Jan 06 2009
How to kill a stuck or hung VM (VMware ESX 3.5)
There are many different ways to kill a stuck or hung VM, but for now, I will present to alternatives.
Continue reading “How to kill a stuck or hung VM (VMware ESX 3.5)”
Jan 05 2009
ESX 3.x and ESXi 3.x command line guide
While googling around for some documentation of some ESX specific commands, I discovered this command line reference guide for ESX 3.x and ESXi 3.x , written by B2V.
Its worth taking a look at.
Oct 16 2008
Howto: enable ssh on ESXi 3.5
By default, ssh access is disabled on VMware ESXi 3.5, so how do i enable ssh on VMware ESXi 3.5?
First, get shell access on the console: Howto: ESXi shell access
Then:
1. Type “vi /etc/inetd.conf” and press “enter”.
2. Locate the line that starts with “#ssh stream tcp nowait root /sbin/dropbearmulti…….”
3. Move the marker over the “#” and press “x”.
4. Press “Escape” and write “:wq”, then press “enter”.
5. Type “/sbin/services.sh restart” and press “Enter”. Note: If you are running ESXi 3.5 Update 2, the services.sh no longer restarts the inetd process. You will have to manually kill the inetd process, in order to restart it and enable ssh access without a reboot. Type “ps | grep inetd” and press “enter”. You will then see something similiar to “1289 1289 busybox inetd”. Then write “kill -HUP 1289″, and remember to write the number “ps | grep inetd” returns to you!
Sep 01 2008
VMware releases patches
VMWare just released new patches for VMware ACE, Player, Server and Workstation. The new versions are VMware ACE 2.0.5, VMware Player 2.0.5, VMware Server 1.0.7 and VMware Workstation 6.0.5.
They are trying to patch 3 security issues in VMware Ace, Player and Workstation, and 4 other security issues in VMware server. Read more here: VMware releases updates - don’t forget to patch
Aug 15 2008
Howto: ESXi shell access
How to get shell access to your VMWare ESXi server?
By default the VMWare ESXi server don’t offer shell access (through the menu).
But by doing the following, you will be able to access the shell (although its limited):
1. Hook up a screen and a keyboard to the VMWae ESXi server.
2. Press “Alt+F1″
3. Write “unsupported” and press Enter (if you screw up, and think you’ve typed something wrong,
you can use Ctrl+U to clear the input field).
4. Enter the root password, an voila, shell access.
Aug 13 2008
VMWare ESX 3.5 express patch working
I can now confirm that the express patch VMWare released earlier today is working (tested on ESXi 3.5).
Aug 13 2008
VMware ESX 3.5.x Bug Update!
The express patch is here! VMWare released it some hours ago. You can download it, and read more on VMWare’s page: VMware ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 Patch Release
Aug 12 2008
VMware ESX 3.5.x Bug and the solution
Ok, so there is a really big bug in VMWare ESX 3.5/3.5i Update 2. So if you are running an older version, don’t upgrade! If you try to power on or resume a suspended Virtual Machine, you get the following error:
A general system error occurred: Internal Error
This Product has expired. Be sure that your host machine’s date and time are set correctly.
The products affected are:
- VMware ESX 3.5.x
- VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
- VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable
There is a knowledge base article about it: Unable to Power On virtual machine with “A General System error occurred: Internal error”
But according to the kb article:
An issue with ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 causes the product license to expire on August 12, 2008. VMware engineering has isolated the root cause of this issue and will reissue the various upgrade media including the ESX 3.5 Update 2 ISO, ESXi 3.5 Update 2 ISO, ESX 3.5 Update 2 upgrade tar and zip files by noon, PST on August 13. These will be available from the page: http://www.vmware.com/download/vi. Until then, VMware advises against upgrading to ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2.
The Update patch bundles will be released separately later in the week
So? What if you’ve already upgraded. Some of you might run your entire infrastructure on ESX, and if “waiting for a patch” doesn’t sound like a suitable solution, there is a workaround!
The Workaround
Note: This is only tested on a ESXi 3.5 machine. If you try it on a ESX machine you might need to change the date format, just give it a try.
1. Log in to the Service Console (its the Command Line Interface).
2. Write date -s “08102008″ and press enter.
You should now be able to power on your Virtual Machines (or resume them).
Note: You are setting back the date, so if you are running critical infrastructure on your virtual machines, you might want to turn of “host time sync”. So your VMs won’t sync the time with the server. And if you are running NTP on your ESX/i-server you should turn it off (if you don’t, there is no point in setting back the time).
You also might want to set the time further back, like a couple of weeks, depending on how long time you think VMWare will use to get the patch ready.
Aug 02 2008
Mac OS X DNS workaround failed
The latest Mac OS X security update (2008-005) failed to fix (or temporarily solve) the DNS vulnerability in the client version of Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.4. The update solved (temporarily) the same problem in Mac OS X server, but somehow Apple forgot to update the client libraries. The source port is still not randomized (but incremented by 1 each time). So, is this really a critical problem? Or should we worry more about DNS servers behind NAT?
Read more details about how the DNS workaround failed in Mac OS X 10.5 or how the DNS Workaround Failed in Mac OS X 10.4
Aug 01 2008
VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2
VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2 is now available, and free to download! VMware also announced that existing users of VMware Fusion 1.x will be able to download Fusion 2.0 for free.
Read the details here: WMware Fusion 2 Beta 2
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