Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

HOWTO: ESXi and SSH

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I’ve noticed many of the hits on my blog are related to ESXi. One of the most asked questions is how can I SSH to an ESXi hosts? Looking at my wordpress stats, this is also one of the top searches.

By default this isn’t possible. But there’s a way to get this working, just do the following:

  1. Go to the ESXi console and press alt+F1
  2. Type: unsupported
  3. Enter the root password(No prompt, typing is blindly)
  4. At the prompt type “vi /etc/inetd.conf”
  5. Look for the line that starts with “#ssh” (you can search with pressing “/”)
  6. Remove the “#” (press the “x” if the cursor is on the character)
  7. Save “/etc/inetd.conf” by typing “:wq!”
  8. Restart the management service “/sbin/services.sh restart”

Done!

ESX 3.0.3 available now!

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For those that are still using 3.0.2 and are not looking to upgrade to 3.5 U2 yet, VMware just released 3.0.3! Don’t expect new features to popup. Version 3.0.3 is mainly about compatability and patches:

Processors

Newly supported processors are:

  • Quad-Core AMD Opteron 8300 series and 2300 series processor families (collectively code-named Barcelona)
  • Dual-core Intel Xeon 5200 series processors (code-named Wolfdale)

Drivers

Upgraded drivers are:

  • igb driver version 1.0.0
  • Broadcom 5722 tg3 driver version upgraded from 3.43.to 3.58b
  • Emulex lpfc driver version upgraded to 7.3.2_vmw10

Guest Operating Systems

Newly supported guest operating systems are:

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Data Center Edition
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1

Enhanced Patch and Upgrade Management

Significant improvements to the following patch management utilities:

  • esxupdate Utility – Support for super-bundle and rollup features in esxupdate.
  • Support for VMware Update Manager.

Service Console

Update for service console from RHEL3 U8 to RHEL3 U9.

Management Agents

Support for new versions of Management Agents:

  • HP Insight Manager 8.1
  • Dell OpenManage Server Administrator 5.4
  • IBM Director 5.20 Update 1

Backup Software

Support for additional backup software from third-party vendors:

  • EMC Networker Version 7.4 SP1
  • IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Version 5.5

Quality Improvements

A significant number of issues have been fixed. Some of these issues have been described in Resolved Issues in this Release.

Get it while it’s stil hot and read the complete release notes here!

What’s going on?

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What’s going on… the amount of views / hits have almost doubled over the last couple of weeks. I received more hits in August already than I did in July. Here are some stats that the hosting company provided me, unique hits:
dec – 1225
jan – 7700
feb – 13100
maart – 13300
april – 19233
mei – 19034
jun – 20783
jul – 27564
Aug – 36159

Last month I had 9017.39 MB of traffic. This month I already have 3039.94 MB.

And I just checked this in WordPress and see the same numbers coming up. Normally I would hit around 1200 a day on the WordPress Stats. In July this went up to 1800 and now I’ve reached 2700…. I have a total of 165,952 views in 9 months…

Any other bloggers noticing the same trend? Just talking with my colleague about it and could this be related to the ESXi hype… hmmm,

Just narrowed it down, started the 28th of July. Indeed the day that ESXi 3.5 u2 was released and free of charge!

das.allowNetwork where and when

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I’ve seen a lot misinterpretations of the new advanced HA option “das.allowNetwork”. What is this option for and when should I use it or shouldn’t is the most asked question.

So let’s start with a little history, back in the days “pre 3.5 U2” one could configure a cluster on multiple IP subnets without facing any problems, but this could lead into start up or execution problems. HA would configure without checking if the network on every host was compatible with the other, but in ESX 3.5 U2 this procedure changed. As of this version during the configuration of HA the host checks it’s network for compatability with the first configured HA host. So if the first host has the following configuration:
esx01 – 192.168.1.11 – 255.255.255.0.

And the second host has the following configuration:
esx02- 192.168.2.11 – 255.255.255.0

HA will fail with the following error:
“HA Agent on <hostname> in cluster <clustername> in <datacenter> has an error Incompatible HA Networks: Host has network(s) that don’t exist on cluster members: <ip address>: Cluster has network(s) missing on host: <ip address>: Consider using Advanced Cluster Settings das.allowNetwork to control network usage”

With the advance option “das.allowNetwork” you can rule out certain Service Consoles for HA usage. In other words, if you have several SC’s on each ESX host you can specify which SC should be used for HA. HA, as most of you probably know, uses the SC network for it’s heartbeat.

A couple of examples when to use das.allowNetwork and when not to use it:

  1. So what should you do to get things running when you’ve used different subnets for each host?
    Well that’s an easy one… get all your Service Consoles on the same subnet. Even if’s a routable vlan, HA will just calculate the network and if the values mismatch than configuring HA will fail!
  2. So what if I’ve got multiple SC’s and some are on different subnets but there’s at least one on each host on the same subnet with the same portgroup name?
    Here’s where das.allowNetwork comes in to place, set this option in the “Advanced Option” section of the HA tab and specify which SC should be used for HA. The ones that aren’t specified will not be used.

There have been numerous people asking if this “network compatibility” check could be disabled. At this moment the answer is no and there’s now workaround at this moment. When using das.allowNetwork specify the first as “das.allowNetwork0” the second as “das.allowNetwork1” etc.

More info can be found here:

KB1006541

KB1006606

Resource Management PDF

Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 3

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I’ve always been interested in ubuntu for the fact that in my opinion they have the capabilities to become a real Windows Desktop replacement. But on the other hand I’ve always been strugling to get everything working as it should. Video drivers and Wireless drivers always were a problem. This “new” alpha release is a huge step forward. Without any problems my wireless card got recognized and the correct video drivers were loaded. I connected to the internet within a few seconds, which took me half a day with 8.0.4. I know it’s far from being a release candidate but so far 8.10 is worth looking into.