A VMware Storage vMotion riddle - survey results and resolution

A week ago I invited you to think about a little riddle concerning something I called "self-referential Storage vMotion". What happens if you try to migrate a VM on to a datastore that this VM provides itself? Here is the resolution:
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How to prevent HP SIM from scanning the VMotion port

If you run your ESXi hosts on HP hardware and have a look at the vmkernel.log files from time to time then you have probably already stumbled over messages like these:

vmkernel: cpu4:2741)MigrateNet: vm 2741: 1982: Accepted connection from <x.x.x.x>
vmkernel: cpu4:2741)MigrateNet: vm 2741: 2052: dataSocket 0x41002750c600 receive buffer size is 563560
vmkernel: cpu4:2741)WARNING: Migrate: 215: Invalid message type for new connection: 542393671.  Expecting message of type INIT (0).

Instead of x.x.x.x you will see an IP address that might be familiar to you: It belongs to a server that has the HP System Insight Manager (SIM) software installed for inventorying / managing / monitoring hardware devices in your network. This software is commonly used in HP shops, because it does a fairly good job with monitoring the hardware health of your servers and alerting if something is wrong, and this basic functionality is for free.

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A VMware Storage vMotion riddle - Can you solve it?

It is a while ago now that I tried this, and I always wanted to blog about the result, but was never really sure how to present it. I think I found a fun way now ...

For those of you who are not aware of what Storage vMotion is: It is a functionality that is available in the more advanced editions of vSphere, and it allows you to migrate a VM from one datastore to another while it is running. This has been around for a while now, but is still a very cool feature. Soon after it became generally available I was thinking about this little experiment:

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How to build device drivers for ESXi 5.x

Since I published my ESXi-Customizer and ESXi-Customizer-PS tools to slipstream driver packages into an ESXi installation ISO I was asked dozens of times if I can provide a driver for the unsupported device xyz or whether I can give instructions on building such a driver. So far my answer was always No, because - although I'm quite familiar with using Linux - I do not have any of the Linux kernel hacking skills that I thought would be required to do this.

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ESXi embedded vs. ESXi installable FAQ

With the rise of ESXi - starting with version 3.5 in 2007/8 and now being the exclusive type-1 hypervisor architecture of VMware - there has always been some confusion about the meaning of the terms "ESXi embedded" vs. "ESXi installable".

With this blog post I will try to answer the FAQs around this topic and provide some useful background information.

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The not-so-zero downtime VMware Tools Upgrade in vSphere 5.1

One of the cool new features of vSphere 5.1 is something that was announced as "Zero downtime VMware Tools upgrade". On my personal Top 5 list of vSphere 5.1 new features I even rated it #2, not without being skeptical about the zero downtime promise ...

A recent post by William Lam on the VMware vSphere Blog clarifies in what scenarios the zero downtime really applies. It is worth being fully read, but for readers who are always in a rush (or have a too short attention span ;-) I will wrap it up in a few bullet points:

• It works for Windows guests only, starting with Windows Vista
• If device drivers that are needed for booting (Display, vmscsi, pvscsi) are updated then a reboot is still required
• KB2015163 explains in detail if and when a reboot is still required after updating the Tools in a Windows VM

Please note: Given the fact that device drivers are rarely updated this is still a great progress compared to the pre-5.1 VMware Tools that would always require a reboot after an update!

VMware, please fix IPv6 support in ESXi!

In a recent blog post I wrote about my efforts to implement IPv6 in my hosted virtual lab. This is working all fine for my VMs now, but to complete the picture I also wanted to configure IPv6 for the public management / VMkernel interface of the physical ESXi host (Please note: you do not need IPv6 support for the management interface if you just want to use IPv6 with your VMs - these are really two different networks!)

To come to the point: I am currently not able to make my ESXi host use IPv6!

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Top VMware and Virtualization Blog voting 2013 now open

Just a quick note: Eric Siebert over at vsphere-land.com just launched this year's voting for the Top VMware and Virtualization Blogs. This blog is listed in the categories "Independent Blogger" (and among "all" of course). Make yourself heard and vote here!

HP releases Service Pack 2013.02.0 for ProLiant and updated software for ESXi 5.x

Yesterday HP released version 2013.02.0 of their Service Pack for ProLiant (SPP). This is a (bootable) ISO file that contains the latest firmware and driver packages for ProLiant servers. What's new:

• Added online deployment of a select set of firmware components to systems running VMware ESXi 5.x (that means you can now deploy Smart Components through HP SUM!)
• Support for new hardware devices and OS versions
• Support for PXE booting the SPP ISO
• Updated HP Smart Update Manager (SUM) to version 5.3.5

Additional information:

• Full release notes
• February 2013 VMware FW and Software Recipe (Recommended Firmware and software versions)

On http://vibsdepot.hp.com/ there are updated Offline bundles and drivers for VMware ESXi 5.x available (see the feb2013 directory for downloads).

The latest versions of the HP customized installation ISOs are available for ESXi 5.0 U2 and ESXi 5.1. As usual they do not include the latest ESXi patch level. For instructions on how to build a custom ISO with the latest VMware patch level and the latest HP stuff please see this blog post.

I have updated my HP & VMware Links page to include the new releases.

Implementing IPv6 in a hosted virtual lab

Did you know that the IPv6 standard was drafted more than 14 years ago, in Dec 1998? Adoption grew very slowly since then, but with today's ongoing exhaustion of IPv4 addresses IPv6 is gaining momentum:

• Almost all important ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and big companies that make business on the Internet already use and support IPv6.
• More an more other companies and institutions look into implementing IPv6 for their Internet-facing services (mainly public web sites).
• All modern Operating Systems have built-in support for IPv6. Many of them (inlcuding Windows 7/8) have it enabled by default.

IPv6 is inescapable. It's here. It's here to stay. It matters. Are you ready?

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My ownCloud adventures, Part 2: Certificates and Windows access

This is the second part of my postings about ownCloud, an Open source solution for managing your data in the cloud. The first part covered the installation and initial configuration of the BitNami ownCloud stack virtual appliance. I will continue with explaining how to secure access to your data with SSL certificates and using WebDAV in Windows to access your ownCloud files.

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A common misconception about resource pools

In vSphere resource pools are a great way to divide your overall compute resources into multiple independent pools and prioritize resources among different VMs. But before you create and use them you should make sure that you have fully understood how resource pools work, and what effect their settings have. In the vSphere Resource Management Guide there is a long chapter about Managing Resource Pools that describes how to set them up and how they work using some real world examples. And still it looks like this information is not clear enough (or maybe there is just a part missing in the documentation that explains how resource pools do not work), because there are surprisingly many vSphere environments that use them in the following way:

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My ownCloud adventures - Part 1: Installation and Initial Configuration

If you own multiple different computing devices (portable computers and Desktop PCs at different places, Smartphones, tablets, ...) - and I bet you do - then you will sooner or later feel the need to share your personal files between them in a seamless, convenient way. You may e.g. want to have your music files and pictures available on any device at any place without manually copying them around. This is why using a Cloud Storage provider is becoming more and more popular: Dropbox, Google Drive, Box.net, ... just to name a few. They will offer you a limited amount of online storage for free - if you pay them a monthly fee then you will get more. However, if you want to have a lot of space (1 TB, 2 TB?) then this will get very expensive ... and there are also other concerns: Data security, privacy, ...

Luckily there is software available that enables you to be your own Cloud Storage provider like the Open Source solution ownCloud. I have started playing with ownCloud in my hosted virtual lab and will blog about how I got this up and running, configured for my needs, and what else is needed to make good use of it. This first post is about installing and initial configuration.

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Importing virtual disks of hosted formats in ESXi 5.1

Recently I stumbled over a new issue that really puzzled me. I was trying to import a virtual appliance (the Bitnami ownCloud stack) into my lab ESXi host. This appliance is provided with a virtual disk in 2gbsparse format to make it compatible with VMware Workstation. For using it in ESXi instructions were given to clone the disk into an ESXi supported disk format using vmkfstools like this:

   vmkfstools -i bitnami-owncloud-4.5.5-0-ubuntu-12.04.vmdk owncloud.vmdk

On my ESXi 5.1 box this command promptly failed with a very confusing error message:
  "Failed to open 'bitnami-owncloud-4.5.5-0-ubuntu-12.04.vmdk': The system cannot find the file specified (25)."

Of course the file existed in the current directory, so how could it not be found?!?

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How to write your own esxcli plugin

Last week I published an esxcli plugin that allows to run any shell command through esxcli. In this post I want to share what you need to know about the esxcli plugin system to be able to write your own plugins.

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[Updated] esxcli plugin to run shell commands (new version)

[Please note: I have updated this blog post to reflect a new version of my esxcli-shell plugin and the changes in there. What's new in version 1.1 (of 2012-01-12):
- supports for advanced shell function like pipelines, I/O redirection
- execute multiple shell commands at once (or a single command spanning multiple lines)
- logging of shell commands to /var/log/shell.log ]

The esxcli command is a very powerful tool to query and configure various aspects of an ESXi host's configuration, and you can not only use it in an ESXi shell, but also remotely through the (perl based) vSphere CLI and the (PowerShell based) vSphere PowerCLI.

The esxcli commands are organized in so-called namespaces (e.g. hardware, software, network etc.) for managing the sub-components of the server, and - out-of-the-box - you are limited to the commands that are exposed through these namespaces. But you cannot run arbitrary ESXi shell commands through it ... until now!

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How cool is that: VM console screenshots just by browser

Recently William Lam posted about a lesser known vSphere feature that I was not yet aware of: You can produce and look at screenshots of your VMs just by pointing a web browser to your ESXi host or vCenter server. If you have already read his post you will probably agree that this is very cool, but you might also wonder what this can be actually used for. So I want to share this knowledge again while adding some useful comments ... and use cases.
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How to use the latest VMware Tools with older vSphere versions

With vSphere 5.0 VMware made an important change regarding the compatibility and supportability of the VMware Tools: The Tools that come with vSphere 5.0 (and newer releases) can also be used with earlier vSphere releases (down to vSphere 4.0). For e.g. the latest VMware Tools of ESXi 5.1 the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix shows the following:

VMware Tools of ESXi 5.1 interoperability

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