• VMware

    vSphere: The Datastore Browser

    When you’re moving virtual machines around, you’ll frequently use a tool such as vMotion. But what happens when you’re trying to load new virtual machines into VMware from the .vmdks on a client system or trying to archive a virtual machine that isn’t actually destined for another host? You can use nfs or ssh to access an ESX host, but there’s an even simpler way: the Datastore Browser. To use the Datastore Browser, first login to the vSphere Client. If you’ll be archiving a virtual machine, from there, I would stop the virtual machine. Then click on the virtual machine in the sidebar and click on Summary to see the…

  • VMware,  Windows Server

    ESX: Configure Virtual Machine's To Startup Automatically

    You shouldn’t have to reboot your ESX servers very often. But when you do, you might want the virtual machines to start up automatically. To configure a virtual machine to start up (or shut down) automatically select the host and click on the Configuration tab. Then click on virtual machine Startup/Shutdown and click on Properties, selecting “Allow virtual machines to start and stop automatically with the system”. As I mentioned in a previous article, you can also configure the operating system to start after a brief delay by providing a Default Startup Delay time, allowing time for booting systems to run scripts or to throw them into Safe Mode. You…

  • Network Infrastructure,  VMware

    Change the IP/Host Name on ESX iSCSI Initiators

    Setting up iSCSI to work with ESX is usually a pretty straight forward affair. But like with many things, change can be hard. But sometimes things get moved to different subnets or storage gets replaced. To configure a vSphere client to connect, select a virtual machine and then click on it and click on the Configuration tab. From there, click on Storage Adapters using the Hardware panel. From the Hardware Panel, click on an initiator and then click on Properties and then click on Configure. Then provide the new name or IP. Make sure that the name is unique and then if needed provide an iSCSI alias. Then change the IP settings…

  • VMware

    Registering VMs w/ VMware ESX & ESXi

    To register a virtual machine using VMware’s ESX and ESXi is a pretty straight forward process. You will use the vmware-cmd and vmware-cmd.pl respectively. On ESX, simply issues the vmware-cmd followed by the path to your vmx file and then the register verb. For example, if the path to the vmx were /VMs/XP/xp.vmx then you would use the following command to register that virtual machine to ESX: vmware-cmd /VMs/XP/xp.vmx register ESXi (and vSphere) are just a bit more complex (what, bein’ perl and all). You will need to define the -H for the host, the -U for username and the -P for password as well. The path to the vmx…

  • Mac OS X,  VMware

    Headless VMware Fusion

    You can run VMware Fusion 2 in what is commonly referred to as headless mode. This option is not yet available in Fusion 3, but is handy when you do not want to authenticate at the loginwindow of Mac OS X in order to run virtual machines using the vmware-vmx process. To enable headless mode, first run the following command: defaults write com.vmware.fusion fluxCapacitor -bool YES You will then see a Headless option in the View menu. You can toggle it on and off there. If you wish to to then disable headless mode: defaults write com.vmware.fusion fluxCapacitor -bool NO While you are in headless mode, you will find it…

  • VMware

    Checking Free Space in vSphere

    Most of us will be familiar with the df command. But in ESX, you use the vdf command, located in /usr/sbin. Running the vdf command will net you similar output to what you see with df. Simply run the following to see free space on each of your disks: vdf -h You can also list all of your data stores to correlate the vdf output with esxcfg: /usr/sbin/esxcfg-scsidevs -c Or to list LUNs: /usr/sbin/esxcfg-mpath -L BTW, if you’re running out of free space, in my experience, first look to your snapshots and check how much space they’re consuming…

  • Mass Deployment,  VMware,  Windows XP

    Click-Matrix Leads to Death of a Trackpad

    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…

  • Mac OS X,  VMware

    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!

  • Ubuntu,  Unix

    Looking at Google Android's Internals

    Google’s Android is a very small Linux distribution. Recently I needed to test some applications that were developed by a couple of friends of mine. Rather than run out to T-Mobile I figured I’d just install the new LiveAndroid disk and thought I would write up how to get setup using VMware Fusion and then go about doing some tasks with Android. To get started make sure you’re running the latest Fusion (or Parallels or Q or VirtualBox). Then download two ISO files from http://code.google.com/p/live-android/ liveandroidv0.2.iso.001 and liveandroidv0.2.iso.002. Once you have downloaded the two ISO files we’re going to need to join them.  To do so cat liveandroidv0.2.iso.001 liveandroidv0.2.iso.002 >…