Tue, 16 Mar 2010

Recovering from using too many tools

As predicted, I did something horribly wrong to the rig. I couldn't get 10.4 to run Xen so I switched back to CentOS. CentOS runs Xen nicely, but it didn't like my display and I couldn't get MythTV to function well without it. The NVidia drivers that I could install just wouldn't work well. For generic host configurations, CentOS works nicely. My problem is that I only have the one system and I'm unwilling to give up specific features/services. In any case, I've moved back to 10.4 and am currently playing with KVM. I have a number of dedicated guest machines running and am currently learning how to grow qcow2 images. This second part has been a bit difficult in that qemu has some quirks when it runs live CDs (such as qparted which is needed to resize a partition inside of an imaged filesystem). An example of this is where, while running the qparted live CD under qemu, the mouse "sticks" to the right-hand side. It took a little searching but this issue was overcome by running "export SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0" on the command line just before starting qemu. (Hint: once you're done with qparted, you'll want to close the terminal window to destroy that export.) In any case, KVM seems to be meeting most of my needs. I'll start adding notes to the wiki shortly, in with what's already there for ESXi, Virtualbox, and Xen (ouch). joat: 06:31:59 16 Mar 2010

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Mon, 15 Feb 2010

Xen

Now have Xen installed/tweaked to the point where I like it. I will probably end up using Xen full time because: my hardware isn't young enough to support native virtualization OS virtualization doesn't support mixed environments full virtualization tends to bog down on my older equipment (VirtualBox, VMware) ESXi is overkill for my hard ware (need a second box for it to be useable) KVM is a bit too light That leaves Xen. I picked up "The Book of Xen" at the recent ShmooCon and have played with the CentOS version enough that I want to try the Debian version and play with DTC-Xen. If it allows access to some of my not-normally-supported-in-VM hardware (and it looks like it will), I'll probably make the switch permanent. joat: 20:48:19 15 Feb 2010

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Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Note to self: when building Xen VMs, choose the manual IP configuration and add that IP to the exceptions list on the firewall (the part that I forgot). Took two hours to figure that out. joat: 15:38:56 15 Feb 2010

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Sun, 31 Jan 2010

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 install and, half-way through, I 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: 07:54:00 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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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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