Category Archives: VMware

VMware Converter 4 – Linux Migration Issue

I have been performing a fair few P2Vs recently and came across an interesting issue with VMware vCenter Converter v4.0.0 Build 146302 when virtualising a Redhat 4 server over to our ESX environment.

I’m adding it here as something to keep an eye out for as its not visible straight away so please double check this after your linux migrations.

The issue we had was that after a successful migration through the converter wizard we were unable to access some of our websites hosted on the linux server, I raised this with VMware and after sending them the log files and some nice diagnosis by the linux team where I am currently working it was found that we had issues with the permissions on some of the files and directories on the server. Continue reading →

007 – License to design

00Duncan2

Duncan Epping over at Yellow-Bricks.com has become one of the first VMware Design Experts, I couldn’t let this momentous occasion go without a quick image manipulation especially when you see his VCDX number:

VCDX007

Congratulations Duncan !

Hal’s book hits Amazon

I have mentioned it a few times on my blog but now Hal’s excellent book ‘Managing VMware Infrastructure with Windows PowerShell TFM’ is available via Amazon so for all the UK/European readers it means we get better posting prices.

Read more:

Buy it here:

Whats new: VMware SDK and Toolkits

VMware are hosting some ‘VMware Coffee Talk Live Webinars.’

VMware will be hosting some SDK/Toolkit sessions.  These will be aimed at people wanting to learn more about the SDK and scripting toolkits available for vSphere and whats new.

They will be hosted using WebEx and they will be recording the sessions, sessions and pdfs will be made available from the Developer Center Blog. Continue reading →

Customisation: Lesson 3 – Networking

Lessons so far in this blog post series:

Lets get down and dirty, by now you should not only starting to become familiar with the way things are working but also probably trying new things out, Great !

Now, as there are multiple ways of configuring your vSwitches/Portgroups and Nics I will explain a few ways that should show you the basics, everything else you should be able to work out from there.  As always any questions or comments are welcome !

So, the first thing we need to do is think about how we would configure this without scripts, often when I am writing a script I will write down the procedure a step at a time following it through in the GUI, I will then convert this into a script.

 

Continue reading →

Managing VMware Infrastructure with Windows PowerShell

Following my previous post where I gave you a quick review of Hal Rottenberg’s ‘ Managing VMware Infrastructure with Windows PowerShell’ book it is my pleasure to tell you that not only can you now buy the book but you can also see some sample chapters and sample code on the Sapien Press website so head over to the site and sample before you buy.

 

Believe me it really is a good book, also quite funny in places.

The turtle has landed: The VES is here

vesilogo We have been waiting for a while, I have blogged about ‘The Virtualisation EcoShell Initiative’ and also shared some more images and a video in ‘The VESI is on its way’.

Today the turtle has landed and the Virtualisation EcoShell is now available for public beta, so if you are keen to use the power of the VI Toolkit but without delving into PowerShell then head over to the Virtualisation EcoShell Initiative site to learn more and grab the beta release of this program.

Continue reading →

Customisation: Lesson 2 – Service and Firewall Configuration

Following on from my last post in this series which showed us how to configure the ntp time source (Customisation: Lesson 1 – Time Source) lets get straight into it and start configuring more advanced areas.

In this post I will show you how to open some of the firewall ports on your host which are needed for various applications and services to talk to our ESX Host.

In the last post we setup the NTP server, I figure it would be a good start to make sure that now we have added the time server to our host we should start the NTP Service or as the Linux type people will know it, the NTP Daemon or NTPD.

So, if we use the Get-VmHostService cmdlet which is part of the VI Toolkit we can easily start our required service.  This cmdlet will give us a list of the services on our host and there current state:

Continue reading →

Customisation: Lesson 1 – Time Source

I thought I would help people learn the VI Toolkit whilst also creating a nice script which you can customise to your own environment, hopefully this is a script that will save you time in the future.

The script we are going to build together in step by step instructions is a Customisation script.

You have built your host and now have to go through the configuration and tweaks of all the after-build areas, you have to make sure that these are setup the same on each host so that things like VMotion and DRS work so what better than a script to help us limit the amount of mistakes when typing names or missing steps.

Continue reading →