Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/23
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:
Posted in *nix, ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, Power User, VMware, VMware ESXi, wget | 6 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/23
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 it could run full speed.
Speed comparison for 60 gigabytes of VMs:
I used both settings for both tools: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in ESXi4, ESXi5.1, Power User, VMware, VMware ESXi, Windows, Windows XP | 6 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/16
Interesting: Ghetto Mod: xw6400 xw6600 front case fans – HP Enterprise Business Community.
Very silent 92mm fans for the front of an HP XW6600. Be sure to use the non PWM fan type.
–jeroen
Posted in ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, Hardware, HP XW6600, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/14
Thanks to the guys at v-front.de/2013/09/how-to-update-your-standalone-host-to.html
Do not upgrade the virtual hardware of your VMs!
If you try to upgrade the virtual hardware of your VMs to the new revision 10 after you have updated the host to ESXi 5.5 then the following warning will be displayed by the vSphere Client:
“If you upgrade the virtual hardware to this level, use the vSphere Web Client for managing these VMs.”
– Think twice here! Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, Power User, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/13
These posts seem to describe the current state of the art about ESXi and SSD support, especially with respect to TRIM/UNMAP:
Oh: many people boot their ESXi server from USB as it gives them more flexibility:
–jeroen
Posted in ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, Power User, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/12
Interesting: VMware Front Experience: How to make your unsupported SATA AHCI Controller work with ESXi 5.5.
Posted in ESXi5, ESXi5.1, Power User, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/11/15
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 a setting on your host, not on guest VMs.
Luckiliy, Jase McCarty and others explained this on the VMware communities, which I sligly edited:
Look under the configuration tab, at “Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown”.
Choose Properties. You can configure the startup/shutdown here.
…
In the VMware Infrastructure Client (on newer installs this is called VMware vSphere Client) I client you’ll want to select the host.
Then click on the Configuration Tab and you should see Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown.
Select that and then click on Properties (this is on the upper right corer, not intuitive).
…
Hi Im using ESXi 4.0 and vSphere client, but the “Edit” button is grayed out or not active in the VM Startup/Shutdown propertiessystem settings. Is this license issue, does ESXi 4.0 doesnt support autostart of virtual machine anymore?
…
Click on the Move Up button to move a virtual machine to Automatic Startup or Any Order.
The trick is twofold:
Click on the screenshot below to see a larger version. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, Power User, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/10/25
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 submenu “OS Security” to get at these two options:
- Intel Virtualization Technology (VTx)—Enables or disables Intel Virtualization Technology to increase workstation performance.
- Intel IO Virtualization—Enables or disables Virtualization Technology to increase workstation I/O performance.
When you enable both VT options, then VMware ESX/ESXi/vSphere can run x64 guests with full VT support (otherwise you will get a friendly warning message when you try to setup or run such a guest VM). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in BIOS, Boot, ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, Hardware, HP XW6600, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | 3 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/06/10
(note: part of this post is unfinished, but I wanted to make sure all the links are publicly accessible, so I posted earlier and incomplete)
I already did a few ESXi5 postings (they apply to 5.1 as well) of which the most important are:
Time to finish up some additional installation steps (with a big thanks to Matthijs ter Woord):
Posted in BIOS, Boot, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, Hardware, HP XW6600, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User, PowerCLI, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi, Wake-on-LAN (WoL), Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/03
A long time ago, I promised steps how to install VMware 5 ESXi using the MBR boot format.
The steps with screenshots are below, but first some background information.
As of VMware ESXi 5, GPT (short for GUID partition table) is the default partition table used by VMware ESXi.
Disks smaller than 2 TB can boot with MBR, but GPT It is a requirement for disks bigger than 2 TB. GPT also needs a UEFI compatible BIOS.
Some older BIOSes (like those of my HP XW6600 machines: still running strong after many years of fine service) do not support GPT.
Luckily, weasel (the open source Operating System Installer that VMware ESXi uses) can be forced to use MBR using runweasel formatwithmbr.
Forcing MBR is a 2-step process.
Below are the screenshots of a VMware ESXi 5.0.0 installation I did this way.
But it works equally well in ESXi 5.1.x
After writing this post, I found out about ESXi 5 Won’t Boot From USB which solves this exact problem for an HP XW8600 configuration (those are slightly larger machines than the XW6600 I have, but the architecture is the same).
Click on the image or link for larger screenshots, or view the series here at Flickr. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in BIOS, Boot, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, Hardware, HP XW6600, Power User, UEFI, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | 1 Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 