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Posts tagged VMWare
VMWare: Windows 7 USB installation disk
Dec 16th
In my previous post I created a USB installation disk with Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool. Now I am going to use the USB disk to install my systems but also I can use this media to install my virtual machines. VMWare Workstation 6.5 or lower does not support to boot from USB removable disks, but there is a workaround to achieve that.
Start VMWare Workstation and open the properties of your VM; than create new virtual harddisk and use the physical partition of the inserted USB disk. In following screenshots you can see what I did to get this done:
VMWare : Workstation 7 first impression
Nov 25th
VMWare has updated their client virtualization platform and released the VMWare Workstation 7 release.
Why upgrade?
- Ultimate Desktop Virtualization Product for Windows 7
- Best 3D Graphics Just Got Better with for support Windows Aero in Windows Vista and Windows 7 virtual machines
- Most Advanced Virtualization Platform with up to 4 virtual processors or 4 virtual cores and up to 32GB of memory per virtual machine.
- Features Professionals Cannot Live Without for installing and running VMware vSphere 4 and VMware ESXi in a virtual machine
- Protect from Prying Eyes with 256-bit AES encryption.
Why Choose VMware Workstation? Check out this cool video from the VMWare site.
The wow experience with the latest release. The guys from VMWare did great job!
The encryption feature:
3D graphics
Just check it out. I am going to test the VMWare 4 hypervisor installation soon.
VMWare: Failed to start VMware VirtualCenter Server service?
Jul 16th
My Openfiler SAN died and the virtual machine with Virtual Center Server needed to be reboot. After reboot
the “VMWare VirtualCenter Server” service failed to start with following error message:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: VMware VirtualCenter Server
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1000
Date: 7/14/2009
Time: 10:00:42 AM
User: N/A
Computer: VC
Description:
The description for Event ID ( 1000 ) in Source ( VMware VirtualCenter Server ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: Failed to intialize VMware VirtualCenter. Shutting down….
I went to to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Logs and opened latest vpxd-XX.log file. I found the following error in mine:
[2009-07-14 10:00:42.480 'App' 3976 info] [VpxLRO] 600-second task lifetime
[2009-07-14 10:00:42.480 'App' 3976 error] [VpxdCertificate] Failed: cannot open certificate file: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\ssl\rui.crt
[2009-07-14 10:00:42.480 'App' 3976 error] Failed to intialize VMware VirtualCenter. Shutting down…
[2009-07-14 10:00:42.480 'App' 3976 info] Forcing shutdown of VMware VirtualCenter now
I tried to locate the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\ssl folder but it was simply not there; than searched for rui.crt in C:\ and found two other directories with similar certificate in:
- C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Converter Enterprise\ssl
- C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager\SSL
I copied C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Converter Enterprise\ssl to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\ssl\ and started “VMware VirtualCenter Server” service again. Now the service was successfully started. Login with VMWare Virtual Infrastructure client and connect your ESX hosts again.
For more information on the CA issue you can read here:
Veeam: Veeam Monitor Free Edition 4.0
Jun 9th
Veeam released latest version of their “Veeam Monitor 4.0 Free Edition for VMware” which is free monitoring tool for ESXi hosts.
The Veeam Monitor Free Edition is an easy-to-use VMware monitoring solution designed to meet the day-to-day needs of VMware administrators who need real-time performance monitoring and alerting. Built from the ground up specifically for the virtual world, Veeam Monitor provides a bird’s-eye view of key performance metrics across your virtual ESXi infrastructure.
With Veeam Monitor, you can view real-time resource usage data for any virtual infrastructure object or collection of objects, as well as known infrastructure events, all on a single screen. This allows you to finally see your virtual infrastructure as a unified entity, not just a collection of isolated hosts and guests.
There are some limitations but fair enough to monitor and manage my ESXi hosts. I don’t have Virtual Center servers to manage my branch server ESXi systems and Veeam Monitor Free Edition will do all that for me know.
For more information click on the links below:
- Datasheet (PDF)
- What’s New in 4.0 (PDF)
Some screenshots:
VMWare ESX: static MAC address
Apr 21st
Last week I planned to migrate some virtual machines running on a Windows host with VMWare Server 1.x version to VMWare ESX 3.5i host. One of the vm’s is running as license server and the key is registered by using the MAC of the network interface.
I had the prerequisite of keeping the MAC address of this VM. I first read this post I found with google. http://zealkabi.blogspot.com/2008/09/vmware-esx-server-3x-procedure-to-set.html
I first tried it manually but got the famous error message “The MAC address entered is not in the valid range. Valid values are between xx:xx:xx:xx:xx”
Then I removed the vm from ESX inventory; download the vmx file and changed the ethernet0.addressType to static and ethernet0.Address = “01:0C:29:B0:27:E1″ with Notepad++.I deleted original file from the Datastore and upload the vmx file back. I started the vm again and got the message below:
Please specify a static Ethernet address for ethernet0. Failed to configure ethernet0
Without additional setting in the vmx config file you won’t be able to assign a static MAC address in the range your require. To disable mac address checking before boot add the following line in the vmx file.
ethernetX.checkMACAddress = “false”
Thanks to Jason Nash I fixed this problem.
http://jasonnash.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/disabling-mac-address-checking-in-vmware/
My working config changes:
ethernet0.checkMACAddress = “false”
ethernet0.addressType = “static”
ethernet0.Address = “00:0C:29:B0:27:E1″
Windows 7: VMWare Workstation
Jan 15th
Finally after 2,5 year Vista was released I can say “WOW” with the first public beta of Windows 7. The installation process was and went smooth. I installed one VM and two physical machines. The setup went fine on a Lenovo ThinkCentre M57 and on my ASUS home system. I am looking forward to see the latest version released.
What’s new in Windows 7?
- Improved taskbar and full-screen previews
- Jump Lists
- New ways to work with Windows
- Internet Explorer 8
- Windows Live
- Better device management
- HomeGroup
- Faster, more responsive performance
- Extended battery life
- Theme packages reflect your style
- Take control of problems
- Share music and videos
- Windows Touch
- Handwriting recognition additions
- AppLocker
- Bitlocker with enhanced usb encryption
- etc
If you didn’t download it than I suggest browsing to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx and get the bits. Anyway I wanted to share my first experience with installing and playing with VMWare Workstation Version: 6.5.1 Build: 126130 and Windows 7 beta. It’s simple as it should. Plug and play 
The installation went smooth and in minutes I was able to run my VMs and all without hassle. I moved from Vista to Ubuntu and in the end I installed Windows XP as my desktop OS.
