While preparing an image for the latest MacBook Pro we were going through a click-matrix and I noticed a funny usability issue. Basically, when you fire up VMware and log into the virtual machine, the trackpad keeps getting hit by little hands, which doesn’t work very well in typing class. I don’t ask why a piece of software is used in a VM vs. Boot Camp, etc. I just see a design consideration and look for a way to make it better. And in this case, the way to make it better was to disable that trackpad while someone was typing. And to assist, we found this handy-dandy little tool…
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VirtualBox 3.1 Out & Tested
The latest version of VirtualBox is out and it supports a whole slew of bug fixes. In fact, the latest VirtualBox fixes a very specific problem that I’ve been struggling with, which is the fact that iSCSI LUNs greater than 2 Terabytes would not mount (not that I have many LUNs greater than 2TB in my lab but occasionally it does come up). When running on Mac OS X, the following other bug fixes are also included: X11 based hosts: allow the user to specify their own scan code layout (bug #2302) Mac OS X hosts: don’t auto show the menu and dock in fullscreen (bug #4866) Mac OS X…
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Scripting Compellent
As with EMC, Compellent allows you to manage servers, volumes, server folders, volume folders, views, and of course mappings programatically. This provides the automation minded engineer with a full-on suite for managing their Compellent-based SAN. All of this is made possible using CompCU.jar. I keep a scripts folder and keep the jar file there, which can initially be downloaded from the Compellent site. Unlike a traditional shell script the scripts are to be placed into a text file and replayed against the SAN. If you are using VMware or Xen then you can combine the automation in Compellent along with the automation available with the command line interface for those…
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Clariion/Navisphere CLI
A Clariion can be managed using the /opt/Navisphere/bin/navicli command. You can obtain information about the environment using the -h option followed by the IP address of the IP of the Clariion and then a number of get verbs. For example, to get all of the settings for the Clariion at 192.168.210.88: navicli -h 192.168.210.88 getall Or to get LUN information navicli -h 192.168.210.88 getlun You can also use getagent, getarrayuid, getcache, getconfig, getcontrol, getcrus, getdisk, getlog, getloop, getrg, getsniffer, getsp, getsptime and while it doesn’t start with get, lunmapinfo will obtain information about the LUN mappings. For example, to see a LUN mapped to a UID using the same host…
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VMware Fusion 3 Right Around the Corner
VMware Fusion is now in pre-order for Fusion 3. What’s new? 64-bit support for Snow Leopard systems Support for OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c Unity works with Aero and Flip 3D to further support Windows 7 New migration tools New command line options Upgraded Virtual Machine Library Built-in Automatic Updater Reduced memory and CPU footprint Additionally, it looks like we’ll be updating the mass deployment guide so if you have any updates or points of information that should be added, let us know!
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Media Temple No Longer Doing Xserve's
For a brief period in time Media Temple was doing virtualized Mac OS X Server colocation, perfect for krypted.com. But alas, that program has been discontinued. So if you were hoping to check it out the time came and went to do so. Hopefully the new Parallels Server w/ Snow Leopard will pave the way for someone to start doing this: http://mediatemple.net/labs/xv
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MacSysAdmin Videos
The videos for the MacSysAdmin conference are now up, along with sweet pictures of all the speakers wearing foam Snow Leopard hats: http://video.macsysadmin.se/Documentation2009/Documentation.html
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Windows Server 2008 R2
Can you say virtualization? How about “better together”? Do you care about Hyper-V or Windows 7 integration right now? If the answer to either question is yes (and in my experience that’s not always actually the case) then you will want to check out R2. One of the biggest new features in R2 is one that VMware has had for about 5 or so years in Live Migration, the ability to move a virtual machine, while it’s running (assuming the application in use supports the ability to do so and that you’re using Clustered Shared Volumes). This includes failover in Cluster Node Connectivity Fault Tolerance. SC VMM, or System Center Virtual Machine…
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Virtual Private Clouds
VPN-Cubed was a solution that Amazon listed for some time, allowing users of EC2 or S3 cloud services to VPN their resources in Amazon’s cloud to their own offices. But Amazon recently went a step further with their own offering and now provide the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud. Pricing is based on a per-VPN connection, running at a nickel per hour that the VPN Connection is alive. Data transfer over the VPN is charged at a dime per gig into the cloud and between 10 and 17 cents per gig out of the cloud. There have been a number of concerns about security with regards to cloud services. The ability…
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Using the arp Command
You can delete an IP address from the arp table using the arp command along with the -d option followed by an address. For example, to delete IP 10.10.10.1: arp -d 10.10.10.1 If you’re not sure which IP address you’re looking for then you can look at the arp table to check the IP against the MAC address by using the -a option along with arp. For example: arp -a To delete all of the entries in an arp table (they do regenerate after all) you can use the -d option in conjunction with the -a option: arp -d -a If you then want to manually add an entry into…