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

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Archive for the ‘VMware’ Category

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2014 and VMware Fusion has still no built-in “Clone this VM”. Workaround from VMware Communities

Posted by jpluimers on 2014/04/04

It is well into 2014 now, and VMware Fusion still has no way to Clone a VM like VMware Workstation can.

Too bad. Luckily, IrishMike posted a workaround for this about 7 years ago.

The easiest is if you keep these names very similar:

  • Display Name of the VM (that shows up in your Virtual Machine Library)
  • Name of the directory
  • Name of the .VMDK files
  • Name fo the .VMX files

I do moste of the editing from the console, and used this trick to edit text files from the console.

These are the steps to clone from “master” to “clone” with a little bit of post-editing from my side:

Re: How do we “copy” an entire virtual machine?

  1. Copy the directory holding all the “master” VMware Fusion files to a new one (lets call the directories “master.vmware” and “clone.vmware”).
  2. Inside the “clone.vmware”  directory, change all the files named “master.” to “clone.”
  3. Inside the “clone.vmware” directory, remove these subdirectories if they exist:
    – any directory ending in “.lck”
    – Applications
    – appListCache
    – caches
  4. Then in the same directory, edit the .vmx file changing all occurrences of “master” to “clone”
    – any “fileName” entry
    – any “displayName” entry
    – any “nvram” entry
    – any “extendedConfigFile”
    – any “checkpoint.vmState”
  5. Also in the same directory, edit the main .vmdk file and change the mane of the file from “master-flat.vmdk” to “clone-flat.vmdk”
  6. Then from the Finder or from VMware Fusion, open the .vmx file
  7. Finally tell VMware Fusion that you “copied”  the VM, so it gets a new hardware ID.

Then we’re off and running.

–jeroen

via: VMware Communities: How do we “copy” an entire virtual….

Posted in Apple, Fusion, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Power User, VMware, VMware Workstation | Leave a Comment »

ECC vs non-ECC RAM: The Great Debate (via: Nex7’s Blog). Use the ECC dude.

Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/30

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) where you employ some kind of redundancy/correction in the storage (ZFS, RAID, etc) side of things.

And think about using ECC for the rest of your stuff, especially when things stay in memory for a longer period of time (in-memory processing of data can speed up things a lot, but also increase the risk).

Summary:

There is no debate here. None.

[…]

if you think non-ECC RAM can compete with ECC RAM, you are mistaken. If you think there’s a risk/reward analysis here, you’re correct. The risk is not gigantic, and there’s a real cost to alleviating that risk. You have to decide if that cost is worth alleviating that risk.

[…]

If you believe there’s a risk/reward plan where you can take the reward and apply to to mitigate the risk, you are back to being mistaken. The only benefit of non-ECC RAM (and thus the only reward in its choice over ECC RAM) is it will make the solution cheaper. There is not, however, any way (that I’ve heard of, yet) you can use the cost savings to mitigate the risk using non-ECC RAM will introduce.

[…]

If you choose to use non-ECC RAM, you open yourself up to a new vector for data corruption/loss/downtime/errors/etc,

one that could (rarely) even cause you to lose your entire filesystem, and one ZFS does not (cannot) resolve for you. Indeed, one it likely can’t even see at all. If you choose to employ non-ECC RAM, or are forced to do so because of circumstance or environmental constraint, that’s potentially understandable (and even acceptable) – but do not then attempt to validate or explain away that choice with pseudoscience or downplaying the risk you’ve added. You are using an inferior solution with an extra vector for data corruption/loss that ECC RAM solutions simply do not have. It is that simple.

[…]

Hint 3: There’s a reason we’re so gung-ho about using ECC RAM for ZFS, and it’s not just because we’re paranoid about data loss (which goes hand in hand with being a ZFS zealot, really). It is because you likely don’t realize how at risk you are. Due to the nature of how ZFS handles writes, your incoming (write) data is at risk of RAM-related bit errors for likely significantly longer than traditional storage solutions or alternative filesystems. 5, 10, 30, 60 or more seconds in a state where it is at risk.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in *nix, ECC memory, Endian, ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, Hardware, Hyper-V, Linux, Memory, Power User, SuSE Linux, VMware, VMware ESXi, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

World’s Smallest VMware ESXi Server « HackingAway.org

Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/30

Kewl: World’s Smallest VMware ESXi Server « HackingAway.org.

SSD, ECC, Xeon CPU. Nice!

–jeroen

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

Installing VMware vSphere Client 4.1-5.5 on Windows 8 or 8.1 (via: tech :: stuff)

Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/29

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 now, and actually making two installs:

  1. on Windows Server 2003 R2 (the main VM management VM)
  2. on Windows 8.1 (my main Windows work laptop)

Of course I needed the installers for vSphere Client 4.1, 5.0, 5.1 and 5.5. The easiest os to get them through the direct download links at VMware: Vsphere Client Direct Download Links | tech :: stuff  Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, Power User, VMware, VMware ESXi, Windows, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows XP | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

*nux: “$@” is how to iterate over arguments in bash script (via: command line – Stack Overflow)

Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/29

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, ash, etc.). Works on ESXi as well. But that is not the correct way to do.

But “$@” is the correct way:

  • Use “$@” to represent all the arguments:

for var in "$@"
do
echo "$var"
done

  • As a shortcut, for var; do ...; done means for var in "$@"; do ...; done
  • Basic thesis: “$@” is correct, and $* (unquoted) is almost always wrong. This is because “$@” works fine when arguments contain spaces, and works the same as $* when they don’t. In some circumstances, “$*” is OK too, but “$@” usually (but not always) works in the same places. Unquoted, $@ and $* are equivalent (and almost always wrong).

This next to the following construct makes file processing in *nix a breeze:

for filename in *.7z; do if 7za t $filename 2>&1 > /dev/null; then echo $filename passed; else echo $filename failed; fi; done

–jeroen

via: command line – How to iterate over arguments in bash script – Stack Overflow.

Posted in *nix, bash, Cygwin, Development, ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, Linux, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, SuSE Linux, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

Some links on ESXi disaster recovery and configuration backup

Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/27

Just in case the shit ever hits the fan:

Background information:

Notes:

bootbank, altbootbank, backup.sh, auto-backup.sh

Adding your own software to ESXi:

–jeroen

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

Some Mikrotik and RouterOS Links to get it running on ESXi for experimental purposes.

Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/27

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 bit like pfSense, or Endian, but on steroids and closed source.

Here are some links focused on MikroTik  on ESXi (which is great for experimental purposes):

WOL (Wake ON LAN)

–jeroen

via: Routers.

Posted in ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, Ethernet, Internet, Network-and-equipment, Power User, routers, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi, Wake-on-LAN (WoL) | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

vi intro — the cheat sheet method (via: IBM developerworks)

Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/27

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 method.

It is basically a vi tutorial that helps you to build up your own cheat sheet.

–jeroen Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in *nix, Cygwin, Endian, ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, Linux, Power User, SuSE Linux, vi, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

VMware Workstation 10, VMware Player 6 Regular/Plus, VMware Fusion 6 Regular/Pro: what to choose? (via: VMware Workstation 10 released Sept. 4 2013, but you might be fine with the free VMware Player 6 Plus | TinkerTry IT @ home)

Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/27

There is an interesting post by TinkerTry IT @ home | VMware Workstation 10 released Sept. 4 2013, but you might be fine with the free VMware Player 6 Plus that helped me making up my decision what to buy.

Basically you have these products on the non-server side of things:

(Note: you can find many downloads through Google search for site:www.vmware.com/go)

I bought these:

  • VMware Fusion 6
  • VMware Workstation 10

My reasoning: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Fusion, Power User, VMware, VMware ESXi, VMware Workstation | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

*nix: recursively listing “hidden” files from the current directory

Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/25

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 recursively shows the hidden files (those starting with a dot) starting from the current directory:

find . -iname ".*"

More of those (including deleting them, filtering for only files or only directories, etc) are at Linux / UNIX: Bash Find And Delete All Hidden Files Directories.

Note: don’t try to outsmart using something like piping through grep "\/\." as that will also match files who’s parent directories are hidden.

–jeroen

via:

Posted in *nix, Apple, bash, Development, ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, Linux, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, SuSE Linux, VMware, VMware ESXi | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

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