Technoblog.org » ESX 3.x

Netcat for VMware ESX 3.5

jrp — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 07:57:34 +0000

How to install Netcat on VMware ESX 3.5.
When migrating from a standalone VMware ESX 3.5 server to a vSphere 4.x server, you might want to use netcat and tar. Instead of using SCP.
Why? Because VMWare ESX throttles the service console, resulting in ridiculously low speeds (everything from 5-15 MB/s on a 1Gbit).

By using tar and SCP, you should be able to get at least 30 MB/s.

But, netcat is NOT included in VMware ESX 3.5. It is included in 2.5 and 4.x.

So how do you install netcat on VMware ESX 3.5?

1. Grab the RPM here:
http://netcat.sourceforge.net/download.php

(Don’t use any newer versions, like 1.10, because you will run into dependencies problems, like this:
[root@vmware-esx]# rpm -ivh netcat-1.10-980.1.i586.rpm
warning: netcat-1.10-980.1.i586.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 9c800aca
error: Failed dependencies:
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.3.4) is needed by netcat-1.10-980.1
rpmlib(PayloadIsLzma) <= 4.4.2-1 is needed by netcat-1.10-980.1
[root@vmware-esx]

2. Install the RPM: rpm -ivh netcat-0.7.1-1.i386.rpm

[root@vmware-esx bin]# rpm -ivh netcat-0.7.1-1.i386.rpm
warning: netcat-0.7.1-1.i386.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID b2d79fc1
Preparing… ########################################### [100%]
1:netcat ########################################### [100%]
[root@vmware-esx]

And you’re done!

How to kill a VM (VMware ESX 4.0)

jrp — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:00:17 +0000

Alright, it happens from time to time. Virtual Machines get stuck.
Sometimes during boot, sometimes during shutdown and sometimes during a restore operation.

So how do I kill a Virtual Machine?

I wrote this post, back in 2009, for ESX 3.5:
http://technoblog.org/2009/01/how-to-kill-a-stuck-or-hung-vm-vmware-esx-35/

Both the “vmware-cmd /.vmx stop hard” method, and the following methods work, sometimes.. :

1. sudo vm-support -x
2. sudo less -S /proc/vmware/vm//cpu/status
3. sudo /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmkload_app -k 9

But, when both of those fail? Then what?
How to kill a stuck VM when everything else fails?

It’s a bit brutal, but it works, but be warned, you might corrupt your VM.

1. sudo bash (for simplicity)
2. ps -ax | grep 3. Find the first number to the left, in the string with the right VM. This is the PID.
4. kill -9

Brutal? Yes. Efficient? Yes.

How to restart the management service in VMware ESX 3.5

jrp — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:45:04 +0000

How to restart the management on a VMware ESX 3.5:
SSH to the vmware-esx box and do a:
sudo service mgmt-vmware stop
sudo service mgmt-vmware start
or a:
service mgmt-vmware restart

or as root just:
service mgmt-vmware stop
service mgmt-vmware start
or:
service mgmt-vmware restart

This would be the solution if you can’t connect to the box using VMware Infrastructure Client, like if you get an error saying:
Error Connecting
VMware Infrastructure Client could not establish the initial connection with the server ““.
Details: The server took too long to respond.

ESX 3.x and ESXi 3.x command line guide

jrp — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:03:07 +0000

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.