VMware Communities : Unanswered Threads - Submit a User Solution

Converter error "The method 'ConverterValidateTargetStorageParams' does not exist on the object"

ahachenberg — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:49:29 GMT

This post is in refrence to running Standalone converter from a server seperate of P2V source and target.

Error: The method 'ConverterValidateTargetStorageParams' does not exist on the object

Fix: Uninstall Converter Agent, retry P2V.

Today I was attempting to P2V a running Windows server and revieve this error on the "Data to Copy" section in the "view/edit settings" portion of the converter setup wizard. I recalled that when I tested the P2V process (successfully) with this Windows machine that I was using Converter version 4.0.0 and that I chose options to manually uninstall the converter agent. This time, howeve, I was using the upgraded Converter version 4.0.1 and was receiveing this mysterious error that I found no mention of on Google searches or the VMWare site. Luckily it seems the error was cleared by removing the Converter Agent and letting the Converter App install the shiney new version.

I hope this is helpful.

Storage virtualization.

MattZhou — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:34:31 GMT

Virtualization plays more and more important role in the life of IT. What could be a heap of physical boxes in the past now turns into just a bunch of files and a virtual infrastructure. VMware occupies 45% of the virtualization market and is a recognized leader in providing virtualization solutions.

Speaking about virtualization in general, we understand that virtually everything related to the IT is possible. One can create virtual hardware, network configuration, a single workstation or a set of virtual workstations, servers and so on. Let alone the central management and low costs of implementation, adoption and maintenance in comparison to physical hardware. Virtualization just changed the way IT goes.

With virtualizing hardware, network and OS I/O operations, we should not forget about storage virtualization which rapidly develops. Virtualization of storage helps achieve location independence by abstracting the physical location of the data.

With storage virtualization, multiple independent storage devices, that may be scattered over a network, appear to be a single monolithic storage device, which can be managed centrally. Usually data storage virtualization goes very closely along with shared storage virtualization. One of the major benefits of abstracting the host or server from the actual storage is the ability to migrate data while maintaining concurrent I/O access.

There are three main implementation approaches :

Host-based

Storage device-based

Network-based

As for technology used in virtual storage virtualization, we can mention iSCSI, FCoE, SMB, VTL and others

Backing up virtual shared storage also becomes easier. This is more convenient and safe at the same time to backup a file than create a copy of a physical SAN.

What other implementation scenarios do you use in your environment? What are the main advantages for your IT environment do you find most important in using virtual storage?

Copying a VM from MAC to PC

vantosscott — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:44:16 GMT

I have a Mac (osx 10.5.7) running VM Fusion (2.0.4).
I have 4 or 5 CentOS VM's running on it. I need to copy one of these VM's to a laptop running windows.
Can someone point me to the manual or let me know the easiest way to copy this.

How to fix disappearing eth0 in Gentoo

isketerol — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:45:19 GMT

Hi:

This is a note about how I fixed the disappearing eth0 in Gentoo Linux under VMWare Workstation. It should work for Server and ESXi as well.

The issue is that the module for the network card does not autoload. My inelegant solution was to hack /etc/init.d/net.lo to add these two lines:

modprobe pcnet32

depmod -a

after the last of the opening comments. I restarted /etc/init.d/net.eth0 and eth0 showed up and grabbed a DHCp address.

Hope others will find this useful.

Kevin

sFlow traffic monitoring for virtual switches

Peter6343 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:11:07 GMT

InMon just released free software for monitoring traffic in virtual switches:

http://www.inmon.com/products/virtual-probe/index.php

sFlow is a popular, multi-vendor standard (see sFlow.org) for reporting on network traffic. By exporting sFlow, the software allows virtual switches to be monitored by the same tools used to monitor physical switches.

Please try it out and let us know what you think.

Using iSCSI Cake for ESX 3.5

tankyren — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:25:08 GMT

iSCSI Cake is a full featured Windows iSCSI Target. It differentiates from other iSCSI targets in that it supports VMDK file as storage source. This feature enables user to share existing virtual machine disk files or boot from iSCSI to existing operating systems. And whenever there is a problem, the VMDK file can be mounted and diagnosed using VMware's mount tool.

Using iSCSI Cake with VMware ESX Server: http://www.iscsicake.com/iscsi/iscsicakeesx.pdf

Boot Windows 2003 from iSCSI Cake: http://www.iscsicake.com/iscsi/iscsicakedisklessen.pdf

Web site: http://www.iscsicake.com

Easy End User VM Console Access

rbmadison — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:42:09 GMT

I found a bit of aspx code a while ago to allow console access to a VM. It's written in ASP. Attached are the files. Below are the steps you need to do to get this working. Once it's running you simply type in the name or IP of the VM you want to connect to and it brings up the web console of that VM only. If anyone is good at javascript it would be nice to convert this from ASP to javascript so a separate web IIS ASP webserver isn't needed.

1. Create a readonly database user that can access your VirtualCenter database. This is the account that will be used to query the database and get the remote console information.
2. Install IIS on any server other than your VirtualCenter server. You can make this a VM. This is required because we need asp support.
2. Copy the attached getlist.asp and default.asp attached fles into it.
3. Create a system ODBC connection on the IIS server to your VirtualCenter database using the readonly user account.
4. Edit the getlist.asp file and change the following:
a. Change the line "strConnectLog = "Provider=SQLOLEDB..." to reflect your ODBC connection. Use the readonly user account you created in
step 1.
b. Replace all occurances of myvcserver with the host name of your VirtualCenter server.
c. Save the file.
6. Edit the default.asp and replace occurances of myvcserver.mydomain.com with the fully qualified host name of your VirtualCenter server and save
the file.
7. Go to your VirtualCenter server and navigate to \\myvcserver\c$\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware
VirtualCenter\docRoot. Rename the index.html file to orgindex.html. Don't worry this doesn't break your VirtualCenter and the page will still be
accessible.
8. Save the attached index.html into this docRoot folder.
9. Edit the saved index.html and change the line replace vmconsole.mydomain.com with the fully qualified name of the IIS web site you created in step
2.

Now when you access your VirtualCenter server you will just see a page asking you which console to connect to. Type in a VM IP or host name and click submit.

You can get back to the original default web page by going to the bottom of the page and clicking on the last underscore at the bottom of the page. It will bring up the orgindex.html page. I wanted to make this somewhat hidden for end users but still accessible.

Let me know if I missed anything. If we could get this working in javascript this would be even better so we wouldn't need another IIS server.

Thanks!

SQL Server Reporting Services Snapshot Report Solution

jdsegarra — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:25:23 GMT

Tired of answering the question "hey what snapshots are out there on the vm's?" This is a simple report I threw together that queries the Virtual Center database and reports all existing snapshots on the vm's ordered by ESX host. This is dynamic so you can add however many hosts you want and it will automatically pick up the changes. Lemme know what you think, this is my first foray into Reporting Services. Note you'll have to change the data source connection obviously to tailor to your enterprise. I created an account that has read only rights against the VC database for this project. If I'm missing anything in terms of files to upload please let me know. Thanks.

Windows NT 4.0

ialvaradohn — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 20:18:54 GMT

Hi Everybody,

I need some help on a Windows NT 4.0, I've just converted this OS from a compaq Proliant and now that it has been converted to a virtual machine, it seems not to configure, nor recognize any network adapter. I have no knowledge on how to configure a Windows NT 4.0, so does anyone know who to configure the network adapter in it. I've checked everything and nothing seems to work, run the ipconfig command on the command line, and the name of the network adapter shown has the following name = PPP adapter NdisWAN.

Accessing Virtual Ceneter 2.5/ESX3.5 over VPN Tunnel

mnasir — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:49:05 GMT

You will need to do the following to enables access to VC 2.5 using VI client over VPN tunnel:

Open onlty port:443(https) to Virtual Center server

Allow DNS traffic

open port 902(tcp), 903(tcp), to all the esx servers.

This will allow youto access virtual center using VI client and you should also be able to access Virtual machine console. If you olny open port to VC server than you won't be able to access VM console.

Switching to Virtualbox for various reasons - ALSA sound and supported Coherency Mode to name two of them...

Luke Skywalker — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:30:51 GMT

Hello,

I have been a long time VMware Workstation on Linux user, probably for the past 9 years. In the past year, I have met VMware sales people and techs at VMware user groups in the Detroit area. And I have told them I would like to see ALSA used in the Linux version, so audio can be shared with other desktop applications. I don't know why VMware has not done a better job on Linux as it has done for Mac OS X. Both platforms have, pretty much, the same desktop penetration in the market.

Nobody at Vmware has listen to me (or countless thounsands of other Linux users.) I am fed up with the excuses of VMware upper management decisions. I am going to Virtualbox. Here are the reasons...

1. VMware has some poor excuses to support ALSA on Linux. And VMware administration is stupid in not doing right by the customer in making it easier to run VMware on Linux, in addition to other apps that also run on Linux. Virtualbox natively supports ALSA. It works. It's great. No more Petr patches.

2. The Virtuabox virtual sound card passes audio from the host microphone on Linux to the guest virtual soundcard. Vmware's doesn't, and I have to attach a USB device to get Vmware to accept a mic connection. Not with Virtualbox.

3. Virtualbox has a kick-butte Coherency mode on Linux. VMware? Windows Desktop, still? Makes it look like Linux is running Windows apps. And looks are all that matter for Windows right? Oh, is Virtualbox going to shudder because VMware paid it blackmail money to Microsoft not to port Coherency mode to Linux, so VMware doesn't have to worry about the Dark Side of the Force, but Virtualbox does? I am a Jedi Knight of Linux. Sue me.

4. Virtualbox has all the functionality I need. Network setup past NAT is a bear, but it is sure as heck better and feasable to mess with that and do it, than to successfully implement VMware to use ALSA with the pathetic Petr patches.

5. Vmware, I know what company you really support and snuggle up to. And I have hated that company ever since 1975. And it is not Apple. I see where the loyality is. I go for loyalty to the people. I believe you have a misguided loyalty. Therefore, it is time for me to part ways with you, VMware Workstation. So long. It was fun while it lasted. But I have found a better performing product. And when I become head of a 10,000 worstation department, and I need virtualization on the desktop, it won't be you I come to, unless you prove to me, you are more loyal to me, than you are to that company I hate. You have joined with the Imperial Regime of Software. I am with the Rebel Alliance of Open Source users.

- Luke Skywalker

physical to virtual backup

franeborozan — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:21:54 GMT

Hello all,

I am more somekind of a lurker on this forums.
Lately I was working on p2v backup project. I will here in short describe what it is about and take a little tame visit the page and tell me what do you think about it. Please note that whole project is open and only free tools are used in implementation.
Whole process is on the www.p2vbackup.com

I will here describe whole process of implementation of virtual servers into your current network infrastructure. With virtualization you will get virtual failover servers and you will have fresh replica of all of your important data, so in case main servers failure you will have fast disaster recovery plan that just works. Of course you can have clusters in your network infrastructure but what is the cost of managing clusters and paying licenses for that expensive kind on in stable software.
There are always savings into hardware and power consumption, imagine now you need to have one physical for every server you own if you want to have good disaster recovery plan, with this you can have dozen of backups on the same server and you will run only backup that is needed in case of the disaster.

big.picture.of project
Main sense of whole project is to keep employees work without interruption caused by server hardware. This process provides low cost failover solution without datacenters or clusters or expensive special hardware and software.
Please note that this project is not best for all server backups, the best would be to contact me with extensive network, servers and data types information and I will suggest is this good solution for you.

Internet connection for VM's

bandhan — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:20:08 GMT

Hi..

I am having a Linux server, top of that i installed window VM's.!!

When i given internet connection to my server...In my linux server i am able to browse but inside VM machine i am not..!!

Can anybody suggest me.. how i resolve this problem.... and what all steps to follow to get internet connectivity.

Thanks,

-Bandhan

Backup VM of Windows OS with ImageX

9whirls — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:59:37 GMT

Is there anybody interested in this topic?

What's the benefit of doing this?

1. Much smaller disk consumption (compared with zipping each VM into a separate package), because ImageX just stores shared files once if you archieve multiple Windows OS into one WIM file.
2. Easier to share among ESX servers. VM on ESX has a fixed disk size which means it will take much longer time to migrate a vmdk file (equal to the disk size) than doing backup-and-restore via an ImageX image which is based on the actual payload. Furthermore, with ImageX you don't need VC anymore to do VM cloning
3. V2P ? I didn't test this yet, but I believe it's doable, at least logically:). BTW, I believe VMware converter will support ImageX sooner or later. Let's just wait and see.

Maintaining End-to-End Service Levels for VMware Virtual Machines Using VMware DRS and EMC Navisphere QoS

gilmania — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:58:19 GMT

*
White Paper: Maintaining End-to-End Service Levels for VMware Virtual Machines Using VMware DRS and EMC Navisphere QoS - Applied Technology

*

http://powerlink.emc.com/km/live1/en_US/Offering_Technical/White_Paper/H4089-maint-end-end-srvc-vmware-virt-mach-vmware-drs-emc-navisphere-qos-wp.pdf?mtcs=ZXZlbnRUeXBlPUttQ2xpY2tDb250ZW50RXZlbnQsZG9jdW1lbnRJZD0wOTAxNDA2NjgwMmNiYjFlLGRvY3VtZW50VHlwZT1wZGYsbmF2ZU5vZGU9MGIwMTQwNjY4MDFiZmYxZg__

This white paper describes tests in which Navisphere QoS Manager and VMware's Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) ran in a VMware ESX virtual environment using EMC CLARiiON storage systems. The tests clearly demonstrate that with QoS Manager and DRS multiple applications running in a VMware ESX virtual machine can maintain exceptional mission-critical performance while sharing a CLARiiON storage system.

How To Submit - Community-Supported Hardware

ivanlin — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:59:48 GMT

I'm having trouble finding out where to submit community supported hardware configurations.

There's a statement in the link http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/resources/communitysupport/ that says "To submit an entry to this list, register or log in at the VMware Store; be sure and join VMTN when you register. Then create a new entry using the links on the lower left."

I've been looking for the link but without any luck, if anyone have the link please let me know. Thank you.

Security storage with Netapp Decru DataFort solution

tyeo — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:07:11 GMT

anyone have comfirm solution paper about Decru DataFort with SAN (FC) storage?

Not Able to remove Snapshots using SH script

jiteshk — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 19:26:29 GMT

Hello All,

I am not able to take the backup through SH script. The script is giving me the error message while removing the snapshots of VM. I am facing the same problem with all the VM's. After running the script, I am getting the error message mentions below:

sh DVM.sh ) = 1esnapshot(ITITEST_Snap "rror executing the command "removesnapshots
Run /usr/bin/vmware-cmd -h to see usage information.

Also note that I am able to remove snapshots manually from command line without using the script. The command which I am using to remove the snapshots is given below:
vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/STORAGE_LUN1/ITITEST2/ITITEST2.vmx removesnapshots

Script for taking and removing the snapshots:

#NODE
#TAKING SNAPSHOT
#REMOVING SNAPSHOTS
#
#
#
#
#ITITEST2
vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/STORAGELUN_1/ITITEST2/ITITEST2.vmx createsnapshot ITITEST_Snap
vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/STORAGELUN_1/ITITEST2/ITITEST2.vmx removesnapshots
#RandD1 (Disk1)
vmware-cmd /home/vmware/RandD1/RandD1.vmx addredo scsi0:0
vmware-cmd /home/vmware/RandD1/RandD1.vmx commit scsi0:0
#RandD1 (Disk2)
vmware-cmd /home/vmware/RandD1/RandD1.vmx addredo scsi0:1
vmware-cmd /home/vmware/RandD1/RandD1.vmx commit scsi0:1

If anyone wants more information, please let me know. Please help me out in solving the problem.

Thanks,
Jitesh Kumar

How-to: Increasing the size of a VM from start to finish

strafford — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:38:02 GMT

Not sure if this has been posted somewhere but I was not able to easily find it.

_ *Adding Space to Virtual Machines (example for RHEL VMs)</</p>

1.Increase the size of the VM using vmware-vdiskmanager - in this case I am going from 20Gb to 40Gb:

# vmware-vdiskmanager -X 40Gb vm_name.vmdk

2.Make sure that the VMware Server Console sees the newly added space (in Virtual Machine settings).

3.Partition the added space with parted:

* # parted*
* (parted) print*
* Disk geometry for /dev/sda: 0.000-40960.000 megabytes*
* Disk label type: msdos*
* Minor Start End Type Filesystem Flags*
* 1 0.031 101.975 primary ext3 boot*
* 2 101.975 20473.461 primary lvm*
* (parted) mkpart*
* Partition type? primary/extended? primart*
* Partition type? primary/extended? primary*
* File system type? ext2? ext2*
* Start? 20474.000*
* End? 40960.000*
* (parted) print*
* Disk geometry for /dev/sda: 0.000-40960.000 megabytes*
* Disk label type: msdos*
* Minor Start End Type Filesystem Flags*
* 1 0.031 101.975 primary ext3 boot*
* 2 101.975 20473.461 primary lvm*
* 3 20473.462 40954.768 primary*

4.Create the disk space into a physical volume (PV) using the pvcreate command:

* # pvcreate /dev/sda3*

5.Extend the current logical volume group by adding this new PV:

* # vgextend VolGroup00 /dev/sda3*

6.Now extend the logical volume with the additional space:

* # lvextend -L+20G /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00*

7.Finally, expand the underlying system to exploit the additional space you just added using ext2online:

* # ext2online /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00*
* ext2online v1.1.18 - 2001/03/18 for EXT2FS 0.5b*

8.Now your system should be ready to go with the added space, check using the df command:

* # df*
* Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on*
* /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00*
* 40607080 18185924 20360308 48% /*
* /dev/sda1 101086 9133 86734 10% /boot*
* none 257852 0 257852 0% /dev/shm*

/usr/sbin/vmkiscsi-ls

Rajesh_interoute — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 08:57:55 GMT

Hi All,

I have iscsi configured on my ESX 3.0.2 server, netapp is acting like iscsi server.

My Netapp has 2 IP address assigned to it , Same LUNs have been made visible to ESX 3.0.2 server via 2 diff IP address ( both IP belonging to same Netapp Storage )

I checked the /usr/sbin/vmkiscsi-ls and saw which IP is Active, as you can see from the output below 10.255.1.10 is the Target Address and 10.130.1.10 is the backup address..

~~root@Server1 root~~# /usr/sbin/vmkiscsi-ls
*******************************************************************************
Cisco iSCSI Driver Version ... 3.4.2 (16-Feb-2004 )
*******************************************************************************
TARGET NAME : iqn.08.com.netapp:aggra.filer.test.internal
TARGET ALIAS :
HOST NO : 0
BUS NO : 0
TARGET ID : 0
TARGET ADDRESS : 10.255.1.10:3260
SESSION STATUS : ESTABLISHED AT Thu Aug 30 11:11:41 2007
NO. OF PORTALS : 2
PORTAL ADDRESS 1 : 10.255.1.10:3260,1002
PORTAL ADDRESS 2 : 10.130.1.10:3260,1001
SESSION ID : ISID 00023d000001 TSID 4d0
*******************************************************************************

I need to get rid of 10.255.1.10 IP address, so now my question is what will happen to the LUNs when i Change that IP on Netapp ?

Will the LUNs be still visible to ESX via 10.130.1.10 IP address ?

Any Commets/Suggestion is welcom..

Regards,

Rajesh

VCBmanager Release 01

skafoelix — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:18:20 GMT

VCBmanager is a front-end to vcbMounter and provides a GUI and command line combination to create and delete snapshots.

You can also specify how many concurrent jobs you want to allow,
delay specific hosts,
see which jobs completed successfully or which failed,
view the creation or deletion logs of a job,
see when a job started, when creation started, when creation ended, when deletion started, when deletion ended and when the job finally finished.

Everyone that ever used vcbMounter with any backup software and tried to automate creation and deletion but wanted to keep track of the failed jobs and know why they did fail will appreciate VCBmanager.

http://vcbmanager.sourceforge.net/

ElasticDrive Beta - Remote Amazon S3 Filesystem (VM Data Backup & Recovery)

enomaly — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 21:44:09 GMT

This is a note to inform you that the ElasticDrive S3 Backed FileSystem is now available for free download at http://www.elasticdrive.com/download.html

ElasticDrive is a network block device based upon the Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service). ElasticDrive provides a caching block device driver which pushes blocks to and from S3 as if they were being written to a local block device.

ElasticDrive provides this service through a virtual NBD service. The NBD service translates from standard NBD to S3 packets transparently, so that the client (the kernel) sees a generic block device. NBD is supported on almost every linux kernel. Simply modprobe nbd, and you are ready to use ElasticDrive.

ElasticDrive is not intended to replace your existing hard drives or network filesystems directly. ElasticDrive is intended to provide seamless backup, RAID target devices, or backing stores for higher level distributed filesystems.

Release notes & Installation instructions
http://www.elasticdrive.com/uploads/media/readme.txt

You can learn more about Enomaly at www.enomaly.net

--

Reuven Cohen
Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc.
www.enomaly.com :: 212 203 4734 x 1