Notations: A-Action, R-Result, Q-Question, C-Cognition/Commentary, X-Exploration research

A MAP-1.1.1 Completed the Mathematica installation.

R MAP-1.1.2 Mathematica installation completed successfully. As far as I can tell at this point Mathematica 7 for Students runs well on an Ubuntu Server 9.10 virtual machine in the ESX Server 3i 3.5 Build 153875 environment.

The goal here is to recreate (using the procedures of William Lam and Raj Perumal) a repeatable procedure for backing up VMs to "external storage". The system I am using is ESX server 3i 3.5.0 Build 153875
Notations: A-Action, R-Result, Q-Question, C-Cognition, X-Exploration research

A BES 1.0.1 - Allow SSH to ESX host server
(This step is only necessary on the first instance of the procedure)
Go the physical server hosting ESX and press Alt+F1, then type "unsupported" - you will not see anything as you type - you will then be prompted for a password. After gaining root access use vi to edit /etc/inetd.conf Remove "#" comment character in front of the SSH line. Save changes and reboot the system. You now have SSH access to the host.

A BES 1.0.2 - Get script to ESX host server
(This step is only necessary on the first instance of the procedure)
Download a copy of the ghettoVCB script found here http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760 then transfer it without modification to the ESX server with WinSCP making sure the transfer happens in Text mode. The destination on the ESX server should be: /vmfs/volumes/"datastorename". Once the transfer is complete change the permission to allow it to be executed: chmod +x ghettoVCB.sh

A BES 1.0.3 - Create list of VMs to back up
(This step is only necessary on the first instance and then every time the list of VMs to be backed up changes)
Since the script uses a text file to input the names (one per line) of the VMs to be backed up, this needs to created on the ESX host server. Use vi to create the textfile in the same directory in which the ghettoVCB.sh script is located.

A BES 1.0.4 - Create destination for backups
(This step is only necessary on the first instance and every time the backup storage destination changes)
I took Raj's advice and downloaded Allegro NFS in order to create and NFS share on my Windows machine as the destination for the backups.
Launch Allegro NFS to create the share
a. in the Export tab click "new" type /j/vmwarebackups (where j is the local partition and vmwarebackups is the folder)
b. browse for folder to partition j and folder vmwarebackups
c. click all on allowed hosts list, click everyone and root for read/write, do not click anything in read only
d. click apply and the apply button goes grey, click ok and Allegro NFS config window closes.
Open VMware Infrastructure Client (VIC) to add the share as a datastore
e. select host machine
f. select Storage in hardware then select add storage link
g. select NFS then next
h. input the static IP of the backup destination
i. input the path of the backup destination ( see a., and b. above)
j. do not check Mount NFS read-only
k. input the name of the datastore - for example: backup
l. click next and finish

R BES 1.0.5 - You see the new data store in the VIC

A BES 1.0.6 - Configure the ghettoVCB script
(This step is only necessary on the first instance and every time you need to reconfigure the script)
Use vi to edit the ghettoVCB.sh file on the ESX server
a. first make a backup of the script: cp ghettoVCB.sh unmodified_ghettoVCB.sh
b.. VM_BACKUP_VOLUME=/vmfs/volumes/backup or whatever the path of the NFS share is from BES 1.0.4i
c.. any other changes needed based on reading of script
d.. write changes and exit vi

Q BES 1.0.7 - My Windows NFS share is probably non-persistent NFS-backup, but I didn't modify the non-persistent section of the script - will this matter?

A BES 1.0.8 - Run the script
(This step will be needed every time you want a backup unless a cron'd)
a. execute the script: ./ghettoVCB.sh vmbackups

R BES 1.0.9 - The script ran successfully and let me know that since a snapshot was found the backup will not take place.

A BES 1.0.10 - Remove the snapshots before running the backup
a. shut down VM
b. go to snapshot manager in VIC and select remove all snapshots
c. the task window show in progress, but it has been a long time - good thing I trusted VMware and didn't reboot the box - that operation took 30 minutes, but completed successfully.

Q BES 1.0.11 - Why after removing the snapshots have I not gained capacity back on my datastore?

A BES 1.0.12 - Re-Run the script now that snapshot were removed.
a. execute the script: ./ghettoVCB.sh vmbackups
b. Script running sucessfully with % done ticker.

The goal here is to make a repeatable procedure for saving VM snapshots to "external storage". There are a couple of reasons that I want to do this: 1. Every time I take a snapshot now, the size of my host datastore gets smaller, and 2. When I upgrade the SCSI drives on my host (DL360 G3) system and remove the old drives I don't want to lose access to my snapshots. Notations: A-Action, R-Result, Q-Question, C-Cognition, X-Exploration research

C SES 1.0.1 There has to be a function within ESX to export and import snapshots so that they do not take up storage space on the host.
Q SES 1.0.2 How do I save a virtual machine snapshot to a storage device that is not built-in to the ESX server host, for example a USB flash drive connected to the host?
X SES 1.0.3 Will research for answers and the best forum to ask the question (Q SES 1.0.2) if I do not find the answer.

The goal here is to make a repeatable procedure for installing GNS http://www.gns3.net/ on the Ubuntu platorm created in the UBP procedure. As before we have the following notations: A-Action; R-Result; Q-Question; C-cognition

A GUI 1.1.1 Review the video tutorial located here: http://www.blindhog.net/tutorials/gns3-linux-install/gns3-linux-install.html
A GUI 1.1.2 Followed the video tutorial

R GUI 1.1.3 When I tried to drop one of the routers into play I got an error saying to "Test" the path of the executable in preferences

A GUI 1.1.4 Went to Edit then Preferences for Dynamips. After I clicked on the "Test" button Dynamips "Started" and I was able to put a router into play and console in!

R GUI 1.1.5 I have my very first virtual lab router running on a virtual machine. Awesome!



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GUI - PROCEDURE SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETE; first instance
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In this - GUI - procedure I used the VM created in the UBP procedure as the platform to install the graphical network simulator GNS3. I was able to console in to my first virtual router created within GNS3. Next Procedure is to build the actual network labs within GNS3 and then "save" the VMs as the lab environments.

Thanks to two really awesome dudes at CIRCUITEGRITY here in San Diego - Gabriel and Nate - I now have my first server capable of doing some real machine and network virtualization research and development work. It is a dual 3.06 GHz Xeon hp Proliant DL360 loaded with VMWare ESX Server 3i 3.5.0



I also want to thank Joe Renwick, CCIE #16465, of GoNetForward who first turned me on to VMWare and first told me about the idea of using virtual machines - where each would have its own virtual rack of network gear based on dynagen/dynamips/GNS - as virtual labs. So it would go like this: I want to study BGP routing, well I fire up the BGP virtual machine which is named such because it is running dynagen/dynamips/GNS3 configured with a BGP router lab rack, and so on...

What I'm going to do here is make this an electronic version of a research laboratoty notebook. It is for my reference and to share. I am going to log each step with a number and each number is going to be prefaced by the tag for the project that the step is on the way to accomplishing. For example the first project might be: Build a virtual Ubuntu server platform ready to install dynagen/dynamips/GNS - the tag would be UBP. The first entry title would then be UBP-1. Many steps are going to take more than one entry, so each entry will be titled with the number plus a sequential decimal number until complete. In this way I can interleave projects and steps since the title of the entry will describe what project is being worked on. If the entry does not follow the format then it is probably a commentary, open question, or digression.