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VMware ESXi 4.x: meaning of “Create User: User name or password has an...
Sometimes when you add a new user to your ESXi 4.x installation, you get this error message (click for the full size picture): Create User: User name or password has an invalid format Until now, only...
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Veeam FastSCP on ESXi 4.1: “API version on the server does not allow...
Last week, I wrote Veeam Backup and Replication on ESXi 4.1: “Input string was not in a correct format.” -> Upgrade to 4.1.2 I was partially wrong in that Veam Backup FastSCP 3.0.2.270 did not work:...
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x64 support in ESXi4.1 requires VT, I know that! but why warn so late?
I know that ESXi 4.1 requires VT (the Intel support for hardware assisted virtualization) to be enabled to run x64 VMs. This is the warning that you get when starting an x64 VM, and you don’t have VT...
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Talking SOAP to your ESXi box: VMware vSphere Web Services SDK
Note that what you can do through the SDK (and vMA and its’ virtual appliance or that matter) is limited by what your ESX / ESXi license allows. The VMware KB has more information on this: you will...
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Moving my VMs from ESX 3.5 to ESXi 4.1
After doing quite a bit of research and testing, these are the steps I used to move my VMs from an ESX 3.5 box to an ESXi 4.1 box. Have a test scenario for all your VMs so you can prove they work. (for...
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VMware ESXi 4.0 / ESXi 4.1: enable SSH login for non-root users (and only them)
VMware ESXi has SSH disabled by default. In ESX / ESXi 3 and 3.5, it took a while for people to recognize the ‘unsupported’ trick and enable SSH. In ESXi 4.0, /sbin/services.sh was fixed, so SSH was...
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Performed an VMware ESXi 4.0 to 4.1 Update: 5 minutes of work
Thanks to an excellent post by Peter Sebastian from Jargon Technology, it was a breeze to upgrade. I did the upgrade using Using the vMA virtual appliance, the statements are these: After bringing the...
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ENDIAN Firewall – Connected client can access EFW but no other hosts: enable...
While solving a problem with Windows 7 machines not being able to ping the machines on the GREEN LAN of an Endian when connecting through OpenVPN, but XP machines could, I did a few upgrades, then went...
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Windows XP: changing the HAL to support multiple cores (actually: two CPUs)
A while ago, I moved a single CPU Windows XP VM from VMware Workstation to ESXi 4.1 using the standalone VMware vCenter converter. In ESXi, I increased the CPU count from 1 to 2, and wanting to to for...
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Great new ESXi 4.1 feature: USB Pass Through
A great new ESXi 4.1 feature us the much simplified support of USB Pass Through. In fact it is one of the biggest reasons I updated so quickly; I have been running it now for almost 3 months now. The...
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Change your ESXi machine’s network hostname, DNS information (and SSL...
Since you do this only once per server, it is easy to forget (I do) where to specify the hostname of your ESXi server. vm-help.com describes in Change your host’s network name how easy it is in ESXi...
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Resize your VMware ESXi/ESX/vSphere disks (via JJClements.co.uk)
James Clements explains how to resize your VMware ESXi/ESX/vSphere disks. You can resize the disks live when using ESXi/ESX/vShere 4 and up. When using Windows Vista or 2008 and up, you don’t need...
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Synchronize your NTP time using pool.ntp.org: the internet cluster of ntp...
If you use NTP for syncing your time, then choose pool.ntp.org as your time server: The pool.ntp.org project is a big virtual cluster of timeservers providing reliable easy to use NTP service for...
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Creating vSphere 5 ESXi embedded USB Stick (failed at first in HP XW6600, but...
Installing and booting ESXi 5 from USB allows you to keep your storage exclusively for VMs and separately make backup of your boot configuration and data configuration (note you cannot put the...
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ESX/ESXi/vSphere BIOS Release Date to version mapping (via: the birdhouse in...
It is possible from inside a guest VM to determine the kind of VMware host it runs on by looking at the BIOS information and for instance map the version of VMware Tools to install. Still need to find...
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vSphere 5.1 (ESXi 5.1) can run any hardware level since ESX Server 3.5
Last year, I missed this tiny sentence: So in plain English, any VM that was generated on VMware ESX Server 3.5 or later can run atop ESXi 5.1 unchanged. Which means it is a snap to move your VMs from...
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ESXi and VMware Workstation: quick way of getting Console screenshots in PNG...
Thanks DoubleCloud for the post on Really Easy Ways to Capture VM Screenshot. It also works for VMware ESXi, and by default is enabled: browse to https://esxi-machine/screen?id=# to get a PNG...
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HP xw6600 Workstation – The Computer Setup F10 Utility: enabling Intel VT so...
On a HP XW6600, you can run ESXi 4 or run ESXi 5, but in yourder to run x64 guest VMs, you need to enable Intel VT in the BIOS first. So, in the HP XW6600 BIOS, the choose the menu “Security”, then the...
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ESX(i) AutoStart virtual machines: how to change the VM startup/shutdown...
Since it usually is a one-off setting, I find it hard to remember how to configure the startup/shutdown behaviour of VM guests in an ESX(i)/vSphere environment. Adding to the confusion is that this is...
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ESXi: for high speed copying from ESXi 4.1 to ESXi 5.1 use @Veeam FastSCP...
I had to move a bunch of stuff from an old ESXI 4.1 server to a newer ESXi 5.1 server. For that I used a Windows XP VM on the new ESXI 5.1 server that had two different 1 gigabit network connections so...
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ESXi 5.1 and rsync – damiendebin.net.
Interesting: ESXi 5.1 and rsync – damiendebin.net. It works in ESXi 5.5 too, and the French link below has a version that runs on ESXi 4. Now you can do these forms of backup: ESXi: Hot Replication of...
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Moving Mac OS X VMware Fusion VMs to ESXi (via: Ask Different)
Interesting read: vmware – Moving Fusion VMs to ESXi – Ask Different. I was kind of expecting something like this, as VMware has been notoriously bad at proving Mac OS X tools (whereas their VMware...
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How to copy a file with I/O errors? (via: Not a complete failure » Blog Archive)
Blast from the past, and happy I found back the original blog that pointed me to this: Not a complete failure » Blog Archive » How to copy a file with I/O errors?. A long while ago, I helped out a...
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*nix: recursively listing “hidden” files from the current directory
As a follow up on my recent rsync on ESXi 5.1 post, as – when rsync in ESXi terminates the hard way because of a lost SSH connection – rsync can leave “hidden” files behind. A small script that...
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vi intro — the cheat sheet method (via: IBM developerworks)
IBM isn’t all about dry corporate stuff and sometimes hard to read redbook documentation (: I love the way they lead you do build your own VI cheat sheet step by step in vi intro — the cheat sheet...
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Some Mikrotik and RouterOS Links to get it running on ESXi for experimental...
RouterOS runs on many kinds of hardware. Of course on the MikroTik hardware itself (which always comes with a license), but also on x86 hardware, even virtualized systems. In that respect, it looks a...
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Some links on ESXi disaster recovery and configuration backup
Just in case the shit ever hits the fan: What directories to backup on ESXi apart from the VMs? – Server Fault. hardware – What happens when the USB key or SD card I’ve installed VMware ESXi on fails?...
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*nux: “$@” is how to iterate over arguments in bash script (via: command line...
Thanks Robert Gamble, ephemient and Jonathan Leffler. Be sure to read the top two answers and comments for full details. Until now, I always used $* to pass on arguments from *nux shells (bash, sh,...
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Installing VMware vSphere Client 4.1-5.5 on Windows 8 or 8.1 (via: tech ::...
Until recently, I had all my VMware vSphere Client installations inside a Windows XP VM because Windows XP: relatively light weight, but (as of writing almost) End-of-Life. I am upgrading that install...
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ECC vs non-ECC RAM: The Great Debate (via: Nex7’s Blog). Use the ECC dude.
Read this very nice post on Nex7’s Blog: ECC vs non-ECC RAM: The Great Debate. There is no debate. Use ECC dude. Use ECC especially for server side things (storage, virtualization, databases, etc)...
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VMware ESXi: renaming a VM and VMDK
This turned out to be much more manual work than I hoped: renaming a VM and the VMDK used by the VM in ESXi. If you prefer to do all steps by hand on the command-line plus two vi sessions for the vmx*...
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VMware Front Experience: ESXi-Customizer
Interesting: ESXi-Customizer is a user-friendly script that automates the process of customizing the ESXi install-ISO with drivers that are not originally included. Unlike other scripts and manuals...
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7zip on ESXi through p7zip
A while ago, I wrote about getting rsync on ESXi: ESXi 5.1 and rsync – damiendebin.net. Now I needed 7zip on ESXi to make sure I could test unpack some 7zip archives. This turned out much easier than I...
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Windows 8.1 on VMware ESXi 5.1: Minimize/Maximize/Close buttons are invisible...
(Another one in the missed schedule list: this post was scheduled for this morning 06:00) When you run a Windows 8.1 guest on VMware ESXi 5.1 with the VMware tools that belong to ESXi 5.1, the...
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Accessing the ESXi Direct Console User Interface DCUI via SSH – Wahl Network
I just learned (thanks Chris Wahl!) about the dcui command: often easier to configure basic parameters than the other UIs. The DCUI is normally available from the console after you login, for instance...
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Lantronix SpiderDuo Remote KVM Switch: Affordable KVM Over IP Switches
Lantronix SpiderDuo Remote KVM Switch: Affordable KVM Over IP Switches. Interesting KVM-over-IP solution. –jeroen via: A bunch of stuff broke this month, learned a lot fixing it all | TinkerTry IT @...
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Some links on Hyperthreading, ESXi and vSphere
In case I bump into vSphere/ESXi machines that have hyper threading (HT) enabled: Short summary: HyperThreading: What is it and does it benefit ESXi? | VMXP. Extensive list of considerations: Tune ESXi...
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vim-cmd suspending/resuming a bunch of VMs
These two vim-cmd scripts come in very handy: –jeroenFiled under: bash, Development, ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, ESXi6, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, Virtualization, VMware, VMware...
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VMware KB: Configuring Network Time Protocol (NTP) on ESX/ESXi hosts using...
Often it is better to configure more than just a single pool.ntp.org server in case the IP-address of the name gets cached too long and it becomes unresponsive during that period. So it is better to...
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VMware ESXi – converting a thick disk to a thin disk – via: Server Fault
There are various places that tell you you cannot resize a thick disk to a thin disk using vmkfstools. When you do it wrong, you get this error: DiskLib_Check() failed for source disk. The file...
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how to resize (grow) device partition of a multi-device BTRFS filesystem?
To grow you must first change the size of the container: the partition, the LV, or arraydevice. Then you can resize the file system. It’s the same with XFS, and NTFS. I’m only aware of Apple’sdiskutil...
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ESXi 4.0.0.Update01-208167 Whitebox on HP xw6600: success!
Boy, I totally forgot to post this. It runs also ESXi 5.x; I’ve not tried more recent ESXi versions as they just run fine. As a follow-up on [WayBack] VMware Communities: ESX 3.5 Whitebox on HP xw6600...
View Article7zip on ESXi through p7zip – redux
Steps to get it working on ESXi 6.x with p7zip 16.02: Copy the output of https://sourceforge.net/projects/p7zip/files/p7zip/16.02/p7zip_16.02_x86_linux_bin.tar.bz2/download to a place where you can...
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Using the partedUtil command line utility on ESXi and ESX (1036609) | VMware KB
Reminder to self when checking “new” disks to see what partitions they contain before formatting them as VMFS. There is a truckload information at [WayBack] Using the partedUtil command line utility on...
View Articlelamw/ghettoVCB: ghettoVCB
I found out that I had some very old draft notes below, but since then the source has moved to github: lamw/ghettoVCB: ghettoVCB. Since I find VIB easier to use than the Offline Bundle (for differences...
View ArticleVMFS metadata files
For my own ference: disk space under VMFS-3 is organized according to four resource types. They are : blocks, sub-blocks, pointer blocks, and file descriptors. Resources are grouped into clusters,...
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Always use SCSI for your VM guest disks – Jeroen Wiert Pluimers – Google+
Rephrased from [WayBack] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers – Google+: If you install a virtual machine, ensure the disk controller and disks are SCSI based. This has many advantages, including: speed (usually the...
View ArticleESXi: searching for “vim-cmd vmsvc/message” lead me to the “Managing ESXi...
Last week, I wrote about ESXi: on the console/ssh, when a moved VM pauses during power-on: show which VMs have messages waiting, then answer them. The “vim-cmd vmsvc/message” – Google Search there lead...
View ArticleESXi: for my link archive “Developing for VMware ESXi”
This post amends the post last week on rsync backup of your ESXi box: How to make a statically linked rsync binary « The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff. Two weeks ago, I posted about Source:...
View ArticleESXi: for my link archive – links about “vim-cmd vmsvc/message” (lots of...
In ESXi: on the console/ssh, when a moved VM pauses during power-on: show which VMs have messages waiting, then answer them, I searched for [Wayback] “vim-cmd vmsvc/message” – Google Search in order to...
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