VMware Communities : Thread List - Product and Feature Suggestions Archives

Windows CE driver for the AMD PCnet Adapter

mluerkens — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:07:05 GMT

Basically Windows CEPC is running in VMWare, but unfortunately without Ethernet support, because the AMD PCNet Adapter is not supported by Windows CE. So ist would be nice to have a CE driver for this adapter or to have a NE2000 compatible virtual Ethernet controller.

BR
Matthias

Add ESX style Snap Shots to Workstation and Server.

jamome — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:23:23 GMT

Please add ESX style Snap Shots to Workstation and Server. Unlike ESX, both Workstation and Server Auto-Grow snapshot files. Over time, I've found these auto-Grow snapshots to become massively fragmented and the VM(s) become unusably-slow over time. To circumvent this, I think it's best to avoid snapshots altogether in performance sensitive VMs in non-ESX installations. Unfortunately, it's really really really handy to work in a VM having one snapshot so I can revert back if I ever need to - this is effectively a work flow backup of the VM. Until ESX style snapshots (Allocate all disk space now) are added to Workstation and Server, snapshots are not workable when performance counts and the VM will be used over time for weeks upon end. Please, Please, Please add this feature!!!

Problem with Workstation when logging out host

shogedal — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:47:31 GMT

If a guest is running when I log out of the host it is "killed" without warning.

I would like the guest to be automatically suspended or to have the opportunity to cancel the log out.

The way it works now the guest will act as after a power outage.

/Stefan

Linux installer

ccjb — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 18:41:19 GMT

Your linux installer needs to force modes on files that it installs. My root account has a fairly restrictive umask (077) and when I extracted the archive, it applied the umask to all the files. When I installed the files, then the permissions on all the vmware stuff was all messed up (700 or lower). This can easily be done with the 'install' program, if you check the manual pages for install(1), the mode is settable. It's a general convention for most installers in *nix to use 'install' for this very reason, and it's trivial to implement into pretty much any install script.

Allocate a video card to a VM

DBqytdf — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 05:03:42 GMT

If I had multiple video cards installed in my machine, I have to wonder if it would be useful to be able to allocate a card to a VM. That way a VM might be able to use video drivers native to the OS, instead of using vmwares SVGA driver.

VM application launch

gmclean — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 18:42:08 GMT

I would love to see the ability to have document types defined such that if I try to open a word document in a virtual windows environment that it would launch in OS X. This would save from having to have both versions of office or other tools loaded. This becoumes really handy when using remote database applications that automatically try to launch the app when downloading a file.

VCB With a real GUI

zemotard — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:26:58 GMT

I wish a graphical user interface with VCB to improve utilization of this product. Regards

Allow vmware to forward IP packets for arbitrary MACs to guest interfaces

regaleali — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:06:14 GMT

Hi

When using e.g. Open/FreeBSD as guests in a clustered setup on vmware server, they can use the CARP protocol for IP redundancy. They will then arbitrate a virtual IP that gets assigned to one of the members of the cluster. This IP address is bound to a virtual interface carpN that does not share the physical MAC address of the underlying interface, but has its own virtual MAC address. Those MACs are assigned by IANA to use by the VRRP protocol (of which CARP is a free implementation) and are in the range 00:00:5e:00:01:01 - 00:00:5e:00:01:FF. They need to be unique per multicast domain and support up to 255 devices in the same multicast domain.

Unfortunately (see http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=72521 for a brief discussion) vmware does not support forwarding IP packets for arbitrary (or configurable) MAC addresses to guest interfaces. So all traffic destined for the guest's virtual IP gets received at the host's physical interface, but since the packets don't carry any of the MAC addresses assigned to the guest's interfaces, they don't get passed on. Thus IP-based clustering in BSD guests does not work.

My request is to overcome the MAC based traffic restriction for guest interfaces. I could envison two approaches:

1) static:
Make the MAC addresses that are to be forwarded to a guest's interfaces configurable through a new option in the .vmx file.

e.g. additionally to the existing options:

ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:de:29:8e"

allow

ethernet0.allowedAddress.1 = "00:00:5e:00:01:01"
ethernet0.allowedAddress.2 = "3a:5b:5c:0d:0f:0e"
ethernet0.allowedAddress.3 = [...]

This should be possible for any arbitrary MAC address, and it should be possible to assign the same address to multiple guests simultaneously.

2) dynamically:
Watch for outgoing IP packets and ARP replies on the guest's interfaces and register their source MAC field. From then on forward all traffic arriving on the physical interface carrying that MAC as destination MAC to the guest's interface.

This should be possible for any arbitrary MAC address, and it should be possible to assign the same address to multiple guests simultaneously.

This would very effectively increase the value and usability of vmware for more network-oriented guests.

I hope this has a chance of getting implemented.

krgds /markus

ESX Firewall setting - ftpClient

pzednik — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 13:31:49 GMT

when using an external ftp-server to put files there from an esx3 host, you have to open all outgoing connections!!!! by using esxcfg-firewall --allowOutgoing.

The switch esxcfg-firewall -enableService ftpClient does'nt work!!!! It opens only port 21, but the (dynamic) dataport are not opened.

It should be well documented and the ftpClient switch should be changed in behaviour or be removed!

In a VM Team should right click work on a VM Ware guest thumbnail

telfred — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 11:08:19 GMT

VM Workstation 5 onwards supports VM Teams that allow a number of VM guests to be contained within a virtual team. When running a VM team there are thumbnails of the VM Ware guest computers. Should right clicking on a VM Ware guest give a user a popup menu with a subset of the VM menu for that VM guest ?

I was thinking specifically of power on or settings but there may well be other items from the VM menu that would also be useful.

Switch move install of VMware Server location

ehisey — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 18:02:40 GMT

Right now VMware server basically has to be installed in /usr. I would like a sinlge switch to prefix the install path somewhere else, for example /opt or /usr/local. For an application like VMware the LSB and FSB indicate that it should default to /opt. I suspect this would also make it easier to upgrade and maintain for most users, as /opt could then be easily synced from else during upgrades or even installed elsewhere an mount under /opt on servers. I happen to use the syncing on my servers because it greatly speeds up redeploy of existing servers.

"RESTART HOST" permission is needed

BorisMik1 — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 10:08:20 GMT

We are running many ESX servers and provide ESX delegation. I'd like to provide "REBOOT" permissions only and there is no such option

Regards,
Boris Mikhailovski
VMWARE IL EMEA Coordinator
IT Engineer
SAP

Virtual machine disk space displayed in Virtual Center

LeaV97 — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 19:54:57 GMT

It would be to have Virtual Center display the amount of disk space assigned to a virtual server with out having to click edit settings on each individual virtual.

Converter to migrate into an RDM

Mike Fink — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 03:07:58 GMT

Although I can use converter to make a 2 step conversion into an RDM, it would be a wonderful feature to make the conversion right into an RDM that is already setup.

Please give converter the ability to migrate into an RDM. Many/most of our clients use RDMs because of SAN snapshot and replication utilities. This would be a very, very nice feature.

Also, the ability to deploy from template into an RDM (although converter is much more important for most of our clients).

Thank you!

Official iSCSI HBA Support

Damin — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 04:20:55 GMT

Currently, iSCSI HBA support is marked as "experimental" in the HCL. This sucks. Given the cost of ESX's licensing, it is imperative that administrators make decisions that preserve every CPU cycle for use by the Virtual Infrastructure. iSCSI HBA cards with TCP Offload Engines provide a fantastic decrease on CPU load when compared to software base iSCSI target implementations. As an example, we are able to run 2 additional guests per ESX node when we use iSCSI HBAs as opposed to software iSCSI.

There is language in the HCL that says something along the lines of.. "Software iSCSI is the only implementation that is fully supported in ESX 3.0". This is lame.

official VI3 HCL support for StoreVault S500 (iSCSI)

vmmcvey — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:06:19 GMT

I've heard good things about the StoreVault S500 product (a NetApp derivative)...it's priced and sized right for my budget and use case, except for the fact that it's not on the HCL for VI3 (to my knowledge). Any plans to support it, and if so when? Any feedback from the field on the current state of its iSCSI compatibility with VI3? (in particular for usage with VMotion etc.)?

Trackpad improvements request

kadowd — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:44:31 GMT

I've taken the leap of wiping out XP on my IBM/Lenovo T43, loading Gentoo linux, and VMWare workstation (5.x) on top. In VMWare I run XP Pro. The solution works well, however one very important aspect of trackpad drivers on any laptop is to have the driver "wait" before taking input from a touch. I find the native driver under XP was excellent. The "basic" vmware mouse driver doesn't know about trackpads, and I find my cursor jumping all over when typing, so my text stream ends up broken and being inserted in random places, which is highly disruptive. We need a trackpad-sensitive driver for laptop use of VMs.
my .02.

V.I. 3 - Datastore Browers

Samcer — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 11:57:15 GMT

Replace it with something more useful such as a file manager (ie old Norton Commander)
At least Add some file system command:
- Create New folder

Thanks
Sam

Coloring Snapshot Manager Entries

Aureo — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 13:54:15 GMT

Hi guys

I am at the end of a four day testing series where I used the snapshot manager a lot.

When testing some lines will end up in proofing that this certain configuration will not work. So there will be some endings where I write i.e. "Not OK", others lines will end with "OK". After a while it's getting larger and more confusing.
I thought it would be great if I could just color the background of a certain snapshot with red for 'not good' and green for 'good'. Like a legend, where I give different colors different meanings.

This would help a lot when after a few days I don't have to read where it is not OK, I could see it right away.

Is that anything others would like to have too, or how do you work?

Thank you for your thoughts,

Roland

Converter - Hardware Device Config and Multi-processor

bowulf — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 02:42:49 GMT

One of the irritants of the current Converter solution is that the newly imaged-VM typically have a number of devices or configuration that we do not want. For example, we do not assign serial or parallel ports to any VMs. Converter also tries to emulate the number of CPU in the original host. I would propose another step in the conversion process to confirm the hardware selection or better offer an option to conform the hardware to a standard template.

vmHigh Availability intelligence

FredPeterson — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:17:27 GMT

More intelligence in the vmHA components. Right now its a simply service console connectivity test.

We had a network hiccup the other day where network connectivity was lost and even though the VM"s were running on one ESX host, they were stopped and brought up on the other.

Was nice to know that the one host can manage having 24ish guests running at once, but would still have been nice if there was a bit more intelligence that determined if the VM's were actually dead or not.

USB 2.0 Support for VMWARE Server

micahsdad1402 — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 00:28:34 GMT

Would love to get usb2.0 support for vmware server. Backing up from Windows to usb rev drive at 1.0 speeds is causing me grief.

linux preinstalled vmware for xp

dsharp9000 — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 20:00:52 GMT

It would be convenient if you had some versions of linux such as suse (my personnel favorite as I am new to linux) already installed that could be purchased as a vmware hard drive for immediate use under an xp host. This would provide an easier installation setup for a lot users considering alternative operating systems. The same could be said for running xp under a linux host.

I would buy it and would be willing to pay the extra charges for having the alternative guest operating system preinstalled as it would save a lot time and hassles.

Are you considering any such type offering?

BIOS configuration in "Edit virtual machine settings"

Net56 — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 21:01:49 GMT

It is a tedious to have to whack the F2 to get into the BIOS before the very 1st boot. It would be nice to:

1) pre-configure the BIOS, mostly to disable the extraneous peripherals like serial and parallel ports, set the boot device sequence etc.

2) it would be nice to save/load the VM settings.

3) global setting "Create VM with VM settings file: <file path>"

Resizing disks in Workstation

Olaf van der Spek — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 21:10:20 GMT

Could you add an option to resize disks in Workstation?

Converter: Customization Specifications

mike008 — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 19:13:01 GMT

It would be nice to use customization specifications in Converter similar to cloning and template deployments in VC2.

Capture Movie Options

JDLangdon — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 13:10:23 GMT

I've started using the "Capture Movie" option in VMware Workstation and would love to be able to use the same functionality from within VM's that are running on Esx.

Jason

Virtual Center: New Disk Naming

hicksj — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 12:35:01 GMT

Please add an option under Add Hardware Wizard -> Hard Disk -> Disk Capacity -> Location to specify the name of the new .vmdk file, instead of forcing the default. (let it be grayed out by default, just like the vmfs datastore location, but at least give us the option within the wizard)

Thank you!
J

Capacity Planner: Add Storage Area Network support

aleph0 — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:30:25 GMT

Hi all,
It would be very interesting that the Capacity planner users could add to phantom servers, the SAN model they will use for consolidation/disaster recovery/ Businness continuity scenario. This could improve a lot this very useful tool!!!

Cheers

mf

Capacity planner: etherogeneous phantom servers

aleph0 — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:00:30 GMT

Pls add the ability to consolidate on etherogeneous servers at once...
i.e.: I want to consolidate on
3 x server model 001 with N Gbyte RAM and 8 cores
2 x server model 001 with M GByte RAM and 2 cores
4 x server model 002 with X GByte RAM and 4 cores
....
and so on...

thanks
cheers
mf

(Dis)Connecting USB devices using VIX

Robert Klinkenberg — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 09:11:20 GMT

I would like to be able to (dis)connect an USB device with a script instead of having to manually use the menu system. Seems to me not that difficult to code. The functionality is in the client, it just needs to be exposed through VIX.

Add alarm marker to performance graphs

w1161 — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 17:17:03 GMT

Sirs,

It would be great if a horizontal alarm marker could be added to the performance graphs of any host or guest machine.

Moving VM's between datacenters / Templates

johnswbvm — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 16:15:28 GMT

I was able to move VM's between datacenters when we were running VC 1.4. Now running 2.0.1 we are unable to do so. Would like to do this without move a host from one datacenter to another.

Also, in VC 1.4 I was able to deploy a template to all of our datacenters from one location. Would like to do this without creating templates in each.

Maybe I'm getting it all wrong... I why take away options and call it an upgrade?

Feature Request: Ability to run write protected virtual machines.

brainy — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 13:08:00 GMT

I think that it would be really nice if VMware Workstation was able to run write-protected virtual machines (The virtual machine files do not have write permissions and should not be changed). An option could be introduced to run the VM write protected, and when this option is present, VMware would not open any files for writing, just for reading, even if permissions allow writing. This way, file system permissions can set up to ensure it is not changed (Currently, the user running a VM must be able to write to several files. Even with return to snapshots enabled, they could manually modify some files). Instead, temporary files would be used for everything in a temporary path such as '/' or 'c:\windows\temp', or in the users home path, and be deleted at power off.

The user should still be able to change a few things before starting a VM, just they are not written to file. If there are any snapshots, the user should be able to select which one to start from. Also, it may still be needed to change some settings like CD-ROM/floppy/usb for the run.

Basically, after creating a VM and configuring it, I want to 'lock out' changes so that even the file system permissions prohibit a user from changing any of the files, but still want the user to be able to select a snapshot and adjust drive settings. The user can still access and save files remotely from the VM. Additionally, the profile is saved back to the roaming profile folder.

Currently, a few options exists, but are not desirable:

1. Use VMware Server (No multiple snapshots or teams, the files must still be writable as the user the VM runs as, and as such, can not be placed on a write protected volume), set the VM to run as 'Local System', and set permission to only allow write access to system and administrators, and only read permissions from all other users. Also, the user can not change settings such as CD drive settings before startup.

2. User VMware Workstation. After configuring a system to desired specs, create a linked clone. After creating a linked clone, write protect the parent files. The linked clone can still be modified, which is not desired, because it is desired that each run starts in the same state, but the files still be write protected.

HA is too sensitive

Pelenor — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 14:12:34 GMT

Hi all,
I have one problem. I have configured HA in cluster witch 5 physical servers. All servers are connected to two network switches and has configured load balancing on these NICs.
During one planned action on one of our CORE network switches all server lost connectivity on one of teamed NICs for 2 minutes. Switch internally to second NIC induced lost connectivity of all ESX server in duration less than one second.
And there is problem. HA detect all ESX servers as unreachable (only for second) and restart all VMs from five physical servers on one physical server which was first back on-line.
Is possible to set some delay for heart beat detect? Or some delay for HA actions if physical server is unreachable?

Thank

Generic block device support for raw disks in VMware Server (and others)

czr — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 19:54:40 GMT

The subject says it all. Obviously this is talking about the Linux host.

Would allow using LV/GNBD/NBD/loop/AoE/whatnot directly without requiring additional support from guest VMs.

It's possible to use vmware-bdwrapper, but this should imho be integrated in the server. Selectable fake-geometry mapping would be a bonus, but similar rules (or ATA-5 rules) could be used if no GUI is required for this.

ak.

Deploying Templates to RDM's

virtech — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 14:20:28 GMT

Would be nice, any thoughts?

Maintenance mode and DRS rules

jasonboche — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 03:50:15 GMT

Please see the following topic:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=71101

Modify virtual NIC type from VI client

oreeh — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:19:04 GMT

The ability to change the virtual ethernet device from within VI client (instead of manually editing the .vmx file) would be nice.

make "mainmem.usenamedfile" tuneable a gui option

devzero — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 08:47:04 GMT

hello !

since i`m using "mainmem.usenamedfile=FALSE" on every VM >512MB and have seen many people's performance issues (e.g. "http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=68683&messageID=555849#555849 ) being resolved by setting this param to false, i`d recommend making it a gui option.

roland

Missing an Opportunity

jsinbc — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 17:35:14 GMT

Spent some time with VMPlayer yesterday. Very impressive. Installed the service pack for Ubuntu 6 & was up an running with no problems. But ...

An 800 x 600 window just doesn't cut it for real work. Ended up spending a couple of hours poking around the forums looking for ways to work in a full screen environment. Wasn't successful and not sure if I'm willing to invest more time in solving that problem.

I'd suggest there's a need for a for sale product between VMPlayer and Workstation which would include enough functionality to significantly simplify the process of setting up a productive environment - specifically working in full screen mode. If this product were reasonably priced (e.g. $49.95) I would expect adoption rates to be significant.

VI3 Alarms Are Not Robust Enough

jasonboche — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 22:37:44 GMT

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=566834&#566834

We are experiencing the same alarm shortcomings that many others are seeing. I'd rather see alarms triggered by a threshold that has been crossed and sustained for a period of time. Rather, we are receiving alarms everytime something spikes and thus with 7 hosts and about 30 VMs, we're receiving about 500+ alarms per day between host and VM. My team is pleading for me to cut them back because they are useless at this point. Everyone just sets up an Email inbox rule to delete the alarms w/o reading them. About the only thing I can do to keep receiving the alarms but lessen the frequency is to change the tolerance and frequency values in the alarm definition. Changing these values does not seem like it would give us accurate reporting of what a "true" alarm should be.

We're also missing the feature to disable certain alarms during the evening when background processes are running and utilization is going to be naturally high. Think nightly backups and disk/network alarms.

VMware, we need much more robustness in the alarms to make them useful. It is simply not good enough to trigger simple alarms based on a crossed threshold. Short "spikes" are par for the course and should not trigger alarms when utilization is normalized shortly afterwards. Due to the mechanics, complexity, and integration involved, alarms need to be much more intuitive and they need to have many more features and flexibility that administrators can take advantage from and build off of.

Need Templates/rules for creation wizard

Net56 — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 21:24:00 GMT

We have conventions for

1) naming Virtual Machines
2) naming virtual disks
3) paths to VM and disks

It would be convenient to be able to use/edit an XML file to define and restrict the choices a user can make to create a VM. An optional "strict" enforcement to allow an entry to deviate with an "This does not meet local creation policy, are you sure?" type of message.

As an example, our conventions require:

3-4 char customer abbreviation (being able to populate a dropdown list from an in-line list or anonymous LDAP or sql database query which be great.)

WID Widgets, Inc.
GAD Gadgets, LLC.
A321 Acme District 321

followed by a 2-3 character host type (again constrained by a lookup)

GC1 Global Catalog
FIL1 File server 1

A path prefix like "V:\vm1" (again constrained by a lookup)

The configurations go into a directory with the VM name. The Virtual disk should be prefixed with the hortname and "-" followed by a drive letter.

So you end up with something like:

Host: WIDFIL1

and files like:

V:\vm1\WIDFIL1\WIDFIL1-C.vmdk
V:\vm1\GADGC1\GADGC1.vmx

If I have not made my self clear, please reply with questions.

API to do link clone for VMWare workstation

accessory — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 04:45:35 GMT

Hi:

I think it will be great if I can do a link clone by programming. I am using VMWare workstation (5.5 and 6.0 beta). Both of them require me to use GUI to do a link clone. But in some situation, I need to do a link clone through a program. Right now, what I can do is to make sufficient link clones in advance and hope they will not be used up.

Thanks.

Alerting for available space in a lun

Lfrisino — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 12:12:23 GMT

We would very much like to see a feature in Virtual Center which will monitor the avalable free space in a SAN lun formatted vmfs and alert us when a pre-set threshold has been reached. The Datastore displays how much free space is available, but does not send out any alerts when a threshold is reached.

HP-UX

Bruce Schmitt — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:52:40 GMT

Not really a request, more of a question. I have some 'very old' legacy code that runs on an HP 9000/J200. Is it possible for VM to support an HP-UX B.10.20 guest (i.e. physically possible or not possible, vs not enough user interest)? Thanks.

ESX 3 Vmotion between LUNS

timpmcfadden — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:54:22 GMT

I am in the process of upgrading to 3.0.1 using D-motion. (VMFS2 to VMFS 3 Vmotion and upgrade while VM is running)

It should be built into ESX the ability to Vmotion a running VM between two LUNS, between two ESX 3 boxes?!! (Similar to D-motion but with only (2) 3.0.1 boxes).

Regional options for

Andreas Seemueller — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 15:19:42 GMT

Dear VMware-Developers,

we are using Virtual Center for the central management of our ESX servers. Unfortunately we can't use one of the biggest advantages of Virtual Center: Templates

The reason for that are the missing features of the guest customization wizzard to create a sysprep.inf file with Regional settings other than English/US. The most annoying thing is the keyboard layout which can't be set to German without modification of the system's registry after the deployment.

Therefore I would kindly ask you to implement this feature in the next version of Virtual Center.

With best regards

Andreas Seemüller

Converter

allank — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:22:05 GMT

Hi

when using the VMware Converter and host migration, i'd like a option to shutdown the source server after successfull migration.

Allan kjaer

Secured Browse Datastore Rights

kimono — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 03:39:41 GMT

Feature request based on this thread. http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=70099

Can we have the browse datastore right implemented more securely?

To dig up an old thread: http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=434209&#434209

As MSTAHL75 points out "The downside appears to be that if the user has that permission then they can see all the items in the datastore including all ESX servers, VMs, and any subfolders. Not ideal but it works."

I couldn't agree more - this is a serious downside for large sites. Exposing the whole VC inventory to all users not only makes it more confusing for them, but exposes sensitive information (at least in ready only format if the rest of the permissions are setup properly). Does anybody know of a solution? I've tried applying the Browse Datastore right at lower layers (eg hosts and folders containing hosts) instead of at the Datacenter, but then the browse button is greyed out which mooots the whole point

kim

Using VMware Converter as gateway to ESX / VC

frapposelli — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:52:08 GMT

Here's the scenario:

Our Virtual Infrastructure is made of 1 Virtual Center on a physical machine + 20 ESX on Sun Blade x8400, all those machines share a single "management" gigabit switch (a physical one), this LAN is voluntarily isolated from the other LAN segments and we're facing a 250+ hosts P2V migration.

A good solution would be having a virtual machine running on ESX (every esx is physically connected to every single lan, almost 20 segment) that acting as a "migration gateway" would be connected to the "management" network (via the Service Console vswitch) and on every LAN segment depending on what machine we need to virtualize.

Routing the subnets is not an option (it's a financial environment) and we're currently using a two-step approach, using the virtual machine as a temporary storage for the p2v but it almost duplicate the time of the conversion.

So having an option that will made possible having a machine that act as a gateway between ESX and the physical machine would be appreciated, and will probably cut in half our migration time.

bye,
Fabio

Vmotion Timesync

jonhutchings — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 11:08:16 GMT

Currently if you vmotion a VM which has its clock sync'd to the ESX server clock using vmware tools the time will jump forwards if the destination server clock is running fast.
Consider the following scenario, 2 esx servers with ntp time sync to an external time source. VM on server A has say a service accessed using kerberos authentication, or a directory service replica for example.

Supposing over the weekend there is a problem with the ntp source such that the 2 servers drift and by Monday morning server B is now 10 mins fast .

A another VM on server A is very busy so the VM on Server A is automatically migrated to server B by DRS, the time jumps forward 10mins and now the requests to an external KDC are outside the allowed time radius, as they are in the future, this means that the service is no longer available as the users are unable to login.

a number of points here
1) it's the sysadmins responsibility to ensure servers are in sync however
2) There appears to be no notification mechanism to alert when time sync has been lost .
3) If the destination server time is different to the source server time for vmotion, wouldn't it be nice if an alert was displayed.

So I 'd like to suggest one or more of the following

1) an alert (in VC preferably) when timesync has been lost for more than a certain amount of time.
2) a check of time sync between esx hosts when performing a vmotion ( i.e the time cf the real world maybe wrong but as long as source and destination are in sync the vmotion proceeds)

3) Time sync with VC - perhaps the ability to have the primary time source as the VC server, and the ESX servers contacting the VC server for time, this way it should be possible to monitor the timesync (i.e when each server last contacted the VC server - what adjustments were made etc.) THis should be integrated into the VC gui

What do others think ?

TCG Extensions

caro-ch — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 14:55:37 GMT

Hi,

would it be possible to enhance the vmware-BIOS with TCG extensions? Perhaps, this could be done virtualizing a hardware TPM in the host system or using the tpm-emulator provided by Mario Strasser running in the host system. This feature would enable the usage of the trustedGrub in the guest system (for instance for academic purposes).

Thanks
Caro

VC 2.0 enhancement

Toes — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 05:59:18 GMT

Would it be possible to add the option to select extra columns within VC 2, more specifically the "recent tasks" pane for the ESX host name.

We have just migrated 37 VM's from a 2.5.2 to 3.0 environment and halfway through a migration you find yourself wondering which ESX host you selected for a cold migration, a "host" column would provide some relief!

Ta
Craig

Need of Product like VM Workstation for Hands-on-Lab

kkloesener — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 10:31:15 GMT

I need a product just like the VM Workstation but with no need for host os just like Esx does.

Think on classrooms or hands on labs where you start your computer and have a boot-manager like screen where you choose a System to startup.

This could/should be centralized managed. The virtual machines are deployed to local storage.

What do you think of this NEW product??

Multiple Choices for HA current failover capacity calculation

impensb — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 05:39:57 GMT

It seems like the calculation for HA regarding current failover capacity is fairly conservative. It would be nice to be able to adjust the capacity calculation to be more aggressive similar to DRS settings (conservative - aggressive).

directx support for old OS's

steve_hearnden — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 20:33:15 GMT

I would like to use VMware workstation for the old games which no longer work well on latest OS's.

For this end I would like VMware to support earlier versions of direct X on Windows 98 / Me.

The performance would not need to be native, as the target would be games developed for machines 2 - 10 times slower than the current set of machines.

PCMCIA support

cci — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:20:06 GMT

VMWare would be a great benefit to me (and other PLC/HMI programmers) if it had some kind of PCMCIA-passthrough support.

I use a proprietary PC card (Allen-Bradley PCMK) on a daily basis. The user manual for the PCMK card may be found here: http://www.rockwellautomation.com/support/pccards/get/1784-PCMK_IM.pdf#search=%22pcmcia%20pcmk%22

Allen-Bradley owns the PLC market, and this card is used as the primary interface for many of their models. Many large manufacturers (GM for one) rely exclusively on Allen-Bradley products.

If you will take the time to check the forums at Control.com and PLCs.net, you will see that many developers are looking for virtual machine software that offers PCMCIA support. This would allow us to isolate the myriad (sometimes conflicting) software development packges. Without PCMCIA support, VMWare is all but useless.

Thanks.

Mac OS X as a guest

jmscinc@optonline.net — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:55:14 GMT

Can you add Mac OS X as a guest OS on VI 3?

Unable to choose network when deploying from Templates

TComp — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 11:38:32 GMT

When deploying a guest from a Template, you no longer have the choise to select the network the new guest will reside on.

This function was in VC 1.x, but is not in VI3.

We have over 50 networks (VLANS) and need this function.

The only workaround I can see (right now) is that we deploy useing a template, and choose not to power on the guest.
We then need to choose the correct network for the guest, then power on.

I am impressed with the new tempate functions in VI3, but this missing function is a setback.

Virtual Machine Question

Wimo — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 15:56:40 GMT

This seems like it would either be easy or impossible, but how about making it so those Virtual Machine Questions (like "this vm was created with buslogic but should have lsilogic) pop up ONLY in the client from which the work is being performed?

Today, someone is doing a P2V, while I am working on something else, and his questions keep popping up in front of me. It can get pretty confusing...

Win2k3 - Nic renaming after adding new SCSI device

mcocat — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:48:25 GMT

In windows 2003 guests, if you add a new SCSI device (on a new controller) it renumbers the existing PCI devices which results in Windows seeing existing NICs as new NICs with default configs.

Can new SCSI controllers be added to empty PCI slots instead of renumbering existing devices?

Please add support for MSCS with SP1 in VI3

atzi — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:48:54 GMT

VI3 is nearly a half year old and Windows Server 2003 SP1 Cluster isn't supported. Guys, it's time for this!

In Fusion - "Guest Fit" for Vista

patrnel — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:57:53 GMT

What is the time frame for having "guest fit" for Windows Vista running under Fusion on a Mac? I love the beta btw and have had almost no troubles. I would really like to be able to resize my window however instead of having to select a resolution and stick to it. Thanks so much.

P Nelson
www.pcnelson.com

More flexibility for vmware-config.pl (Linux)

sanne — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:18:08 GMT

The nvidia kernel module installer has two nice options that should be very easy to implement and very useful for people testing linux kernels:
-K to have the installer only build the kernel module (and not having to reconfigure the rest, or even having to stop running VM's)
--kernel-name= to compile the module for another installed kernel (NOT the running one).

So people could easily script theyr new kernel updates without breaking vmware configuration on each reboot.

Please stop useing embedded descriptors

continuum — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 15:48:41 GMT

Please stop useing embedded descriptors for vmdks AND snapshots as soon as possible

Embedded descriptors are used for 3 disktypes only:
monolithicSparse,
snapshots for monolithicSparse,
snapshots for monolithicFlat

Trouble-shooting is almost impossible for average users.
If they try to edit the embedded descriptors with hexeditors they run a very high risk to corrupt their files ...
See this post as another example why embedded descriptors are VERY,VERY user-unfriendly
http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=69037&tstart=0

Ulli

two DRS-"root"-Ressource-Pools inside one VMware HA-Cluster

wtreutz — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:01:59 GMT

I think it were a nice feature to create inside one VMware HA-Cluster two DRS "root"-Ressource-Pools, each represent one location of a physikal Data Center.
This will allow DynamicRessourceSheduling inside of each Data Center Location and allow an HA-Failover to the other Data Center Side. The VM-VMDK-Files are (must) be accessable from the mirrored datastore, which will be activate from inside the physical Storagesystem via scripts.

VIC: Summary of used disk space by VM

bister — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 13:09:05 GMT

It would be nice to have a summary of how much disk space a VM is using on the datastore, analogue to the "CPU Count", "NIC Count" or "Memory Size - MB" columns in the "Virtual Machines" inventory view of VIC. The value is already avaliable in datastore browser or VM settings, so why not in the overview?!

Regards,
Christian

Missing iSNS support within VMware iSCSI initiator

AlHack — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:43:36 GMT

I'm currently working with a VMware farm that's connected to an EMC iSCSI target. To identify/select initiators it would be very helpful if the VMware iSCSI initiator would support iSNS (iSCSI Name Server).
Any ideas, plans, feature updates or tricks????

Emulating Cisco/<whatever> hardware.

Sunemaster — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 10:04:54 GMT

Wouldn't it be cool if VMWare would have some kind of "agreement" with Cisco and other HW manufacturers, and be able to emulate their hardware?

Thinking of loading an IOS/PIX/ASA image into a VM.

One could startup a Cisco test lab in no time.

Dunno if it's smart for production, but certainly test scenarios.

Just a quick thought.

menubar

garung — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 21:22:52 GMT

Please add feature to hide menubar on linux, thanks

Pre/Post scripts with snapshots

kix1979 — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:06:47 GMT

Please allow snapshots to run the pre-freeze-script and post-thaw-script WITHOUT having to quiesce the file system. Since quiescing is somewhat broken right now anyways it makes things much harder!

Thomas

VMware grid computing

david.carboni — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 09:26:43 GMT

With VI having DR and HA, it seems we are almost at the point of having a VMware "grid".

How amazing if hardware could be added to a fluid pool of resource. It seems almost there.

David

Virtual Center needs MySQL support!!

jdinkel — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 16:36:24 GMT

I would love for Virtual Center to support MySQL as the database backend. It's such a hassle having to maintain our unreliable MS SQL 2000 Server, especially when we have a snappy MySQL server that has NEVER crashed or given us any problems, and responds much faster despite being on older/slower hardware than our MS SQL Server.

VC pass through credentials

ccullingford — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:53:20 GMT

I would like the ability for the Virtual Center client running on a users workstation to auto login using the domain credentials being used on the workstation.

Chris

Virtual Printer Emulation ?

telfred — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:06:44 GMT

This is just a thought, what about virtual printer emulation ? When some large plotters or other serious printers cost thousands to purchase a virtual printer would be a real benefit.

Help required - Vmware Posters

dheerajg77 — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 05:23:49 GMT

I am not sure if this is the right forum or place to put up this question but I need some help on Vmware Posters

If some one can give me ideas on it or can send me one that will be really great

I need some Vmware posters which can have anything on it

PVLAN Support in ESX VSwitches

Chris.Beauchamp — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:21:51 GMT

Just checking on when this feature will be implemented?

Thanks,

Chris

Hot-Add of CPU/RAM in ESX3

bister — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 13:38:37 GMT

Add the possibility to add CPU/RAM to a running VM and the automatic initialization of that reconfiguration upon reboot. I'm shure ESX is able to handle the difference between guest reboot and restart and to force a restart of the virtual hardware in that cases.

Regards,
Christian

VM Console for remote host - Login screen - default cursor to password box

michael@abramco — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:31:21 GMT

VM Console for remote host - Login screen - default cursor to password box.
I am constantly using this console to log into a remote host, and it always, correctly, comes up (on Windows) correctly defaulting to 'Remote Host'.
However, the cursor should default to the password box, so that I can just type it in. Now, I have to hit TAB three times and then type the password.

It is just a small annoyance, I know. But maybe since it's so small, there's a chance of getting it fixed before the next version is released ?

thanks,

Michael

VC full SNMP Integration -> VCSM

masaki — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 17:15:53 GMT

Are you thinking of integrating a deep Monitoring System for catching all traps (backup, performances, etc) and manage them for personalized output?

NTP Configuration in ESX via GUI

JeanVMD — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 11:03:39 GMT

It would nice if you could add the NTP time servers via the GUI.

- Functionality to add a NTP Server
- Functionality to resync time to NTP Server
- Functionality to set HWClock and choose local time zone

Why not have this functionality part of the VirtualCenter default ESX policy. When a ESX server is added to the VirtualCenter the NTP time is set as part of a bigger Machine policy.

Printing of maps

LMT — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 04:32:49 GMT

One of the features I use very much is the maps, a print option would be good.

Standard Security Policy for all added ESX Server in a VirtualCenter

JeanVMD — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 01:34:46 GMT

I would like to see a standard GUI interface that can be used to set local policies on each ESX server that is part of a VirtualCenter.
For example: Password restrictions (ageing Complexity, retries, reuse); SSH Security; Service Console Security Level; Service Console Firewall ports.
It would be something like a default ESX policy, similar domain policy. There are policies for the users levels of access within the VirtualCenter, but these do not include the list above. I want to be able to guarantee each ESX server complies with the corporate policy without any exception. Fair enough you could write a script applies the settings at install, but these scripts do not guarantee that the policy will be in place over time. The bottom line is each ESX Servers security needs to centrally controlled, to allow for the highest security standards

Moveable Tabs

BKeadle — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:30:52 GMT

I would love to be able to move the order of my Tabs in the Console for better (logical) organization of my open VMs!

VMWare Workstation VM List Tabs

lblondel — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 16:32:08 GMT

Hi All,

The most wanted function for me is a new system for Virtual Machine (VM) Tabs.

How about having :

- Tabs Order ?

Well these are my thoughts, hope you also would like to see them in future versions of this great product.

Thanks

Message was edited by:
lblondel

UIF CD/DVD image support

BKeadle — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:34:44 GMT

I just discovered a new CD/DVD image format, UIF, which is basically a compressed .ISO:
http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-whatuif.htm?=MagicDisc

Because I make much use of .ISOs for my VMs, it would be wonderful to be able to reduce the total size of my CD image library I use.

VMware services in windows should be start-on-demand, instead of automatic

laurince — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 14:42:02 GMT

After installed VMware Workstation for Windows, there are 4 services installed:

VMware Authorization Service
VMware DHCP Service
VMware NAT Service
VMware Virtual Mount Manager Extended

And currently they all of start-type automatic so as to always keep running, but vmware is not often used. So I tried to change their type to manual but they just won't start along with the guest OS.

Thus, my expectations:
1. the start-type of all vmware services are made manual
2. if not started yet, the required services should be started when necessary.
3. when a service is not used, e.g. after vmware is closed, it should be stopped is the serive is not automatic.

i know i am being impatient but

epping — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 14:07:59 GMT

i really could do with VI3 supporting vista as guest for VDI implementations, any idea when !!!

VC Roles request

Goatie — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:56:06 GMT

Hi, I like the feature in the Roles admin window where it shows you what users and folders have that particular role assigned to them.

It would be nice to be able to right-click a role assignment on the right tree and be able to remove (or reassign to another role) an entry rather then moving back to the inventory tree, navigating down to that spot and then removing/editing it.

Cheers

Steve.

Notes box in other areas

kreischl — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:55:54 GMT

Server and Cluster would be great.

Video recording in Virtual Center

daniel_uk — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 16:29:18 GMT

This would be great, its built into the new WS6 beta.

Would benefit for support with external companys for bugs and for when they try to waste valuable time going through with you the original problem you told them in the first place!

Its in red green and blue with a recording

Optimal Configuration Utility

dgwsgsdfg — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 21:11:13 GMT

I'm forever seeing request from people asking what the best system config is. It'd be nice if VMware would release a utility that would configure the host machine to optimially work for VMWare Server (or offer tips to do so).

IE: It would turn off all the windows bells and whistles, set the screen saver to a plain black screen, insure the HDD are not set to power down, alert you if a virus scanner is set to scan your VM files, etc.

It'd even be nice if it would have a screen where you could enable Vmware config file tweaks to make your system run faster.

Speaking of which, does anyone know if running in a lower color depth (16bit as opposed to 32bit) has any effect or system speed?, should I turn off video acceleration, CD-ROM cache, etc?

It'd be great if the real pro would produce an app and put their seal of approval on it.

Please stop guests dropping off Windows domains after reverting to snapshot

telfred — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:53:06 GMT

This is a request for the next release of VM Workstation, at least.

How difficult would it be to include the registry change mentioned in the post below to stop VM guests dropping out of the domain after reverting to a snapshot ?

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=389352

emulate USB flash drive

djc49939 — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 16:59:40 GMT

for the purposes of bitlocker without TPM on Windows Vista... so I don't have to map a physical usb key through.

VGA on Workstation

claygrazer — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 12:35:01 GMT

I use Workstation 5.5.1 on an XP host to create a DOS guest. I am very pleased with the software. My only problem is the VMWare VGA emulator within Workstation. I have a few DOS programs that do not recognize the WS VGA, most notably AutoCAD. I get the warning that VGA is not present. My whish list item is to have a more robust / complete flavor of VGA. Maybe some separate software that acts as a VGA driver would be possible? Thanks, Jim

Mounting a CD on a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive

majaKDZ — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 10:02:09 GMT

Hello,

Fixing this problem would be a nice addition to ESX Server 3.0.2 release...

I have an ESX Server 3.0.0 installed from scratch on a new HP ProLiant DL385 Server with a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive with an EIDE (ATAPI) interface. Mounting a CD crashes with "mount: /dev/cdrom: can't read superblock"...

After the installation there is a "/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0" line in /etc/fstab, the /mnt/cdrom directory is created, as well as a symbolic link "/dev/cdrom -> /dev/hda". There are three lines with "hda=ide-scsi" present in the /boot/grub/grub.conf file.

I found two ways of solving this problem at the Forum, but neither works for me.

A. Removing hda=ide-scsi from /boot/grub/grub.conf file and rebooting the server seems to be working for many, but (as it has been reported) the problem returns with updating the ESX Server form 3.0.0 to 3.0.1. I would also like to avoid messing with grub.conf if possible...

B. Replacing the symbolic link "/dev/cdrom -> /dev/hda" with "/dev/cdrom -> /dev/scd0" may be the fix for an USB-based type drive on an IBM BladeCenter server (also reported), but since I have an IDE/ATAPI type drive on an ESX Server, mounting a CD crashed with "mount: /dev/cdrom is not a valid block device"... (I was desperate, ok?)

I have the feeling I just need an appropriate /dev/??? for the drive...
It would be so nice if VMware fixed this bug. Please.

Thanks.
Maja

Gui -Less VMware Workstation/Server for Linux

MidRangeMaintenance — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:47:03 GMT

Now that VMware Workstation 6 is in a beta release and has a headless option, I'd like to see a gui-less option.

It would be nice to be able to install my favorite flavour of Linux without Gnome or KDE and throw on VMware workstationserver and manage my VM's via a web browser. Kind of like Esx without the cost associated with purchasing server specific hardware.

Jason

VMware virtual video card

Asteroza — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 02:13:28 GMT

Seeing VMware develop a virtual video card and associated drivers, instead of continuing to use the Cirrus card emulation would be a huge improvement. Make it an open standard, and make it flexible enough to evolve without excessively hindering backwards compatibility. I imagine to a certain degree that is already occuring with their OpenGL work, but by coming out and commiting to a fully virtual video card standard, a number of possibilities open up. Anything from being able to tweak the VM perceived video RAM, to offloading the OpenGL to a render cluster of VM's.

Battery info

ziloni — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 12:11:55 GMT

Just saw the VMWare 6 info, wow! As usual picking up a lot of stuff we've been asking for and even some stuff we didn't even imagine!

However something additional that would be useful is battery simulation. Windows Search and especially with Vista a lot of software runs differently when on battery than when not. Right now thought my guests have no idea when the host is on battery and just go off indexing, etc... It would be great if the guests via VMWare tools would think they are running on battery too, even if the % was not passed, just the fact that they would act on battery profile would be great!