Ben Kevan’s Blog

Installing VMWare Workstation 6.0.4 on openSUSE 11.0

So the time has come. OpenSUSE is now in release canidate cycle, and VMWare has released VMWare Workstation 6.0.4 which will work on openSUSE 11.0 natively (without the need of the vmware-any-any patch for 2.6.25 kernel).

I have created a new wiki just for openSUSE 11.0 and VMWare Workstation 6.0.4.

You can find it here in the wiki

I will be creating a new Wiki and Blog post for an installation of VMWare Workstation 6.5 on openSUSE 11.0 since there are currently some “Gotha’s” in the beta because of how GCC is detected.

Tags: 11.0, opensuse, VMWare

My VMWare VCP 3.0 Notes

Many people have contacted me asking for some notes on the ESX 3.0 VCP Test.

I know the test is no longer a VCP 3.0 test, but my notes should be fine with the exceptions of some of the Min / Maximums. Note that many of these are just references for me as a reminder of what each portion of VMWare does and how it works.

Here is the link to my wiki with all the notes:
VMWare VCP 3.0 Notes

Installing Patches on your ESX Server

VMWare releases patches for ESX quite often, and it can get tiring installing them all the time one by one. So I wrote a wiki for the methods I use, which cut down the time of installation (for me having 20+ production hosts) quite a-bit.

Here is the link:
http://www.benkevan.com/wiki/index.php/Installing_Patches_on_ESX_Server

Here’s a little excerpt from it:

Install Released Patches

To install patches released by VMWare download them and transfer them to your esx server
scp -r patchrootdir user@server:/tmp/patches

ssh into your ESX server with your local ESX server account.
ssh servername

One you are on the host change user to root
su -

If you copied over the zip files change directory to the patches location and unzip all the patches
cd /tmp/patches
for i in *.zip; do unzip $i; done; rm *.zip

Now install the patches
for j in ESX*; do cd $j; esxupdate –noreboot update; cd ..; done
Note: If there are dependancies and not all of them are install just run the command above twice.

Tags: esx, VMWare

Installing VMWare Workstation on openSUSE 10.3

Well, since I have been getting tons of hits on this page, I figured i’d blog it and let people know that it actually exists. Here is a nice little write up I made for installing VMWare Workstation on openSUSE 10.3.

http://www.benkevan.com/wiki/index.php/Installing_VMWare_Workstation_on_openSUSE_10.3

Hope it helps, and I’ll bring some more like this hopefully soon (when time permits, we all know how that is).

Tags: 10.3, opensuse, VMWare, workstation

Virtual Center Client for Linux Native

So, I was talking with a VMWare Personell today and they leaked that the next major release of VC (possibly 3.0?) will have a full function Native Linux Client.

I am going to try to keep close dibs on this, as it is one more function I can move off of my XP Virtual Machine (last is silly MMC’s).

Finished my VCP test - Passed

Well, finished my VCP test and passed it with a 89. I wish I would have studied a little and understood what would be on the test, I feel I would have gotten in the high 90’s if I knew all the min / maximums. For those thinking of taking it before the change to 3.5, I say go hurry up.. that day’s coming soon :o).

VMWare VCP Test Tommorrow - Wish me luck

So, I decided to take my VCP (VMWare Certified Professional) before they changed it on March 1st. Choosing to do it at the last minute has given me no time to study, so I am going to try to wing it.

I’ll post up tomorrow after the test how it goes.

VMWare 6.0.x and USB in Guest Machine on openSUSE 10.3

So you fire up your openSUSE 10.3 machine and install VMWare 6.0.2 and your really excited because now you have USB 2.0 support. You plug in your Thumb / USB HardDrive and nothing. You don’t see it in your guest machine, but you do on your host. What can be causing this? Easy usbfs is set to noauto.

You can confirm this by running:

grep usb cat /etc/fstab

You can login to your favorite editor and change it to auto and you are good to go.

I will add a quick howto on my Wiki for future references

VMWare Workstation not working with Wireless (Kernel 2.6.20)

So you may be using VMWare Workstation on a nice shiny Linux box, just to find out you cannot use your Bridged networking over the Wireless Card, confining you to the sofa nearest to your Router sitting in an obscure place. So what do you do? You fix it of course.

How?

Download this patched version of vmnet.tar created by Hauke-m from the VMWare Forums and Funderburg over at linuxquestions.org.

New vmnet.tar

Replace your current vmnet.tar file (mine is located in /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar) and re-run your vmare-config.pl (for me sudo /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl)

Your all set FINALLY..

Hopefully VMWare will fix it on their releases

Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 (”Codenamed Longhorn) on VMWare ESX 3.0.1

I decided to off load all my VM’s that were locally on my machine to a VMWare ESX 3.0.1 box, and one of the machines installed was Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 (”Codenamed Longhorn”). Instead of just running VMWare Converter on the machine, I decided I would start from scratch on an ESX box.

First, I created the VM, and copies the ISO to my datastore. Pointed the CD to the ISO and was on my way. Powered on the VM and immediatly the Server installation starts, first thing I notice is it still says Longhorn.. Maybe they don’t trust that Server 2008 will actually come out in 2008? So on we go.. and whammmm what the hell, it says no device driver. Luckily http://www.google.com is nice enough to give us this link http://sti.epfl.ch/intranet/informatique/virtualisation/drivers-vista-rtm-esx.flp.zip which will give you the drivers you need to start the install. So I download, unzip the flp image, and scp it to my datastore, and point the floppy drive to the flp. Browse to A and voila, it starts the rest of the install. I put in my good ol’ serial number provided by Microsoft and again continue on my journy. Oh yeah, did I mention I love the fact that you can “Set it and Forget it” (I hope that isn’t copywritten by the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie).

 

 I check back a while later and it’s done.. I bring it up, log in and set the Admin password. Now it’s time for DCPROMO and all the other fun things you have to install on a real test enviroment. I will be installing the following services:

AD, DHCP, DNS, CA, RADIUS, RAS, IIS, and a few others to muck with..

 Later-on folks