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Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘Virtualization’ Category

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What directories to backup on ESXi apart from the VMs? – Server Fault

Posted by jpluimers on 2017/08/18

What directories to backup on ESXi apart from the VMs? – Server Fault [WayBack]:

You may want to look at purpose-built VMware backup tools. You will be very disappointed if you treat an ESXi host like a Linux/Unix server.

Use the VMware backup commands [WayBack] from a separate station, and you’ll be left with a nice configuration tarball. I would find another approach for the actual VM backups.

Edit: Host-based example

vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/sync_config
vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/backup_config

This stores the config in /scratch/downloads:

# vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/backup_config
Bundle can be downloaded at : http://ip.of.esxi.host/downloads/52fd67ba-2fdf-9876-6651-46c3da638f1a/configBundle-centaur.ewwhite.net.tgz

Also see: http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2013/02/how-to-backup-restore-free-esxi-host.html [WayBack]

–jeroen

Posted in ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

People have been asking about the fact I use old Xeon boxes for my development…

Posted by jpluimers on 2017/05/19

An interesting discussion on Xeon based 2nd hand systems that are way cheaper than new ones:

[WayBack] People have been asking about the fact I use old Xeon boxes for my development platforms (and indeed more). I want to cover what I use, why I use them, … – Alan Cox – Google+

I still run a couple of HP XW6600 workstations with [WayBack] E5420 processors (of the [WayBack] Harpertown family) to host VMs on. Works splendid.

–jeroen

Source: [People have been asking about the fact I use old Xeon boxes for my developmen…1919

Posted in Hardware, HP XW6600, LifeHacker, Power User, Virtualization | Leave a Comment »

ESXi 4.0.0.Update01-208167 Whitebox on HP xw6600: success!

Posted by jpluimers on 2017/05/19

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 …, I have installed ESXi 4.0.0.Update01-208167 on a HP XW6600 workstation.

Good news: the generic ESXi 4 installation works, whereas the HP specific ESXi 4 fails (you get a nice purple screen of death).

[WayBack] http://www.vm-help.com//esx40i/esx40_whitebox_HCL.php

–jeroen

Posted in ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, Hardware, HP XW6600, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

use vmrun – via How do I find the IP address of a virtual machine using VMware Fusion? – Super User

Posted by jpluimers on 2017/04/20

Note this works only when the VMs have VMware Tools installed (more on that below):

VMWare provides, not surprisingly, a built in tool for this, vmrun. It’s under /Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmrun although it has moved around in other Fusion releases a bit.

🍺 vmrun list Total running VMs: 1 .docker/machine/machines/myvm.vmx
🍺 vmrun getGuestIPAddress ~/.docker/machine/machines/myvm.vmx 172.16.213.128

via: How do I find the IP address of a virtual machine using VMware Fusion? – Super User [WayBack]

vmrun [WayBack] is barely documented and most of is in PDF of which this is the most recent I could find: www.vmware.com/pdf/vix180_vmrun_command.pdf [WayBack]

Based on the above path, I added this to my ~/.bash_profile file:

alias vmrun='/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmrun'
alias vmrun-list-running-VMs='vmrun list | grep vmx'
vmrun-list-ipv4-of-running-VMs()
{
  vmrun-list-running-VMs | while read line ; do echo $line && vmrun getGuestIPAddress $line; done
}

Now I can do this:

$ vmrun-list-ipv4-of-running-VMs
/Users/jeroenp/VM/W81Entx64DelphiRegression.vmwarevm/W81Entx64.vmx
172.16.172.135
/Users/jeroenp/VM/diaspore-opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64.vmwarevm/diaspore-opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64.vmx
Error: The VMware Tools are not running in the virtual machine: /Users/jeroenp/VM/diaspore-opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64.vmwarevm/diaspore-opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64.vmx
$ vmrun-list-ipv4-of-running-VMs
/Users/jeroenp/VM/diaspore.opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64/diaspore.opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64.vmx
Error: Unable to get the IP address
/Users/jeroenp/VM/W81Entx64DelphiRegression.vmwarevm/W81Entx64.vmx
172.16.172.135
$ vmrun-list-ipv4-of-running-VMs
/Users/jeroenp/VM/diaspore.opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64/diaspore.opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64.vmx
Error: Unable to get the IP address
/Users/jeroenp/VM/W81Entx64DelphiRegression.vmwarevm/W81Entx64.vmx
172.16.172.135
$ vmrun-list-ipv4-of-running-VMs
/Users/jeroenp/VM/diaspore.opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64/diaspore.opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64.vmx
172.16.172.134
/Users/jeroenp/VM/W81Entx64DelphiRegression.vmwarevm/W81Entx64.vmx
172.16.172.135
$ vmrun-list-ipv4-of-running-VMs
/Users/jeroenp/VM/diaspore.opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64/diaspore.opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64.vmx
172.16.172.134
/Users/jeroenp/VM/W81Entx64DelphiRegression.vmwarevm/W81Entx64.vmx
172.16.172.142

These are the messages I observed:

Error: The VMware Tools are not running in the virtual machine: /Users/jeroenp/VM/diaspore-opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64.vmwarevm/diaspore-opensuse-Tumbleweed-x64.vmx
Error: Unable to get the IP address
172.16.172.135

The first one means a machine is running but has no VMware Tools installed. For an OpenSuSE machine you can install it with zypper install open-vm-tools, for other Linux systems read VMware Tools auf Ubuntu, Mint, CentOS oder openSUSE installieren | ITrig [WayBack]

Some more examples of vmrun for VMware Fusion are at Control VMware Fusion from the Command Line | James Reuben Knowles [WayBack]

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, bash, Development, Fusion, openSuSE, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, SuSE Linux, Tumbleweed, Virtualization, VMware | Leave a Comment »

how to resize (grow) device partition of a multi-device BTRFS filesystem?

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/11/11

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 resizevolume command that resizes the flavors of HFS+ and at the same time sets the new end valuefor the partition entry.

Source: Development of the BTRFS linux file system (not yet archived at the WayBack machine)

I will need the above for a single disk device having a BTRFS partition sandwiched between a swap and xfs partition:

# parted -l
Model: VMware Virtual disk (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 21.5GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system     Flags
 1      1049kB  1562MB  1561MB  primary  linux-swap(v1)  type=82
 2      1562MB  17.7GB  16.1GB  primary  btrfs           boot, type=83
 3      17.7GB  21.5GB  3799MB  primary  xfs             type=83

I’ll likekly be:

  1. extend the disk inin ESXi
  2. use gparted to move the xfs partition to the end of the disk
  3. use gparted to extend the btrfs partition
  4. use btrfs to extend the volume inside the btrfs partition

I might be able to do all this from the gparted live CD as moving xfs and growing btrfs is on the GParted — Features list.

Fingers crossed. Luckily I’ve backups (:

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, ESXi6, Linux, openSuSE, Power User, SuSE Linux, Tumbleweed, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

Determine TBW from SSDs with S.M.A.R.T Values in ESXi (smartctl) | Virten.net

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/10/31

On my research list: Determine TBW from SSDs with S.M.A.R.T Values in ESXi (smartctl) | Virten.net

Via Matthijs ter Woord.

–jeroen

Posted in ESXi6, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | 1 Comment »

Some links on converting non KVM VMs to Proxmox

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/10/24

Gut feeling indicates I need these someday:

From VHD to Proxmox you need to convert to RAW not IMG:

# qemu-img convert -f vpc -O raw PATH/to/DISK.vhd PATH/to/DISK.raw

–jeroen

Posted in Power User, Proxmox, Virtualization | Leave a Comment »

FileZilla on Windows is waaaay faster than WinSCP

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/10/21

Not sure why yet, but on a gigabit network between a Windows 2008 R2 Server and a Proxmox KVM machine, WinSCP gets around 10 megabit/second and FileZilla > 30 megabit/second.

Others seem to agree that filezilla faster than winscp.

–jeroen

Posted in Communications Development, Development, Internet protocol suite, Power User, Proxmox, SSH, TCP, Virtualization, VMware, Windows, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 | 1 Comment »

VMware ESXi – converting a thick disk to a thin disk – via: Server Fault

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/10/17

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 specified is not a virtual disk (15).

This happens when you directly try to resize the physical disk image:

# vmkfstools --clonevirtualdisk msmxp-flat.vmdk --diskformat thin msmxp-flat.thin.vmdk
DiskLib_Check() failed for source disk The file specified is not a virtual disk (15).

Whereas you should point vmkfstools to the disk descriptor file which has the shortest name:

# vmkfstools --clonevirtualdisk msmxp.vmdk --diskformat thin msmxp.thin.vmdk
Destination disk format: VMFS thin-provisioned
Cloning disk 'msmxp.vmdk'...
Clone: 100% done.

(Note that many people shorten the --clonevirtualdisk to -i and --diskformat to -d).

For performance, it doesn’t matter much if your disk is thick or thin as explained by Death to false myths: The type of virtual disk used determines your performance.

But various people issues expanding a thick disk. With thin disks, that usually works fine.

This post explains the correct steps of resizing: VMWare ESXi 5.1–convert virtual disk (vmdk) from thick to thin provision.

Here is a summary:

Step zero: shutdown the VM and ensure you have a backup!

For instance with rsync is great for making a local backup:

# time ./850EVO1TBR1B/bin/rsync -aiv --info=progress2 --progress ./850EVO1TBR1B/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp/ ./850EVO1TBR1A/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp/

Step one: show the disk files:

/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # du -h *.vmdk
12.0G   msmxp-flat.vmdk
0   msmxp.vmdk

There are two: msmxp.vmdk describes the disk and msmxp-flat.vmdk has the data.

Step two: ensure you have enough free space on the volume:

# ls -al /vmfs/volumes | grep "552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed"
drwxr-xr-t    1 root     root          2660 Aug  5 04:35 552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root     root            35 Aug  5 06:11 850EVO1TBR1B -> 552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed
# df -h | grep "850EVO1TBR1B\|Use%"
Filesystem   Size   Used Available Use% Mounted on
VMFS-5     930.8G 736.8G    194.0G  79% /vmfs/volumes/850EVO1TBR1B

Convert the disk:

# vmkfstools --clonevirtualdisk msmxp.vmdk --diskformat thin msmxp.thin.vmdk
Destination disk format: VMFS thin-provisioned
Cloning disk 'msmxp.vmdk'...
Clone: 100% done.

Observe the size:

In my case the flat disk was almost full and fragmented, so the thin disk is not smaller:

/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # du -h *.vmdk
12.0G   msmxp-flat.vmdk
12.0G   msmxp.thin-flat.vmdk
0   msmxp.thin.vmdk
0   msmxp.vmdk

Rename both disks

Use vmkfstools (do not use mv as that will not keep the descriptor/data vmdk files bound together) and check the rename.

You can replace --renamevirtualdisk with -E:

/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # vmkfstools --renamevirtualdisk msmxp.thin.vmdk msmxp.vmdk
## /vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # vmkfstools -E msmxp.vmdk msmxp.thick.vmdk
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # du -h *.vmdk
12.0G   msmxp-flat.vmdk
12.0G   msmxp.thick-flat.vmdk
0   msmxp.thick.vmdk
0   msmxp.vmdk

Turn on the Virtual Machine to verify it still works.

If it does, then delete it (you can replace --deletevirtualdisk with -U) which will remove both both the descriptor and data vmdk file:

/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # vmkfstools --deletevirtualdisk msmxp.vmdk 
## /vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # vmkfstools -U msmxp.vmdk 
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # du -h *.vmdk
12.0G   msmxp-flat.vmdk
0   msmxp.vmdk

After shutting down the VM again and making a new backup, you can now expand the disk as described in VMware KB: Adding space to an ESXi/ESX host virtual disk.

You can replace --extendvirtualdisk with -X.

/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # vmkfstools --extendvirtualdisk 14G msmxp.vmdk 
## /vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # vmkfstools -X 14G msmxp.vmdk 
Grow: 100% done.
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # du -h *.vmdk
12.0G   msmxp-flat.vmdk
0   msmxp.vmdk


/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # vmkfstools --renamevirtualdisk msmxp.vmdk msmxp.thick.vmdk
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # vmkfstools --clonevirtualdisk msmxp.thick.vmdk msmxp.vmdk --diskformat thin
Destination disk format: VMFS thin-provisioned
Cloning disk 'msmxp.thick.vmdk'...
Clone: 100% done.
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # diff msmxp.thick.vmdk msmxp.vmdk
--- msmxp.thick.vmdk
+++ msmxp.vmdk
@@ -7,18 +7,18 @@
 createType="vmfs"
 
 # Extent description
-RW 29360128 VMFS "msmxp.thick-flat.vmdk"
+RW 29360128 VMFS "msmxp-flat.vmdk"
 
 # The Disk Data Base 
 #DDB
 
-ddb.adapterType = "ide"
-ddb.thinProvisioned = "1"
-ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
-ddb.geometry.heads = "16"
-ddb.geometry.cylinders = "29127"
-ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 9f 5e f8 33 76-6e c5 48 3c f2 84 d8 1e"
-ddb.longContentID = "5659579edebed2ebdd8e0c8fda15abd4"
 ddb.toolsVersion = "9221"
 ddb.virtualHWVersion = "8"
 ddb.deletable = "true"
+ddb.longContentID = "5659579edebed2ebdd8e0c8fda15abd4"
+ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 95 66 1b cf 7a-e3 db 3f 30 17 7e 00 2d"
+ddb.geometry.cylinders = "29127"
+ddb.geometry.heads = "16"
+ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
+ddb.thinProvisioned = "1"
+ddb.adapterType = "ide"
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # du -h *.vmdk
12.0G   msmxp-flat.vmdk
12.0G   msmxp.thick-flat.vmdk
0   msmxp.thick.vmdk
0   msmxp.vmdk
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # vmkfstools --extendvirtualdisk 14G msmxp.vmdk
Failed to extend disk : One of the parameters supplied is invalid (1).
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # vmkfstools --extendvirtualdisk 14G msmxp.vmdk
Failed to extend disk : One of the parameters supplied is invalid (1).
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # vmkfstools --extendvirtualdisk 14G msmxp.vmdk
Failed to extend disk : One of the parameters supplied is invalid (1).
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # vmkfstools --extendvirtualdisk 15G msmxp.vmdk
Grow: 100% done.
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # du -h *.vmdk
12.0G   msmxp-flat.vmdk
12.0G   msmxp.thick-flat.vmdk
0   msmxp.thick.vmdk
0   msmxp.vmdk
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # vmkfstools --deletevirtualdisk msmxp.thick.vmdk 
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp # du -h *.vmdk
12.0G   msmxp-flat.vmdk
0   msmxp.vmdk
/vmfs/volumes/552f5788-33e30274-8dba-001f29022aed/Raid6SSD-VM/msmxp #

–jeroen

via: vmware esxi – vmkfstools returns error when trying to copy thin vmdk – Server Fault.

Posted in ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, ESXi6, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

SysInternals sdelete: zero wipe free space is called -z instead of -c

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/09/20

In the 2009 past, sdelete used the -c parameter to zero wipe clean a hard drive and -z would clean it with a random pattern.

That has changed. Somewhere along the lines, -c and -z has swapped meaning which I didn’t notice.

This resulted in many of my virtual machines image backups were a lot larger than they needed to be.

The reason is that now:

  • -c does a clean free space with a random DoD conformant pattern (which does not compress well)
  • -z writes zeros in the free space

Incidently, -c is a lot slower than -z as well.

TL;DR: use this command

sdelete -z C:

Where C: is the drive to zero clean the free space.

–jeroen

Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Fusion, Hyper-V, Power User, Proxmox, Scripting, sdelete, Software Development, SysInternals, View, VirtualBox, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi, VMware Workstation, Windows | Leave a Comment »

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