Apr/111
VMware vSphere: Install ESX from bootable USB drive.
- Google and download UNetbooin.
- Run, select Diskimage, ISO and browse to installation DVD.
- Select your USB drive letter and click OK.
Boot from the USB drive and you’re all set.
Apr/100
VMware: Install Intel ET 82575 and 82576 drivers on ESX 4 vSphere
Update: Drivers are included in vSphere 4.1.
Download the ISO with drivers from HERE.
Burn to a CD and insert in the drive. Logon to the console as root and mount:
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
Browse to /mnt and find the file “INT-intel-lad-ddk-igb-1.3.19.12.1-offline_bundle-185976.zip”
Install the driver:
esxupdate --bundle=INT-intel-lad-ddk-igb-1.3.19.12.1-offline_bundle-185976.zip update
Reboot.
Apr/090
VMware – Linux: OS cannot mount /dev/sd* after a virtual machine is converted – Waiting for device /dev/sd* to appear… not found – fall back
This happened when I created a SLES 11 VM with VMware Workstation and then moved to to ESX for production. Problem was that VMware Workstation used LSILogic SCSI drives to emulate my disks, but for some reason it wasn’t made clear to ESX by VMware Converter during conversion.
To fix this browse to your datastore and download your guest’s configuration file <vmname>.vmx to your desktop (or use your root access and open it in vi through ssh). Open it with a text editor and add the following line above your SCSI devices:
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
So the whole SCSI device section should look like this:
scsi0.present = "true" scsi0.sharedBus = "none" scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic" scsi0:0.present = "true" scsi0:0.fileName = "disk1.vmdk" scsi0:0.deviceType = "scsi-hardDisk" scsi0:1.present = "true" scsi0:1.fileName = "disk2.vmdk" scsi0:1.deviceType = "scsi-hardDisk"
Copy the config back to your datastore and start guest OS. You will be asked to confirm changes during post – answer yes to changes.
Disclaimer: Make sure you have a backup before making any change.
Dec/080
Linux: Cannot turn on a virtual machine after unclean shutdown – failed to lock the file error VMware Server
I don’t recall the exact error message, but sometime after an unclean shutdown your virtual machines will not start with an error that contains “unable to unlock file”. To resolve the issue simply navigate to the directory where your virtual machine resides, and delete all files with .WRITELOCK and .lck extension.That should remove the lock and make your VM’s accessible. If that didn’t help, go ahead and delete all files EXCEPT .vmdk AND .vmx EXTENSIONS. That should definitely do the trick.
You can actually delete the .vmx files as well but in order to have VMware recreate them you will have to start the “new virtual machine wizard” and use the .vmdk as your disk file. Instead of creating a disk you use an existing.
Dec/081
Debian: VMware Server 1.x and Debian Etch
To install VMware Server 1.x:
Install the following packages if you don’t already have them:
aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r) openssl libssl-dev psmisc
Untar the package, navigate to vmware-server-distrib directory and type
./vmware-install.pl
To install VMware Tools:
The following packages are needed in order to install VMware Tools:
aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)
Open VMware Server Console and Click VM – Install VMware Tools. Then go to your guest Debain VM and mount the CD:
mount /dev/cdrom
I usually copy tar files to the hard drive and extract:
cp /media/cdrom0/VMwareTools-1.0.8-126538.tar.gz /root cd /root/
tar -zxf VMwareTools-1.0.8-126538.tar.gz
If you want to directly untar it to another directory:
tar -zxf /media/cdrom0/VMwareTools-1.0.8-126538.tar.gz -C <directory>
Navigate to vmware-tools-distrib and execute the install command:
./vmware-install.pl
Follow directions and you should be able to install VMware Tools without incident.
Note: If you are running an early release of Debian Etch you may be asked to provide path to C compiler directory. That means you do not have a compiler installed and will have to install the following two packages:
aptitude install gcc-3.4 g++-3.4
