VMware ESX 4 can even virtualize itself

Running VMware ESX inside a virtual machine is a great way to experiment with different configurations and features without building out a whole lab full of hardware and storage. It is pretty common to do this on VMware Workstation nowadays — the first public documentation of this process that I know of was published by Xtravirt a couple of years ago.

But what if you prefer to run ESX on ESX instead of Workstation?

Full article at:
http://www.vcritical.com/2009/05/vmware-esx-4-can-even-virtualize-itself/

CFM to BTU formula

Citation from: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_BTU%27s_are_in_a_CFM

A BTU is a British thermal unit, which is the measure of energy to raise one CC of water one degree Celsius.

But you probably want to know about airflow in CFM (not water), and the amount of cooling (or heating) available in 1 cfm or airflow.

In Houston, we tend to cool things more than heat. We also try to drive moisture out of the air (dehumidify), but I won't discuss that now. The general equation to answer your question is like this: Q_sens = cfm * 1.08 * (T_in - T_out) <-- "delta T"

You need to determine what your "delta T" is. For cooling a space to 75degF (23.89 degC), your dT is usually 20degF (-6.67 degC) with your supply air temperature (SA=55degF 12.78degC) and your return air temperature (RA=75degF 23.89 degC). This has been idealized and simplified. For cooling, 1cfm will do about 21.6btu/h of cooling. For heating, (SA=90/32.2, RA=68, 1cfm => 23.76btu/h)

Citaton from: http://forum.onlineconversion.com/showthread.php?t=701
--------------------------------------
CFM * 1.08 * tRise = Btu/hr
--------------------------------------

General information follows.

That factor is based on standard conditions which are at sea level and A standard humidity level which i do not remember off hand. As altitude increases the factor decreases. At 2100 feet it is roughly 1.0.
The humidity also affects this number. Generally the greater the humidity the greater the factor.

1.08 Will be good enough for most applications though.

I'll give an example of the use:

Suppose the room temperature is 65.
We have a 1200 CFM blower. We measure an output temperature of 100.
100 - 65 = 35 tRise.

Now we have all the numbers to get our BUT/hr.

1200 * 1.08 * 35 = 45,360 btu/hr


This particular problem often compilments another, And that is how do we verify the CFM is as cited or measured with an anemometer.

Assuming we have electric heat and the temperature probe is not in line of site of the heating elements (to be sure we are not measuring the IR radiation) All you need to know is the power consumption. Either measure it with an amp meter. Or go with cited figure(not as accurate).


CFM = btu / (1.08 * tRise)


For reference: 1 kw/hr = 3412.14 btu


assume we have a 15kw heater and a tRise of 22

15kw * 3412.14 = 51182.12 btu

now we can solve for CFM

51182.12 / (1.08 * 22) = 2154.

In that example our result is 2,154 CFM.

If that conflicts with a suspected figure An investigation is required.

Keep in mind the factor is based on standard conditions. As a rule of thumb the result should be within 10% of the calculation. Anything out of this range is a trouble spot. Most likely to be a dirty air filter, or incorrect power factoring.

Nice syslog explenation

http://content.hccfl.edu/pollock/AUnix2/Logging.htm

OpenVPN - The Easy Tutorial

http://openmaniak.com/cz/openvpn.php

Storage fundamentals

Throughput part 1: The Basics
http://www.vmdamentals.com/?p=266

Throughput part 2: RAID types and segment sizes
http://www.vmdamentals.com/?p=296

RAID 10 or RAID 5

This is a common question in every storage consultation. Right answers for such questions is - It depends. Lot of people don't like RAID 5 and they have good reasons ... Look at BAARF (http://www.baarf.com/) initiative Battle Agains Any RAID Five, Four, F(T)hree. Very nice RAID5 versus RAID10 comparison is at http://www.miracleas.com/BAARF/RAID5_versus_RAID10.txt

I think that good choice depends on required performance, capacity, and data value stored on protected disks. RAID is just one type of protection and other protections should be used. Other data protections are:

• Backup
• Local Disk Replication (Volume Clones - Business Continous Volumes like i.e. EMC SnapView)
• Remote Disk Replications (EMC SAN Copy, EMC SRDF, IBM Metro Mirror, etc.)

So sometimes RAID 5 or 6 makes sense.

Mepis Linux

LiveCD, System Recovery CD, Linux USB Boot Key
https://www.mepis.org/

UPS, Motorgenerators, A/C, ...

http://www.elteco-ups.cz/

Turning an opensolaris host into a fibre channel storage array

http://prefetch.net/blog/index.php/2009/05/11/turning-an-opensolaris-host-into-a-fibre-channel-storage-array/

HowTo: Create sar Graphs With kSar [ Identifying Linux Bottlenecks ]

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/identifying-linux-bottlenecks-sar-graphs-with-ksar.html

Excelent blog about virtualization, VMware, EMC, ...

http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/

VCP 4 Certification

I have passed VMWARE VCP 4 Exam on 30-Nov-2009.

EMC Celerra - Virtual Appliance

Good for test lab environment ...
http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/04/new-celerra-vsa.html

Failover with ISC DHCP

http://www.madboa.com/geek/dhcp-failover/

CPU Benchmark

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

Physical to Virtual Conversion of Linux Servers with VMware Converter BootCD

http://www.petri.co.il/physical-to-virtual-conversion-of-linux-servers-with-vmware-converter-bootcd.htm

IP relé + teploměr

http://www.papouch.com/shop/scripts/_detail.asp?katcislo=0236

Good film about how to install PowerPath/VE

Got an excellent film about how to install PowerPath on ESX or ESXi from friends at EMC and thought it would be good to share…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDC0EQ-jM_I

VMware vSphere Firewall diagram

http://www.vreference.com/2009/09/22/firewall-diagram-updated-to-version-3/

Platespin Recon - cannot get performance counters?

Check permissions on target system:
Regedt32/hklm/currentcontrolset/control/securepipeserver/winreg. -system has full control

Hardware connectors, slots, sockets, ...

http://www.technibble.com/articlecontent/2009/07/computer-hardware-chart1.jpg

VMware Converter - P2V

Your conversion speed will vary depending on options you select during the conversion process.

VMware converter uses two types of “cloning” methods during the P2V process:

File level cloning : Performed when you make the volume smaller then original (slowest conversion speed)

Block level cloning : Performed when you maintain or make drives larger (fastest conversion speed)


If you need to see the conversion rate use the VMware Standalone. It will now report the conversion rate as well as conversion type it is using to get your data into the virtual environment.

On my last project conversion speed varied from 144GB/Hr (or 2.4GB/min block lvl copy) to 36GB/Hr (.6GB/min file lvl copy).

Installing dell openmanage 6.1 on esxi 4.0

This introduction was originally published at http://communities.vmware.com/thread/220783;jsessionid=BDA548B9B81DA124C2F62A75BC7775C6?start=30&tstart=0

...

Here are the exact steps for installing dell openmanage on ESXi 4.0. This is provided in their support site.

1) Download the appropriate RCLI (Remote Command Line Interface) package from http://www.vmware.com/http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vcli/ depending on whether your system is running on Microsoft Windows or Linux.
2) Copy the Dell OpenManage bundle to a directory on your system.
3) Use the vihostupdate command. If you are using Microsoft Windows, navigate to the folder where you have installed the RCLI utilities to use this command. If you are using Linux, this command is installed when you install the RCLI RPM .
4) Execute the command vihostupdate --server -i -b
5) The command output displays a successful or a failed update.

You must enable CIM OEM providers on the VMware ESXi 4 system after installing the Dell OpenManage bundle to manage a system with Dell OpenManage Server Administrator.

Using vSphere Client to Enable CIM OEM Providers:
To enable CIM OEM providers using VMware vSphere Client, you need to have the vSphere Client tool installed. You can download and install the tool from https:// where is the IP address of the VMware ESXi 4 system.

To enable CIM OEM providers on the VMware ESXi 4 system using vSphere Client:
1) Log on to the VMware ESXi 4 system in which vSphere Client is installed.
2) Click the Configuration tab.
3) Under the Software section on the left side, click Advanced Settings.
4) In the Advanced Settings dialog box, click “UserVars” on the left pane.
5) Change the value of the “CIMOEMProvidersEnabled” field to 1.
6) Click OK.
7) Restart your system for the change to take effect. Use the Summary tab in vSphere Client to restart the system.

BIND 9 Configure Views To Partition External and Internal DNS Information

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-bind9-named-configure-views/

DELL BladeChassis Cookbook

http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/10G+Blades+Cookbook

vCenter and MSSQL

To prepare a SQL Server database to work with vCenter Server, you generally need to create a SQL Server database user with database operator (DBO) rights. When you do this, make sure that the database user login has the db_owner fixed database role on the vCenter Server database and on the MSDB database. The db_owner role on the MSDB database is required for installation and upgrade only, and you can revoke it after installation.

If you are using SQL 2008, make sure you go to the “CMD” line and change the default ODBC from 32 to 64 Bit

Should read: If you are using Windows 2008 64 bit OS and vCenter with SQL, launch the 32 bit ODBC connector.

Create a 32-Bit DSN on a 64-Bit Operating System
You can install or upgrade to vCenter Server on both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems.
Even though vCenter Server is supported on 64-bit operating systems, the vCenter Server system must have
a 32-bit DSN. This requirement applies to all supported databases. By default, any DSN created on a 64-bit
system is 64 bit.
Procedure
1 Install the ODBC drivers.
n For Microsoft SQL Server database servers, install the 64-bit database ODBC drivers on your Microsoft
Windows system. When you install the 64-bit drivers, the 32-bit drivers are installed automatically.
n For Oracle database servers, install the 32-bit database ODBC drivers on your Microsoft Windows
system.
NOTE The default install location on 64-bit operating systems is C:\VMware.
2 Run the 32-bit ODBC Administrator application, located at [WindowsDir]\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe.
3 Use the application to create your DSN.
You now have a DSN that is compatible with vCenter Server. When the vCenter Server installer prompts you
for a DSN, select the 32-bit DSN.

vSphere 4 Default and CTRL-ALT-DEL

If you hit CTRL-ALT-DEL on ESX 4 console, the server will reboot even if there are running VMs and it doesn't matter if the server is not in Maintenance Mode.

To disable this yourself:

1. Edit /etc/inittab. Any text editors will do- I like nano but vi works just as well.
2. Search for "CTRL-ALT-DELETE" or "ctrlaltdel"
3. Comment out the line "ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now" with a # symbol.

It should look like:

# Trap CTRL-ALT-DELETE

# ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

4. Save and exit the file.
5. To make this take effect without a reboot, run the command:

init q

Automating vSphere ESX4 host installations

http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/tag/esx-4-0

20 Linux System Monitoring Tools Every SysAdmin Should Know

20 Linux System Monitoring Tools Every SysAdmin Should Know

VMware vSwitch and Cisco switch configuration

These are field configurations that have been in-use for years and have their origin from both VMware and Cisco Best Practice documents regarding VMware integration. We use these configurations as reference when working with customer’s network teams in setting up any new Cisco network equipment for VMware.

Standard trunk port Best Practice switchport configuration:

interface GigabitEthernet#/#
description <<** ESX Host #/# **>>
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,#,#,#
switchport mode trunk
switchport nonegotiate
spanning-tree portfast trunk
exit

Standard ether-channel Best Practice switchport configuration:

IMPORTANT NOTE: Etherchannel is only applicable if all the interfaces bound to the channel are going to the same physical switch OR that all of the interfaces are going to different physical switches which are stacked together (with an actual stacking cable, not an ISL.) If you are running these interfaces to two separate network switches, you cannot Etherchannel them and they should be configured as above rather than the example below.

interface port-channel #
description <<** ESX EC# **>>
switchport
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,#,#,#
switchport mode trunk
interface GigabitEthernet#/#
description <<** EC#/INT# **>>
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,#,#,#
switchport mode trunk
channel-group # mode on
interface GigabitEthernet#/#
description <<** EC#/INT# **>>
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport trunk allowed vlan 1,#,#,#
switchport mode trunk
channel-group # mode on
exit

NOTE: It is also worth mentioning that it is assumed the member ports (those with channel-group # mode on as above) will inherit their configuration from the channel-group but it is sometimes necessary to replicate that configuration to their individual switchport configurations as above.

Capacity Planning Tools

Platespin Recon
VMware Capacity Planner
CIRBA
LANAMARK

A couple important (ALUA and SRM) notes for VMware and EMC Storage

http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/09/a-couple-important-alua-and-srm-notes.html

FreeBSD and multiple gateways

Question: How to add multiple gateways to a FreeBSD?
Answer: No you can not do this (at least directly) on FreeBSD. FreeBSD don't support multiple gateways.
Workaround solution: If you have a server with 2 set of IPs and each set have there own gateway.

• First, you must select one of the gateway to be a default gateway.
• Then, You need ipfw (or any FreeBSD firewall solution),
  Check that your kernel support ipfw, if not, recompile your kernel with the following options(IPDIVERT and DUMMYNET is not required, but if you add IPFW/IPFW2 it better to also add these two options)

  #Firewall & NAT & DummyNet 
  options         IPFIREWALL
  options         IPDIVERT
  options         IPFIREWALL_DEFAULT_TO_ACCEPT
  options         IPFIREWALL_VERBOSE
  options         IPFIREWALL_VERBOSE_LIMIT=100
  options         DUMMYNET
  options         IPFW2
  

  add the following rule to your ipfw rules set.

   ipfw add rule_no fwd second_gateyway_ip ip from ip_of_this_gateway to not me
  

  For example, I have 2 ip set (10.0.0.100,10.0.0.101,10.0.0.102 for gateway 10.0.0.254) and (192.168.0.77,192.168.0.78 for gateways 192.168.0.254). I chose 10.0.0.254 as the default gateway. So, my ipfw rules are

   ipfw add 100 fwd 192.168.0.254 ip from 192.168.0.77 to not me
        ipfw add 110 fwd 192.168.0.254 ip from 192.168.0.78 to not me

Source: http://freebie.miraclenet.co.th/server/

Články o administraci CISCO switchů

http://www.samuraj-cz.com/clanky-kategorie/cisco-admin/

Článek o konfiguraci CISCO a ESX teamingu
http://www.samuraj-cz.com/clanek/vmware-esxi-a-nic-teaming-aneb-pripojeni-pres-vice-sitovek/

Configure BIND DNS to Answer Active Directory Queries

How to configure BIND DNS to Answer Active Directory Queries ...
http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/Networking/Configure_BIND_DNS_to_Answer_Active_Directory_Queries

Quick Setup:
If you have an Address Record (A) that identifies your server name like this:

dc1.example.com. A 111.222.333.444

Then your SRV records for this DC would be as follows

_ldap._tcp.example.com. SRV 0 0 389 dc1.example.com.
_kerberos._tcp.example.com. SRV 0 0 88 dc1.example.com.
_ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.example.com. SRV 0 0 389 dc1.example.com.
_kerberos._tcp.dc._msdcs.example.com. SRV 0 0 88 dc1.example.com.

HA “Deepdive”

Article at http://www.yellow-bricks.com/vmware-high-availability-deepdiv/ very deeply describe VMware HA functionality.

Article clearly explains:

• Primary and Secondary nodes
• Isolation Response
• Slot sizes/Admission Control
• Advanced settings

Mike Liverick's virtualisation blog

http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/

Training videos for vSphere4:
http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?page_id=1442

DELL PowerConnect technical documents

Very good - deep technical documents for DELL PowerConnect switches.

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/solutions/en/pwcnt_papers?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz

Shell Script While Loop Examples

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/shell-script-while-loop-examples/

Vmware Linux Guest Add a New Hard Disk Without Rebooting Guest

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/vmware-add-a-new-hard-disk-without-rebooting-guest.html

Infrastructure MS Visio Stnecils

All Infrastructure MS Visio Stencils
http://www.visiocafe.com/

DELL Infrastructure MS Visio Stencils

http://www.visiocafe.com/dell.htm

LiveCD list

http://www.livecdlist.com

Virtualization Performance Benchmark

Virtualization Performance Benchmark VMmark can help for hardware platform comparison.

Public results are available at http://www.vmware.com/products/vmmark/results.html

A “Multivendor Post” to help our mutual iSCSI customers using VMware

Very nice article explaining iSCSI in ESX environment
http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/01/a-multivendor-post-to-help-our-mutual-iscsi-customers-using-vmware.html

Platespin Recon 3.6 - bugs and issues

Platespin Recon 3.6 have big issues with hardware inventory of some servers. It can hang your server during CPU model checking!!! Platespin released hotfix for that. But that's not all. When you use database PostgreSQL 8.3 which is bundled with Recon it has significant performance issues. I was waiting for some reports several hours!!! I have troubleshooted and realized that there is some problem with SQL communication between Plaspin Recon application server and PostgreSQL. You can find error messages in PostgreSQL log file. It says something about abnormal client termination. If you use MS SQL Server it works like a sharm.

MS Windows Virtual Memory Management on consolidated virtual workloads

When you virtualize lot of MS Window workloads you can observe lot of "Memory Pages/s" from virtual machines to physical disk subsystem (system swaping inactive memory pages to hard drive) . If you haven't enough IO performance in your storage your virtual machines becomes slow. For virtualization is normaly used SAN environment. Don't forget design capacity and performance on your storage for page files. If you want to tune your MS Windows and optimize page file IOs to your storage try disable (if you have enough RAM) or optimize Windows Page File.

Articles about this topic:
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=143
http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm
http://www.instantfundas.com/2008/07/disable-windows-page-file-save-your.html
http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2004/04/27/pagefile.html
http://smallvoid.com/article/windows-page-file.html

20 Linux System Monitoring Tools Every SysAdmin Should Know

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/top-linux-monitoring-tools.html

Understanding VirtualCenter Performance Statistics

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-5230

Howto use VMware esxtop

Official documentation http://www.vmware.com/info?id=193

Nice article http://www.hypervizor.com/2009/06/interactive-replay-batch-esxtop-modes/

Killing a frozen VM on a vSphere ESX host

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/killing-a-frozen-vm-on-a-vsphere-esx-host/?track=NL-915&ad=710968HOUSE&asrc=EM_NLN_8048495&uid=5373778

PERL Getopt and GetOptions

When you code unix program first of all you need to get user options. Two Perl modules (Getopt and Getoptions::Long) work to extract program flags and arguments much like Getopt and Getopts do for shell programming. The Perl modules, especially GetOptions::Long, are much more powerful and flexible.

See full article at http://aplawrence.com/Unix/perlgetopts.html

Ultimate Deployment Appliance

Unattended OS installations (Windows, Linux, ESX, Solaris) over the network set-up in minutes! Look at http://www.ultimatedeployment.org/

How to shutdown windows from linux

If you have samba you can use "net rpc SHUTDOWN -C "some comment here" -f -I x.x.x.x -U user_name%password"

Howto install Windows XP on ESX3

http://virtrix.blogspot.com/2007/09/vmware-installing-windows-xp-on-esx.html

How to copy (backup) files from ESX3i?

You can use RCLI and vifs command. More info at
http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/esx_3i_rcli/vifs.php

Examples:
List files in datastore directory:
vifs --server 192.168.4.4 --username root --password ***** --dir "[Datastore1]/win2k3"

Download file from ESX3i Datastore:
vifs --server 192.168.4.4 --username root --dc ha-datacenter --password ***** --get "[Datastore1] /win2k3/win2k3-flat.vmdk" my-clone.vmdk

Notes:
File write speed around 1MBps only

Using Linux shell scripts to automatically create VMware ESX 3.5 hosts

http://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid179_gci1351853_mem1,00.html?track=NL-915&ad=697266&asrc=EM_NLN_6437813

On demand VNC server with GDM

Each user can login (via ssh) to *nix server and start vncserver. Then he can login to X11 desktop via VNC viewer with defined vnc password. But it's far far away from nice solution. Much better solution is to setup vncserver as xinetd service.

First of all you have to define new service in particular port. Add line bellow into /etc/services

vnc1024         5901/tcp                        # VNC & GDM

now create service description for xinetd. Go to directory /etc/xinetd.d

cd /etc/xinetd.d

and create file vnc1024

service vnc1024
{
     disable = no
     socket_type = stream
     protocol = tcp
     wait = no
     user = nobody
     server = /usr/bin/Xvnc
     server_args = -inetd -query localhost -geometry 1024x800 -depth 16 -once -fp unix/:7100 -securitytypes=none
}

Move to runlevel 3

init 3

Restart xinetd

/etc/init.d/xinetd

Move back to runlevel 5

init 5

And that's it. Now try connect via VNCviewer to port 6901

DR & BC of virtualized datacenters

Virtualization significantly helps to implement Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity scenarios. But some one can think that he can install VMware SRM software and DR&BC solution is ready. It's common mistake. VMware SRM is just arround 5% of DR&BC solution. You have to concider right technology and proper proceses with respect of your particular environment. Right technology means storage replications, network high availabaility across datacenters, automation, etc.

Nice article about VMware implementation conciderations is at http://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid179_gci1347066_mem1,00.html?track=NL-915&ad=689280&asrc=EM_NLN_5870851

Configuration Point-to-Point OpenVPN link

I like OpenVPN because it's simple and it does what you need - VPN.

Let's assume that we have two un*x like servers with OpenVPN software and regular OS user openvpn in group openvpn. One server has IP address 192.168.4.10 and second 192.168.4.100.

In server 192.168.4.10 use following configuration file (openvpn.conf):
remote 192.168.4.100
ifconfig 10.0.0.1 10.0.0.2
dev tun0
port 5001
proto udp
secret /usr/local/etc/openvpn/secret.key
ping 10
comp-lzo
verb 5
mute 10
user openvpn
group openvpn

In server 192.168.4.100 use following configuration file (openvpn.conf):
remote 192.168.4.10
ifconfig 10.0.0.2 10.0.0.1
dev tun0
port 5001
proto udp
secret /usr/local/etc/openvpn/secret.key
ping 10
comp-lzo
verb 5
mute 10
user openvpn
group openvpn

In one of this two servers create secret.key by issuing following command:
openvpn --genkey --secret /usr/local/etc/openvpn/secret.key

Finaly:
Somehow (for example scp) copy secret key to second server into correct location and run openvpn daemons on both servers. On servers new network interface appears (tap) with IP addresses (10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2) and you can ping these 10.0.0.1-2 IP addresses over secure VPN link.

Here we go.

Scripting reference manuals

Command line reference for Windows, Bash, Oracle, and SQL Server
http://www.ss64.com/index.html

Creating the 64 KB aligned partition with Diskpart.exe

Once you are at the command prompt, use Diskpart.exe to create an aligned partition. To do so, type in the following:

diskpart
select disk 0
create partition primary align=64

You can now exit diskpart by typing 'exit'.

How to print to a network printer from an MS-DOS-based program in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314499

Newbie SysAdmin Guide to Solaris

http://www.unixville.com/~moazam/stories/2004/05/17/newbieSysadminGuideToSolaris.html

EMC Cellera Simulator

http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2008/08/celerra-virtual.html

Top 10 PowerShell scripts that VMware administrators should use

Top 10 PowerShell scripts that VMware administrators should use

By Eric Siebert
published: Wednesday, December 10 2008

http://www.virtual-strategy.com/Eric-Siebert-s-Top-10/Top-10-PowerShell-scripts-that-VMware-administrators-should-use.html

iSCSI on FreeBSD

FreeBSD iSCSI howto
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/freebsd-iscsi-initiator-howto/

FreeBSD network link agregation
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/network-aggregation.html

Running FreeBSD 7.0 on ESX Server

Good resources ...
http://ivoras.sharanet.org/freebsd/vmware.html
and
http://scottf.wordpress.com/2008/01/17/running-freebsd-70-on-esx-server/

ESX Server, IP Storage, and Jumbo Frames

Very good article about setting end-to-end Jumbe Frames on VMware environment.
http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/04/22/esx-server-ip-storage-and-jumbo-frames/

Note: even it's not supported solution yet

UBNT Wispstation - default config

UBNT: WispStation board - 22 dBm AP/klient (5 GHz)

Default IP	192.168.1.20
Default name	ubnt
Default password	ubnt

System Information for Windows

SIW is an advanced System Information for Windows tool that gathers detailed information about your system properties and settings and displays it in an extremely comprehensible manner.
http://www.gtopala.com/

This tool is extremely useful when you need to get your activation code from already installed Windows OS. When this tool does not work you can try KeyFinder
http://magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/

New VMware technologies are comming ...

Look at web-casts bellow to see what new technologies are coming from VMware.

VMware FT (Fault Tolerance)
http://download3.vmware.com/vdcos/demos/FT_Demo_800x600.html

VMWare Distributed Virtual Switch
http://download3.vmware.com/vdcos/demos/DVS_Demo_800x600.html

Host Profiles
http://download3.vmware.com/vdcos/demos/Hostprofiles_Linked_VC_800x600.html

Storage vMotion (GUI)
http://download3.vmware.com/vdcos/demos/Storage_VMotion_800x600.html

Citrix XenServer & EqualLogic Storage Integration

No words are needed. Just watch demo at http://bits.xensource.com/demo/Dell/eql/xenserver_equallogic_demo.htm

How to crimp RJ45 connector?

There are two norms EIA TIA 568A and 568B. Look at picture.


Nice article with more information is at http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ethernetcables.html

VirusTotal

Virustotal is a service that analyzes suspicious files and facilitates the quick detection of viruses, worms, trojans, and all kinds of malware detected by antivirus engines. More information...

100,000 I/O Operations Per Second, One ESX Host

See http://blogs.vmware.com/performance/2008/05/100000-io-opera.html for full text.

Understanding and fixing VMware ESX problems without pulling the plug

VMWARE MANAGEMENT, MIGRATION AND PERFORMANCE
Understanding and fixing VMware ESX problems without pulling the plug
Eric Siebert, Contributor
06.24.2008
LINK TO ARTICLE

VMware: configuring a static MAC address in a VM

Original article from http://virtrix.blogspot.com/2007/04/vmware-configuring-static-mac-address.html

Sometimes it can be necessary to configure a static MAC address in a VM. A typical issue during P2V is an application that has its licensing based on the MAC address.

VMware has defined that VirtualCenter does not use the following range: 00:50:56:00:00:00 to 00:50:56:3F:FF:FF where 00:50:56 is the OUI.

The steps:

1. Power off & remove the server from the VirtualCenter inventory. This is a necessary step, because VC will overwrite your settings during Power On!
2. Edit the .vmx file and locate the following generated MAC address:
Ethernet0.addressType =
and
Ethernet0.generatedAddress =
3. Change the value for ethernet0.addressType from “vpx” to “static”
4. Change ethernet0.GeneratedAddress to ethernet0.Address
5. Change the current MAC to a MAC address in the following range:
00:50:56:00:00:00-00:50:56:3F:FF:FF
6. In VirtualCenter, select an ESX host and go to storage
7. Browse the data store & locate your VM
8. Right-click on the .vmx file, and select Add to inventory
9. Power On the server. Issue the command ipconfig /all and locate the VMware NIC. Your manually assigned MAC address should be there.

I know you can set your MAC address inside Windows, but I would avoid this.

Sysprep Virtual Center integration for Win 2003 SP3

http://virtualizationinformation.com/?p=28

Unix Notes

http://unixnotes.wordpress.com/

DELL Professional Services aneb GICS

Presne 15.5.2006 jsem nastoupil do DELLu a psal jsem o tom, ze DELL krome produktu nabizi i profesionalni konzultanty, architekty a inzenyry. Viz.
http://davidpasek.blogspot.com/2006/06/dell-jak-ho-mon-neznte.html

Presne 15.5.2008 jsem se stal clenem byvaleho DPS - DELL Professional Services, ktere se dnes jmenuje GICS - Global Infrastructure Consulting Services. Moje zamereni je primarne na serverovou konsolidaci a virtualizaci, nicmene jelikoz jsem zatim prvni Solution Architect DELLu v Ceske Republice, tak mam na starosti i enterprise storage a networking.

TeamViewer

I have to try
http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx

ESX Server, NIC Teaming, and VLAN Trunking

Following article is from blog.scottlowe.org

...
There are actually two different pieces described in this article. The first is NIC teaming, in which we logically bind together multiple physical NICs for increased throughput and increased fault tolerance. The second is VLAN trunking, in which we configure the physical switch to pass VLAN traffic directly to ESX Server, which will then distribute the traffic according to the port groups and VLAN IDs configured on the server. I wrote about ESX and VLAN trunking a long time ago and ran into some issues then; here I’ll describe how to work around the issues I ran into at that time.
...

Full article:
http://blog.scottlowe.org/2006/12/04/esx-server-nic-teaming-and-vlan-trunking

Other useful technical paper about VLAN on ESX is at
http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/412

SSH Tunel - howto (Czech Language)

http://www.cryptofest.cz/2003/slajdy/sshtunel/ssh.html

How to Set up VNC on Debian GNU/Linux

Installation and usage

You've just installed Debian, but your wife wants her monitor back. That's OK, you were planning on running it headless, anyway. But, wouldn't it be nice to check out some of those groovy GUI apps? Don't fret, VNC will let you interact with a desktop environment from just about any platform available.

Install vncserver (as root):
apt-get install vncserver

Choose your desired window size and color depth, then, as an ordinary user, open a terminal and type:
vncserver -geometry 1024x768 -depth 24
or
vncserver -geometry 1024x768 -depth 24 -pixelformat rgb565

This will prompt you to create a password:

You will require a password to access your desktops.

Password:
Verify


The server will start and tell you where to access it:

New 'X' desktop is foobar:1

Starting applications specified in /etc/X11/Xsession
Log file is /home/jorey/.vnc/foobar:1.log


Open the VNC viewer on your remote machine, enter the hostname:screen and password (use a hostname or IP that your client machine understands), and your Linux desktop will open in a window! Network speed and processor power will affect performance, but it's amazing how many apps will run fine under VNC. You might not be able to play Frozen Bubble, but you can use productivity applications without any trouble.

To kill the server enter a command similar to this, using the appropriate settings:
vncserver -kill :1

The reason for killing the session is that you may need to edit the default configuration file that vncserver creates for you, for example to get the vncserver to run the K desktop environment instead of twm, you may want to edit the $HOME/.vnc/xstartup file to replace the line:


twm &


with this line is you use KDE:


startkde &


and with this line if you use GNOME:


gnome-session &


before launching the vncserver again using:


vncserver :1 -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16 -pixelformat rgb565


VNC over OpenSSH

The following is just a summary of the full explanation. To use VNC over OpenSSH, first you need to run an ssh session on the machine where you will be running the vncviewer, to request that ssh listen on a particular port on your local machine, and forward communication on that port down the secure connection to a port on the machine running the vncserver.

For example:

ssh -L x:localhost:y vncserver_machine

means "Start an SSH connection to the vncserver_machine, and also listen on port x on my machine, and forward any connections there to port y on the vncserver_machine."

Now, the VNC protocol normally uses port 59xx, where xx is the display number of the server. So a VNC server on a Windows machine, which normally uses display number 0, will listen on port 5900. The first VNC server on linux will probably use display number 1, and subsequent servers would use 2, 3, etc. and so the vncservers on linux will be listening on ports 5901, 5902 and so forth. By forwarding these ports to a remote machine running vncserver, you can make the remote VNC server appear to be a server running on your local machine. So, imagine you had a VNC server running as display :1 on vncserver_machine, and you wanted a secure connection to it from your local machine. You could start the ssh session using:

ssh -CL 5902:localhost:5901 vncserver_machine

After that, starting up the vncviewer as follows on your local machine: vncviewer -encodings "copyrect hextile" localhost:2 would actually connect to display :1 on the vncserver_machine.

Note that the above OpenSSH command-line is deliberately meant to accept incoming connections only from the local machine. This means that to use the ssh connection that we have just set up, we must connect to it from the same machine, using the special name localhost, rather than using the local machine's own unique name.

This article is compiled from following resources:

http://www.joreybump.com/code/howto/debian/vnc.html
http://www.penlug.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/TightVNC

X Window Servers

"X Server" for Windows XP and Vista
http://mediakey.dk/~cc/x11-for-windows-xp-and-vista/

X Ming "X Server"
http://www.straightrunning.com/XmingNotes/

"X Server" for Mac OS X

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/
macosx_updates/x11formacosx.html

@@VMWARE@@ UTS_RELEASE

Paolo Conti wrote how to hack VMware tools to work on linux kernels 2.6.18

[CITATION FROM http://www.atlink.it/~conti/2007/12/19/vmware-uts_release/]

Well, VMWare tools sometimes fails to install into a Linux guest with recent kernel.

The error is something like this: The directory of kernel headers (version @@VMWARE@@ UTS_RELEASE) does not match your running kernel (version 2.6.18.2-34-default). Even if the module were to compile successfully, it would not load into the running kernel.

With this bug you cannot sync the time with your hosting server, automate shutdown tasks, etc… This problem exist because the kernel source code structure is changed in recent kernels (I guess > 2.6.18). The VMWare tools installation script is looking for the string “#define UTS_RELEASE $kernel_number” into /usr/src/kernels/$(uname -r)*/include/linux/version.h but the UTS_RELEASE variable is now into the file utsrelease.h.

To fix this, you can patch the VMWare tools installation script or just add the content of utsrelease.h to version.h. I suppose the second solution is the fastest one

To do this:

cd /usr/src/kernels/$(uname -r)*/include/linux
cat utsrelease.h >> version.h

Happy virtualization folks!

Eth0 disappears after cloning

When I used VMWare Cloning of Debian Gold image everything was OK except networking. Eth0 disappeared and Eth1 came up. It's due to MAC address persistent association in /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules. Solution is to avoid persistent association. If you open this file you'll see that old MAC address is associated with eth0 so you can change this MAC address. However, the easiest solution is just delete file /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules. File will be created after next reboot but with MAC address of current network card.

System Management & Monitoring server - ZENOSS

Looks interesting http://www.zenoss.com I would like to practically test it. Hope to have time soon.

Apple advertisment

Very nice Apple advertisment against Microsoft ;-)

Very interesting blog about DB & STORAGE performance

Christian has a lot of practical experiences with DB & Storage performance tunning. Look at http://christianbilien.wordpress.com/ and read some articles there. I have similar practical experiences.

AJAX suite

I found very interesting AJAX suite of dynamic web components. See at Zapatec web site.

VMWare appliances with pre-installed Operating Systems

Pre-installed OS images for VMWare should speed up deployment of particular OS. You can find out some images at http://www.thoughtpolice.co.uk/vmware/

Internet FailOver script for FreeBSD written in Perl

I wrote Perl script to automatically detect internet uplink failure and switch over to backup internet link. When primary link is up again script will switch it back. Script must be run in crontab as often as you wish.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Net::Frame::Device;
use Net::Ping;

$uplink1_interface="sis0";
$uplink2_interface="sis1";
$lan_interface="sis2";
$primary_gateway="10.0.3.1";
$secondary_gateway="10.10.1.1";

# print current date and time
($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = gmtime(time);
$year=$year+1900;
print "GMT Time: $year-$mon-$mday $hour:$min:$sec\n";

my $device_uplink1 = Net::Frame::Device->new(dev => $uplink1_interface);
my $device_uplink2 = Net::Frame::Device->new(dev => $uplink2_interface);
my $device_lan = Net::Frame::Device->new(dev => $lan_interface);

print "Current default gateway:", $device_lan->gatewayIp, "\n";
print "Primary default gateway:", $primary_gateway, "\n";
print "Secondary gateway:", $secondary_gateway, "\n";

print "Checking primary internet uplink ...\n";
if (check_uplink($primary_gateway)) {
if ($device_lan->gatewayIp ne $primary_gateway) {
# set default route to $primary_gateway
`route delete default`;
`route add default $primary_gateway`;

# Change uplink interface to uplink1_interface
change_nat_interface($uplink1_interface);

# restart IPFW and NATD daemon
`/etc/rc.d/ipfw restart`;

print "Default gateway has been changed to $primary_gateway via interface $uplink1_interface\n";
} else {
print "Current default gateway is set to primary gateway and is ok\n";
}
} elsif (check_uplink($secondary_gateway)) {
if ($device_lan->gatewayIp ne $secondary_gateway) {
# set default route to $secondary_gateway
`route delete default`;
`route add default $secondary_gateway`;

# Change uplink interface to uplink2_interface
change_nat_interface($uplink2_interface);

# restart IPFW and NATD daemon
`/etc/rc.d/ipfw restart`;

print "Default gateway has been changed to $secondary_gateway via interface $uplink2_interface\n";
} else {
print "Current default gateway is set to secondary gateway and is ok\n";
}
} else {
print "Any uplink is up and working\n";
}

print "----\n";

######################################################
# Ping IP address and decide if it's reachable or not
# 1.parameter: IP
######################################################
sub check_uplink {
my ($ip) = @_;

my $p = Net::Ping->new("icmp");
my $ok = $p->ping($ip);
$p->close();

return $ok; # 0 - false; 1 - true
}

######################################################
# Change NATD interface file
# 1.parameter: network interface
######################################################
sub change_nat_interface {
my ($nat_if) = @_;

$filename="/tmp/natd_iface";
if (open(F, "> $filename")) {
print "change_nat_iface: writing $nat_if to $filename\n";
print F $nat_if;
close F;
} else {
print "change_nat_iface: Cannot write to $filename\n";
return 0;
}

return 1; # 0 - false; 1 - true
}

VMWare Certified Professional

I have passed VMWARE VCP Exam on 12-Dec-2007. CANDIDATE ID: VCP026715

FreeBSD 6.2 and CDMA modem Eurotel Any Data

Howto setup CDMA in FreeBSD 6.2

Excelent documentation for Soekris

Soekris is extremely good hardware for embedded computing and applications.
Documentation and howto scenarios are available at Ultradesic website.
FreeBSD configuration of serial console is documented at Handbook

How to build VMWare image for VMWare Player free of charge

Very good howto is available at this link.

Here is copy of this article ...

If you haven't done so yet, download the Free VMware Player.

Next, you need the qemu-img.exe program that comes with QEMU. If you are using Windows (like I do) you can download QemuInstall-0.7.2.exe. After downloading this program, install it. Start a command prompt and go to the installation directory of QEMU, for example:

cd C:\Program Files\Qemu

and create a VMware disk file as follows:

C:\Program Files\Qemu>qemu-img.exe create -f vmdk WindowsXPPro.vmdk 2G
Formating 'WindowsXPPro.vmdk', fmt=vmdk, size=2097152 kB

A file "WindowsXPPro.vmdk" with a maximum disk size of 2G (the actual file is much smaller about 320 KB) has been created. You might want to move this file to a different folder.

Note: I have made several empty VMware virtual disk files of various sizes available as a single 21 KB download.

Now, create an empty text file, and rename it to "WindowsXPPro.vmx" (use the same name as in the previous step, but use vmx as the extension instead). Open the file in an editor and enter the following values:

config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "3"
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.filename = "WindowsXPPro.vmdk"
memsize = "64"
MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"
ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"
floppy0.present = "FALSE"
ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
usb.present = "TRUE"
sound.present = "TRUE"
sound.virtualDev = "es1371"
displayName = "Windows XP Pro"
guestOS = "winXPPro"
nvram = "WindowsXPPro.nvram"
MemTrimRate = "-1"

ide0:0.redo = ""
ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
uuid.location = "56 4d 5c cc 3d 4a 43 29-55 89 5c 28 1e 7e 06 58"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 5c cc 3d 4a 43 29-55 89 5c 28 1e 7e 06 58"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:7e:06:58"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"

tools.syncTime = "TRUE"
ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

uuid.action = "create"

checkpoint.vmState = ""

Insert your Windows XP Professional CD ROM, and double click on the file you just created. The VMware Player should boot the CD, and you can install Windows XP Pro.
Windows XP Pro up and running in a virtual machine
Windows XP Pro up and running in a virtual machine

Other versions of Windows
I first tried to install Windows 2000 Professional. When I got the installation process running I stopped the virtual machine, because I wanted to try XP. The value of guestOS was set to "windows2000pro" in the vmx configuration file.

Speed of disk subsystem can be business critical

INTRODUCTION
As a DELL System/Solution Consultant I designed hardware infrastructure for one Czech commercial ISP which wants to provide IPTV and VoD. ISP choosed software IPTV/VoD/DRM solution based on Linux OS. Together with software provider we choosed several servers PE 2970 which are AMD (x86_64) based servers. Streamer server needs cost-effective however fast enough disk subsystem. Unfortunatly, 2.5" hdd are available only as 10k rpm so streamer has eight 2.5" SAS 73GB 10k rpm in RAID5 where RAID is provided by internal DELL Power Edge RAID controller PERC 5/i (re-branded LSI MegaRAID SAS). Software provider has load tests which are able to recognized if system is good enough for requested solution. Software provider has reference hardware configuration with reference results. Reference hardware is server SuperMicro with eight 3.5" SCSI 36GB 10k rpm connected to RAID controller Areca ARC-1260. Disk subsystem is tested by real load test and also by synthetical disk benchmark utility "iozone". We can try to tune disk subsystem and check progress by synthetical benchmark tool.

RESULTS & TUNING
Here are results from reference hardware (SuperMicro):
1 THREAD
iozone -s 32g -r 1m -i 0 -i 1 -t 1 -b /tmp/test.xls
Initial write 299951.25 kB/s
Rewrite 254075.39 kB/s
Read 386271.91 kB/s
Re-read 388288.41 kB/s

2 THREADS
iozone -s 16g -r 1m -i 0 -i 1 -t 2 -b /tmp/test.xls
Initial write 327977.77 kB/s
Rewrite 321502.41 kB/s
Read 312530.73 kB/s
Re-read 315091.88 kB/s

10 THREADS
iozone -s 4g -r 1m -i 0 -i 1 -t 10 -b /tmp/test.xls
Initial write 293753.92 kB/s
Rewrite 281009.19 kB/s
Read 262086.25 kB/s
Re-read 260864.43 kB/s

Software provider tested DELL PE 2970 with these results:
1 THREAD
iozone -s 32g -r 1m -i 0 -i 1 -t 1 -b /tmp/test.xls
Initial write 339329.00 kB/s
Rewrite 325063.56 kB/s
Read 337726.91 kB/s
Re-read 320971.62 kB/s

2 THREADS
iozone -s 16g -r 1m -i 0 -i 1 -t 2 -b /tmp/test.xls
Initial write 356046.38 kB/s
Rewrite 359441.64 kB/s
Read 193787.55 kB/s
Re-read 194154.85 kB/s

10 THREADS
iozone -s 4g -r 1m -i 0 -i 1 -t 10 -b /tmp/test.xls
Initial write 296494.20 kB/s
Rewrite 281730.82 kB/s
Read 147723.06 kB/s
Re-read 148728.67 kB/s

We can see significant difference between reference hardware and DELL hardware. DELL is better in write throughtput but worse in read throughtput. Default parameters of DELL servers are preconfigured for database servers where are usually different requirements then for streaming applications. Streaming applications don't need write but read performace. DELL received request from software provider to optimize infrastructure for better read performance.

Tunning of disk subsystem is not easy task and it's depended on lot of aspects. In this particular environment we have OS Linux Debian 4.0 (kernel 2.6.x), filesystem XFS, Raid 5, PERC 5/i. Debian is not certified and supported operating system so customer cannot use standard DELL tech-support but sometimes DELL can help to their customers in some particular complex enterprise solutions.

For increase read performace - especially sequence reads - is very important to set up read-ahead cache. PERC 5/i can be in three modes - adaptive, read ahead and non-read ahead. PERC is by default in adaptive mode which means that PERC use internal algorithm to automaticaly recognize when to use read-ahead. In this particular solution we can explicitly set up "read ahead" mode in RAID management. Another very important point is to set up read-ahead in operating system Linux block device layer.

Linux kernel 2.6
Set the value to 8192 blocks using the blockdev command, for example
blockdev --setra 8192 /dev/sda
this example is setting up 4MB Cache (8192 blocks of 512-byte sector)
which is aligned with default XFS parameters see. xfs_info for current XFS parameters

DELL IOZONE tests reults on DELL PE 2970 with tuned block device layer:
2 THREADS
iozone -s 16g -r 1m -i 0 -i 1 -t 2 -b /tmp/test.xls
Initial write 290692.31 kB/s
Rewrite 359531.20 kB/s
Read 503044.62 kB/s
Re-read 496045.61 kB/s

10 THREADS
iozone -s 4g -r 1m -i 0 -i 1 -t 10 -b /tmp/test.xls
Initial write 297497.92 kB/s
Rewrite 279933.16 kB/s
Read 473969.33 kB/s
Re-read 481384.16 kB/s


CONCLUSION
It's possible to successfully tuned up disk subsystem by set up read-ahead parameters. Read throughtput of DELL PE 2970,PERC 5/i,8xhdd 10k rpm was increased approximately 3 times so we achieved great results in synthetical benchmark (iozone) and overcome reference hardware results. What we can see is that disk performance lowers with more concurrent threads. Local RAID controllers are designed as disk storage for one server where I/O stress is not so high. If someone is looking for storage without I/O stress issues he should focus to SAN disk arrays which are designed for environments with lot of servers, proceses and threads.

Monitoring server

Server for monitoring IT services is crucial for effective management of IT infrastructure and to guarantee SLA. Two years ago we developed something like that and in the end it was realy usefull piece of software. ZABBIX is very interesting open-source project for network and service monitoring. For further information check out http://www.zabbix.com

Fedora Core 5 on USB hard disk

I have DELL notebook Latitude D610 with preinstaled company standard image. We have lot of restrictions and security constraints in this image. It's absolutly correct from security and company's point of view. But because I'm working as solution/system consultant I have to test a lot of systems, softwares and solutions to have a practical experiences with latest technologies. So I had two possibilities. To buy another hardware for testing or use a company notebook with another hard disk and another OS. Second posibility is chiper and more convinient for me. You can pretty easy demount internal HDD from DELL Latitude 610 but it's not so professional. Much better way is to use external USB hard disk and during the boot press F12 key and choose a boot device. Because we are suggesting virtualization tou our customers I decide to install linux and VMWare. I choosed linux distro Fedora Core 5 (FC5) as hosted OS. There are some hacks haw to install FC5 to external USB disk. First of all you have to choose different type of installation method from DVD/CD medium. You have to use option "linux expert" which is not sugested in instalation wizard. Only "linux expert" and "linux rescue" are loading USB modules so it's working with external USB disk. After common CD/DVD installation you have to reboot. But after reboot system is not booting propperly from external hard disk. You can see "kernel panic" on the screen. The reason is that generic instalation doesn't contain USB modul. There is work-arround. You have to boot from CD/DVD to rescue mode (linux rescue). Installed system is mounted to /mnt/sysimage/. You have to mount boot image by command
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sysimage/boot
set a chroot directory
chroot /mnt/sysimage
and create new initrd image with modules for USB storage
mkinitrd ––preload=ehci–hcd ––preload=usb–storage ––preload=scsi_mod ––preload=sd_mod /boot/initrd-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.img 2.6.15-1.2054_FC5

This work-arround change booting image to new boot image with USB disk support and after reboot Linux OS should boot from external USB hard disk without any problem.

VMWare instalation to be continued ...