Sun, 31 Jan 2010

Comment system is down

The comment system is down (again). This time it's because Haloscan is closing their doors. I'm working on getting another one attached. joat: 19:10:21 31 Jan 2010

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vmfs-fuse

Today, my thanks go to Christophe Fillot and Mike Hommey for writing vmfs-fuse. Y'all saved my bacon (or at least a few hours of my time) today. For those that don't recognize the tool, vmfs-fuse allows you to mount VMFS formatted volumes under "regular" linux. I was backing out of an extremely large (1TB) ESXi installed and, half-way through, realized that I hadn't backed up one of the virtual machines. I ran up against a wall, trying to get the usual disk utilities to mount the volume and was looking at having to juggle hard drives and reinstall ESXi, just to get a folder copied. A search of Google and a Synaptic search later, and I'm copying the folder as I write this post. So, if you're in a pinch and need to avoid having to install ESXi, just to get a file/folder copied, you might want to consider installing the vmfs-tools package (which contains vmfs-fuse). joat: 07:54:13 31 Jan 2010

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Tue, 26 Jan 2010

ESXi 3.5 and 3c905c

I can confirm that ESXi 3.5 can "see" the 3com 3c509c NIC without modifification. You're more likely to run up against issues with the storage controller if you're running 3.5 on newer equipment. However, before you attempt to build a custom install disk, try tweaking the drive settings in the BIOS. I managed to get mine working after changing the RAID settings and reformatting the drives. Others have had luck with turning off AHCI. joat: 05:26:56 26 Jan 2010

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Mon, 25 Jan 2010

Graphics added for ESXi install

Graphics have been added to the wiki for the ESXi 4.0 install on the HP e9170c. Enjoy! joat: 19:20:37 25 Jan 2010

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Sun, 17 Jan 2010

Installing ESXi 4.0 on a HP e9170c

Spent yesterday afternoon hammering on the install disk for ESXi 4.0, hoping to get a working install on a friend's new HP e9170c. Short version: after about 6 hours of trial and error, we have a working install. Longer version: Took advantage of work already done by Varazir and geppi (in the VM-Help forum). In the course of six hours, we saw both the lvmdriver error and the pink screen of death. Couldn't get the USB install to work but did get an ISO built that successfully installed ESXi on the box. Noticed Hauppauge hardware info in the psid listing that makes me want to retry attempting to access the PVR-250 card via ESXi. In any case, notes are in the wiki. I'll work on adding graphics. Enjoy! joat: 07:19:53 17 Jan 2010

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Thu, 14 Jan 2010

Still here...

Still here. Been very busy. Would you believe starting a new class (today) means less busy? New stuff coming... joat: 07:02:07 14 Jan 2010

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Tue, 22 Dec 2009

Java and 64-bit Linux

For anyone considering running something on top of 64-bit Ubuntu (esp. OpenVPN-ALS), be aware that Java still has a few bugs in it, when run on 64-bit. Firefox, when pointed at a OpenVPN-ALS site, is not able to start up the web forwarded windows. Instead, it just times out and then complains about not being able to synch. The apps on the server end run fine, as do the local apps in a 32-bit browser. I get around this by running a 32-bit version of Ubuntu in a VM. It's still a bit cranky, but it works. joat: 21:49:01 22 Dec 2009

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Sun, 20 Dec 2009

A whole lot of virtual

Apologies for the delay in posting. The last four weeks have been a bear, what with the car accident (see previous post), the dryer quiting, the back of the house losing power, receiving a DMCA warning, finishing the semester, and the danged holidays. (I've been busy! Still don't have my car back...) On top of all that, I've been experimenting with a slew of virtual technologies, including Sun Containers, Xen, KVM, Virtualbox, VMware Workstation, VMware Server, and VMWare ESXi, on either Solaris or Ubuntu platforms. Quick notes (in no particular order): Xen does not play nicely on 64-bit Ubuntu. It's time for the packager to spend some additional time with the code (I think the current packages were meant for 8.04). Solaris Containers take a bit of research and trial/error to get running, but once it's up, it's up. I need to figure out how to do the remote graphical login next. On Linux, the two most successful installs were (believe it or not) Virtualbox and KVM. Workstation needed a couple compile-time tweaks and Server failed in the middle of install (though I kept it because the disk manager came in handy when converting the DimDim appliance to KVM). I played with converting formats between the various software packages and was able to get DimDim running under KVM. The most powerful of the bunch is ESXi. Unfortunately, you just can't dual boot the thing. I came up with a cheesy way to work around this by reconfiguring the boot order in BIOS. It runs quite nicely on my little AMD Dual Core. Needs a Linux version of the VIC, though. KVM needs a bit of code to handle shutdowns (the power off piece). There's a whole lot of discussion about Solaris Containers on Google but very few pointers to actual howtos. (Yeah, I know. I need to write down how I set it up.) (On my equipment) None of them play nicely with each other. I bought my computer when hardware hypervisors were just coming out so my half-arsed implementation of a BIOS causes enough problems that I cannot run the various programs, nested or side-by-side. There, my techie catharsis should be complete. I'll start writing up notes on all of this, this coming weekend. joat: 19:13:00 20 Dec 2009

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