.
• Learn about VMware Infrastructure compatibility:
VMware Infrastructure Compatibility Matrixes (PDF)
Release Notes
ESX Server 3.5 Update 3 (HTML)
VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 3 (HTML)
ESX Server 3.5 Update 2 and VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 2 (HTML)
VMware Consolidated Backup 1.5 (HTML)
VMware Consolidate Backup 1.1 Update 1 (HTML)
VMware Update Manager 1.0 Update 3 (HTML)
VMware Update Manager 1.0 Update 2 (HTML)
VMware Converter Enterprise Update 3 for VirtualCenter 2.5 (HTML)
VMware Converter Enterprise Update 2 for VirtualCenter 2.5 (HTML)
Patches & Updates
Visit the VI3 Patches & Updates page for current information and read the ESX Server 3 Patch Management Guide to learn about updating ESX Server.
Documentation
Read the documentation below to learn about installing, configuring,
and using VMware Infrastructure 3 products, including the add-on
modules available for vCenter Server. All the documents in this section
apply to ESX 3.5 Update 2 or ESX 3.5 Update 3 and vCenter Server 2.5
Update 2 or vCenter Server 2.5 Update 3. However, the title pages of
the documents refer only to ESX 3.5 Update 2 and vCenter Server 2.5
Update 2.
Main Documentation Set
Published on 7/25/08 for the following builds:
ESX 3.5 Update 2 Build 110268 | ESX 3.5 Update 3 Build 123630
vCenter Server 2.5 Update 2 Build 104215 | vCenter Server 2.5 Update 3• Learn about our main documentation set:
Documentation Roadmap (PDF)
• Search all the books in the set for the information you need:
VMware Infrastructure 3 Online Library (HTML)
• Read individual books in the set:
Introduction to VMware Infrastructure (PDF)
VMware Infrastructure 3 Primer (PDF, Updated 8/15/2008)
Configuration Maximums for VMware Infrastructure 3 (PDF, Updated 10/17/2008)
Quick Start Guide (PDF)
ESX Server 3 and VirtualCenter Installation Guide (PDF, Updated 10/17/2008)
Upgrade Guide (PDF, Updated 10/17/2008)
Basic System Administration (PDF, Updated 11/14/2008)
Virtual Infrastructure Web Access Administrator’s Guide (PDF)
ESX Server 3 Configuration Guide (PDF)
Resource Management Guide (PDF, Updated 11/14/2008)
Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide (PDF)
iSCSI SAN Configuration Guide (PDF)
Virtual Machine Backup Guide (PDF, Updated 10/17/2008)VMware vCenter Update Manager
Administration Guide (PDF)
VMware Update Manager Sizing Estimator (XLS)
VMware vCenter Converter
Administration Guide (PDF)
Related Resources
VirtualCenter Database Sizing Calculator for Microsoft SQL Server (Excel)
VirtualCenter Database Sizing Calculator for Oracle (Excel)
Setup for Microsoft Cluster Service (PDF, Updated 10/17/2008)
Remote Command-Line Interface Installation and Reference Guide (PDF)
VMware Infrastructure Management Assistant Administrator’s and Developer’s Guide (PDF)
SAN System Design and Deployment Guide (PDF)
Guest Operating System Installation Guide (HTML | PDF)
Virtual Machine Mobility Planning Guide (PDF)For Developers
VMware SDK & API Developer Resources page (HTML)
Setting up VMware Update Manager Download Service for Isolated Networks
VMware Communities: Setting up Vmware Update Manager Download Service for Isolated Networks
Patching Offline ESX servers with Vmware Update ManagerThis is my brief guide to what I did to setup patching for isolated networks, like those in intellegence communities, etc. This is meant to help fill in some of the gaps that the documentation left in the process.
Install Update Manager Download Service
Setup a machine to be your Update Manager Download system:
* This machine must have Internet access.
* This system will require another database beyond what the Update Manager in Virtual Center uses, so you may not want to install it there.
* Also, you will need to burn CDs/DVDs or transfer files to a device
* This all being said, a workstation is a good candidate systemInstall the Update Manager Download Service on the above machine. Take note of the installation folder and the folder where the downloads will be stored.
* Files are located in „umds“ folder of the Virtual Center installation CD image
* Open the VMware-UMDS.exe file to install
* Select to use the local SQL 2005 Express database serverDownload Current Updates
The best thing to do is setup a Windows Scheduled Task that downloads the updates automatically. The first step is to create a script to accomplish this manually then you can make it a scheduled task.
To get current downloads:
* Change to the „C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager“ directory
* Run the program: vmware-umds –download (or „vmware-umds -D“)
* Get coffee! Really, the first run takes a loonngg time.NOTE: It is possible to configure the download to only retrieve ESX host updates, Windows VM updates and/or Linux VM updates. To change which updates are downloaded use the following syntax:
* vmware-umds -S -h true | false
* vmware-umds -S -w true | false
* vmware-umds -S -l true | falseFor example: vmware-umds -S -h true will d/l ESX host patches, vmware-umds -S -w false will NOT d/l Windows VM patches, etc. This can be useful if you want to verify the process but not spend time waiting for the Windows patches to download. Before running „vmware-umds -D“, disable Windows and Linux and verify that the ESX patches are downloaded successfully
Once downloads are done you need to export to a local file repository:
* Change to the „C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager“ directory
* Run the program: vmware-umds -E –dest-s 2007-01-01T00:00:00 -t 2007-12-31T23:59:59
* This downloads all the patches for 2007, specify different time ranges as required.Once exported you need to export your repository to some sort of portable media, say a DVD (most likely a DL from what I have already seen!!!)
Import Updates to Virtual Center on Isolated Network
Now that your Internet connect machine has done all the dirty work, you need to get the updates into Virtual Center’s Update Database:
* Get you update media connected to Virtual Center so it can access the files
* Change to the „C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager“ directory on Virtual Center
* Run the program: vmware-updateDownloadCli.exe –update-path–config-import windows esx –vc-user This is a very brief explanation of what to do. See these fine documents below for more stuff:
Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support
Details:
Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC) simplifies VMotion compatibility issues across CPU generations. EVC automatically configures server CPUs with Intel FlexMigration or AMD-V Extended Migration technologies to be compatible with older servers. After EVC is enabled for a cluster in the VirtualCenter inventory, all hosts in that cluster are configured to present identical CPU features and ensure CPU compatibility for VMotion. The features presented by each host are determined by selecting a predefined EVC baseline. VirtualCenter does not permit the addition of hosts that cannot be automatically configured to be compatible with the EVC baseline.
Solution:
To use the EVC feature, you must be running ESX Server 3.5 Update 2 or higher with Virtual Center 2.5 Update 2 or higher and have only compatible processors that are listed in one of the following tables. EVC does not allow for migration with VMotion between Intel and AMD processors. Note the following restrictions:
- The tables below are based upon public information. VMware has not verified all of these processors. For more information on which servers and processors are supported, see the Systems Compatibility Guide for ESX Server 3.5 and ESX Server 3i.
- This list only covers server class processors compatible with the EVC baseline(s) and might not be a complete list.
- You must ensure the BIOS settings for these processors enable Hardware Virtualization (if available) and Execute Protection. Default BIOS settings may not always enable these features. Hardware Virtualization is Intel VT on Intel processors and AMD-V on (supported) AMD processors. Execute Protection is Intel eXecute Disable (XD) on Intel processors and AMD No eXecute (NX) on AMD processors.
This section contains the following subjects:
Intel® Xeon® CPUs allowed in an EVC cluster
Intel CPU Models |
EVC Baseline in ESX 3.5U2 |
Merom based CPUs Intel® Xeon® Processor 7000 series
E7210, E7220, E7310, E7320, E7330, E7340, L7345, X7350 (Tigerton)
|
Default for Intel Hosts |
Intel® Xeon® Processor 5000 series
5110, 5120, 5128, 5130, 5138, 5140, 5148, 5150, 5160 (Woodcrest)
E5310, L5310, E5320, L5320, E5335, L5335, E5345, x5355, x5365 (Clovertown) |
|
Intel® Xeon® Processor 3000 series
3040, 3050, 3060, 3065, 3070, 3075, 3085 (Conroe)
x3210, x3220, x3230 (Kentsfield) |
|
Penryn based CPUs Intel® Xeon® Processor 7000 series
x7470, E7459, E7440, E7430, E7420, L7455, L7445 (Dunnington)
|
|
Intel® Xeon® Processor 5000 series
E5205, L5238, X5260, X5272 (Wolfdale)
E5405, E5410, L5410, E5420, L5420, E5430, E5440, E5450, X5405, X5460, E5462, E5472, X5472, X5482 (Harpertown) |
|
Intel® Xeon® Processor 3000 series
E3110 (Wolfdale)
X3320, X3350, X3360 (Yorkfield) |
AMD Opteron™ CPUs allowed in an EVC Cluster
AMD CPU Models |
EVC Baseline in ESX 3.5U2 |
Rev.E/Rev.F based CPUs Rev.E based CPUs 1yy (Denmark, Venus), 2yy (Troy, Italy), 8yy (Athens, Egypt) Rev.F based CPUs 12yy (Santa Ana), 22yy, 82yy (Santa Rosa) |
Default for AMD hosts |
Third Generation AMD Opteron(tm) Greyhound based CPUs.
Greyhound based CPUs
13yy (Budapest), 23yy, 83yy (Barcelona) |
|
* The “yy” in the AMD Opteron models numbers are based on the clock frequency |
References
See the following VMware references for information on the following subjects:
- For information on configuring EVC, see the Basic System Administration Guide for ESX 3.5 U2.
- For general information on VMotion see the VMotion Compatibility Info Guide.
- For general VMotion processor compatibility information, see KB 1991 for Intel processors and KB 1992 for AMD processors.
- For VMotion and Compatibility FAQs, see KB 1005764.
- For detecting and using CPU Features in applications, see KB 1005763.
Also, see the following third-party references:
- The Intel processor spec finder, http://processorfinder.intel.com/
- The AMD products spec, http://products.amd.com/en-us/
Other references:
- The Wikipedia resource on Intel Xeon processors at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon
- The Wikipedia resource on AMD Opteron processors at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opteron
Product versions:
VMware ESX 3.5.x
VMWare Knowledgebase Document -Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support
Virtual Strategy Magazine – Top 10 PowerShell scripts that VMware administrators should use
Virtual Strategy Magazine – Top 10 PowerShell scripts that VMware administrators should use
PowerShell
is an extensible command-line shell and associated scripting language developed
by Microsoft that can be used to help automate common administration tasks and
also provide information about your VMware environment. PowerShell can be used
for many different things in Windows environments but can also be used with
VMware environments since VMware released their VI Toolkit which provides
PowerShell with access to the VMware API. Scripting is a great way to make up
for a product’s shortcomings or missing features and can be a real time saver
for administrators. Consequently many systems administrators learn a bit of
scripting and write their own scripts to make their job easier. PowerShell is
fairly easy to install and use and there are many great scripts that have been
written that work with VMware environments. This list consists of some great
scripts that have been written by many different individuals that help automate
and report on VMware environments.
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Quick Migration
http://mikedatl.typepad.com/mikedvirtualization/2008/10/quick-migration.html
A script from Mike DePetrillo that duplicates
the Quick Migration of HyperV in a VMware environment by suspending a running
VM and moving it to another ESX host server.
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Report into MS Word
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-7070
A script from Alan Renouf that provides a
report in Microsoft Word of the virtual machines in your environment with
graphs and pie charts.
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Dynamic Resource Pool Calculator
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-6970
A script from Eric Sloof that recalculates
all of your resource pools and can automatically increase memory and CPU
reservations. It can be run interactively using a GUI or through a command line
with arguments.
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VMware Infrastructure Power Documenter
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-7473
A script from Antonio Zamora that produces
many different detailed reports about your VMware environment in Open XML
format.
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ESX Automated Configuration Midwife
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-7511
A script from Lance
Berc that adds a new ESX host to VirtualCenter and configures networking,
storage, VMotion and a few other things.
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VMware Health Check script
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-7430
A script that produces a report of your
VMware environment including information on snapshots, datastores, VMware tools
versions, mapped CD-ROM drives and more.
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Track Datastore Free Space
http://www.peetersonline.nl/index.php/vmware/track-datastore-free-space/
A script from Hugo Peeters that produce
reports that track free space on your datastores so you can see how it changes
over time.
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List disk RDMS
http://communities.vmware.com/message/1063909
A script that lists any Raw Device
Mappings (RDMs) that exist in your environment which is helpful as RDM’s are
not listed in the datastore list of ESX servers.
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Find snapshots and send email to
user/users withhttp://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-6980
A script from Chris Uys that emails a
report of snapshots that are running in your VMware environment.
![]()
Setting Video Hardware Acceleration Level
http://www.peetersonline.nl/index.php/vmware/setting-video-hardware-acceleration-level/
A script from Hugo Peeters that sets the
video hardware acceleration level inside Windows VMs to Full so they perform properly
in a VMware environment.
Tons of new stuff in the VI Toolkit Community Extensions
Thanks to none other than Mr. Luc Dekens the VI Toolkit Community Extensions are growing by leaps and bounds.
Here’s a full list of the new advanced functions Luc has added:
Name | Description |
Get-TkeAllPrivileges | Show all privileges defined by VirtualCenter. |
Get-TkeCDPInfo | Gets Cisco CDP info for a given host. This lets you know what switch port your host is on. |
Get-TkePermissions | Lists permissions assigned to a given object. |
Get-TkeRolePrivileges | Show all privileges defined by a role. |
Get-TkeRoles | Gets all roles defined in VirtualCenter For example, Administrator, Read-Only, etc. |
New-TkeRole | Create a new role in VirtualCenter. |
Remove-TkePermissions | Remove permissions from an entity. |
Remove-TkeRole | Remove a role from the system. |
Set-TkePermissions | Set an entity’s permissions. |
Set-TkeRole | Change the definition of a role. |
As you can see most of these are around roles and permissions. Armed
with these cmdlets you have a pretty complete way to automate the setup
of permissions.
The other cmdlet is Get-TkeCDPInfo. CDP stands for Cisco Discovery
Protocol, and if your ESX host is connected to a switch port that
supports CDP, this cmdlet will help you determine what switch port the
system is actually connected to.
Also, the VI Toolkit Community Extensions have been updated to
support the newly-release PowerShell CTP3. One of the big differences
between CTP2 and CTP3 is that script cmdlets are no longer supported,
instead they have been replaced by Advanced Functions. Advanced
Functions have a number of advantages over script cmdlets, one of the
most obvious is support for embedding documentation in the function. If
you load the community extensions and type „help Get-TkeCDPInfo“ you’ll
get a full usage listing as well as other help to get you started. All
in all, this stuff is starting to get a lot more usable.
If you can’t wait to get started, be sure you have CTP3 installed and download the Community Extensions today!
Great work, Luc!
New in the VI Toolkit Community Extensions: Set virtual switch security.
While
we all eagerly await CTP3 of PowerShell Version 2 I wanted to mention
that I’m a big fan of PowerShell Version 2’s modules and script cmdlets
because combining these technologies makes it possible to build large,
cohesive and really useful management modules even if you’re not a
developer.
Glenn Sizemore has written just such a script cmdlet that lets you
set the security properties of virtual switches. With his cmdlet you
can configure whether virtual switches allow virtual machines on the
switch to see traffic to and from other virtual machines using the
-AllowPromiscuous flag. With the -ForgedTransmits flag you can
configure whether VMs are allowed to send packets using a different
source MAC address from the VM’s real MAC address, and with the
-MacChanges flag set, VMs on the switch can change their MAC addresses.
These options can be useful for enabling security-related
applications, for instance if you want to run an intrusion detection
virtual appliance on a virtual switch you’ll need to set
-AllowPromiscuous on the switch. The default is to have
AllowPromiscuous disabled while ForgedTransmits and MacChanges are
enabled, which is pretty much what you get with a real unmanaged switch.
Glenn’s cmdlet makes changing things really easy. You can see Glenn’s original cmdlet,
but note that the name and parameters are changed a bit in the
community extensions, to make it fit a bit more with other aspects of
the extensions. Here’s a quick example of the new cmdlets in action:
1 | # List all my virtual switches and their security properties. |
2 | Get-VMHost | Get-TkeVSwitchSecurity |
3 | # Enable Promiscuous Mode on vSwitch1 on all ESX hosts in cluster SQL |
4 | Get-Cluster SQL | Get-VMHost | Set-TkeVSwitchSecurity vswitch1 -AllowPromiscuous |
The VI Toolkit Extensions is now up to 30cmdlets that cover a wide
range of really useful stuff. If you’re looking to get started with the
VI Toolkit Community Extensions, Eric Sloof has a great writeup on how to do just that.
As PowerShell v2 nears official release, we’ve got some things planned
to make the VI Toolkit Extensions amazingly easy to use, for now it’s a
bit primitive but gets the job done.
SRM demo video, usage tips: new from Uptime
Our
new blog Uptime continues to deliver the goods. Two new posts from
VMware’s own Lee Dilworth cover vCenter Site Recovery Manager from the
overview (if you’re still trying to get a handle on what SRM does and
how it replaces that paper DR plan and set of scripts you’ve never
really fully tested) to the first FAQ and set of tips if you’ve been
trying it out.
First, the video. You might recognize VMware Evangelist & VMworld Europe impressario Richard Garsthagen as well, fresh off his first video hit, VMware Infrastructure 3 demo.
Next, Lee’s FAQ & tips on SRM:
Link: VMware Site Recovery Manager – „From general release to Update1, what have we learnt and what’s new?“. Lee goes into a bit more detail, but here’s sample question:
Q: What are the SRM failback options we see no button for failback which is
confusing us?SRM absolutely supports failback and each
storage vendor documents the failback process for their specific replicated
storage configuration. What you have to consider is that without SRM in your
virtual environment you are back to manual and/or home grown scripts for DR you
will no longer have automated Recovery Plans, no offline DR testing
capabilities, and no DR audit trail.
Two new docs at our community site: esxtop, VMFS
Two
nice new resources from us are now available in the VMware Communities:
one on esxtop statstics, and the other on VMFS best practices. (See all the community documents here.) I do not know if these will show up in our white paper directory at some point. Hmm, Rod may be right
— there are many places to find technical resources at VMware, and we
need to make sure people can find what they need. I will do some asking
about internally. Hat tips to Tom and Arne for pointng them out.
Documentation on Esxtop | PlanetVM.
Scott Drummond[s] of
VMware has just created a document of the forums that details the
Esxtop command, you can find it here Interpreting esxtop Statistics
this looks like a detailed piece of work that somebody has needed to do
for a while
VMware: VMFS Best Practices « ICT-Freak.nl.
This paper gives a technology overview of VMFS, including a discussion
of features and their benefits. The paper highlights how VMFS
capabilities enable greater scalability and decreased management
overhead. It also provides best practices and architectural
considerations for deployment of VMFS.
You can download the whitepaper over here:
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9276
Proven practices for SRM
I’ve been seeing lots of chatter about Site Recovery Manager lately. Books, videos, all sorts of good stuff. Tomas Ten Dam is doing a great job of covering a lot of these as well as doing yeoman’s work on his SRM in a Box project; check out his blog for more. Here are some of the recent docs there: VI:OPS: Community: Availability.
As VMware’s Greg Lato says, SRM „is the Easy Button for data center level disaster recovery.“
But
today I want to call your attention to some new proven practices on the
still stealth-mode VI:OPS site. Please take a look and feel free to
comment or rate them.
Manager Steps to setup EMC Celerra (iSCSI) for VMware Site Recovery
Manager
Latest Updates
These are the changes or updates made to the Guest Operating System Installation Guide since it was last published:
- Added VMware Tools Operating System Specific Packages information
to supported guests. See “Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5” on page 129, “Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 4” on page 135, “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10”
on page 185, “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9” on page 190, and “Ubuntu
8.04 LTS” on page 256.
- Reformatted support for Novell Open Enterprise Server on “SUSE
Linux Enterprise Server 10” on page 185, “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9” on page 190, and “NetWare 6.5 Server” on page 308.
- Clarified which version of MS-DOS is supported. See “MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1x” on page 76.
- Revised index entries. See the „Index“ on page 333.
- Incorporated minor edits.
VMware: VMTN Blog: Exchange on VMware Infrastructure: podcast, webinar, white papers
A common question that comes up with our customers is, „Can I put Microsoft Exchange 2007 on VMware Infrastructure?“ And the answer is „You betcha!“
We eat our own dogfood here at VMware.* See this new-ish white paper: Deploying Exchange Server 2007 on VMware Infrastructure: A VMware Internal Case Study
Join us this Wednesday, Jan 14, for another round of the VMware Communities Roundtable podcast, where a panel of experienced VMware admins come together for a weekly session — usually informative, sometimes funny, occasionally abrasive, never scripted. We have an increasing number of live listeners and chatters from all around the world. If Rod can set the alarm to get up from Australia, and Tom can call in from his hotel room in the UK, you have no excuse for not taking a break from work, so just drop by and say hi.
What: VCR #31. Virtualizing Exchange, Domino, and RIM
When: Wednesday, noon PST, 3pm EST, 8pm GMT, and Thursday 7am in Sydney.
How: VMware Communities Roundtable on Talkshoe.And if that piques your interest for more, join VMware experts on this webinar the next day, Jan 15: Exchange 2007 on VMware: Technical Case Study. This should be a good one. The webinar does require registration, but I can’t imagine you’re not already getting our email, and you can always opt out.
And finally, here’s a page of case studies and technical resources about VMware as the best platform for Microsoft Exchange. And yes, Microsoft Exchange 2007 on VMware is a supported configuration.
[Update: see also Duncan’s post here: Exchange (2007) on VMware ]
—
* Although Mitch Kapor disputes who was first, and perhaps it was a reinvention, most think VMware CEO Paul Maritz coined „eating your own dogfood“ terminology at Microsoft.
VMware ESX and ESXi 3.5 U3 I/O failure on SAN LUN(s) and LUN queue is blocked indefinitely
VMware ESX and ESXi 3.5 U3 I/O failure on SAN LUN(s) and LUN queue is blocked indefinitely
KB Article 1008130
Updated Jan. 12, 2009
Products
VMware ESX
Product Versions
VMware ESX 3.5.x
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable
Symptoms
One or more of the following may be present:
* VMware ESX or ESXi host might get disconnected form VirtualCenter.
* All paths to the LUNs are in standby state.
* esxcfg-rescan might take a long time to complete or never completes (hung).
* Error messages matching this pattern are repeated continually in vmkernel:
If you look at log entries previous to the first blocked message, you will see storage events and a failover attempt.
Example:
Resolution
This issue can occur on VMware ESX servers under the following conditions:
* Hypervisor version: VMware ESX 3.5 U3.
* SAN hardware: Active/Passive and Active/Active arrays (Fibre Channel and iSCSI).
* Trigger: This occurs when VMFS3 metadata updates are being done at the same time failover to an alternate path occurs for the LUN on which the VMFS3 volume resides .
A reboot is required to clear this condition.
VMware is working on a patch to address this issue. This knowledge base article will be updated after the patch is available.
Changing the IP address of service console in ESX 3.x
Written by Damian Murdoch
Friday, 15 December 2006If you want to change the IP address of the service console in ESX 3.x you can using a command in the service console. Read on for more.
To change the IP address of the ESX 3.x host, you need to change the configuration of the vswif. By default this is vswif0 and this is assumed in this document. Login to the service console with root permissions, either by using root or doing a su – to get the permissions.Once in the service console runt the command „esxcfg-vswif -d vswif0“. This command deletes the existing vswif0. Don’t worry if you get a message about nothing to flush. Then you need to run the command to change the ip address, subnet mask and broadcast address. They are also specified in that order when the command is given. An example command is below.
„esxcfg-vswif -a vswif0 -p Service\ Console -i 10.1.1.1 -n 255.255.255.0 -b 10.1.1.255“
In this command the -a switch is to add a vswif, the \ in the Service\ Console is deliberate, the -i is the ip address, the -n is the netmask and the -b is the broadcast address.
You now need to change your default gateway, you can do this by editing the network file located at /etc/sysconfig/network. To do this at the command prompt, follow the steps below.
„cd /etc/sysconfig“
„vi network“
Then while in vi, go to the location of the default gateway using the arrow keys.
Hit „i“ which will perform an insert and change the default gateway to your liking.
Hit the escape key twice to exit insert mode.
type „:wq!“ to write (i.e save) and quit.At this point you can run some commands to restart the vmware management, but I prefer to restart the server and will recommend you do that. Once the server comes up there are a few things that still need to be done for management in virtualcenter.
Open a remote console to your virtualcenter server, do a ping
to make sure the ESX host is pingable after the IP change. Make sure you are seeing the new IP address and it is assumed you have already changed that in DNS. If you are seeing the host correctly, open virtualcenter and disconnect then reconnect the host. Once the host is connected in virtualcenter we need to change a few bits of configuration information, namely the vmkernel ip address, subnet and gateway. This is so we can vmotion correctly. Click on your host and bring up the configuration tab. Select networking and then properties on the vitual switch.
Select your vmkernel and hit the edit button. Change your ip address here for vmotion and subnet mask. You will not be able to change the default gateway until you hit ok and go back in. Once you have selected ok, then hit edit again on the vmkernel. Select the edit button on the default gateway and change the default gateway on the menu that appears. Select ok, ok again and then close.
Please note all the commands in this document should be used without the „“.