First post on the VMware forums, a 'hi' to all for this and all my future postings
Situation: I've been given the assignment to get more out of our Dell PowerEdge 2800 than just the Win2003 we used to run on it. I've already upgraded the RAM to 5GB, so that shouldn't be a problem. We'd like to run 2 virtual hosts (small start to see if the machine can manage it, it doesn't have VT-capable CPUs), one Win2003, one Linux. This machine is used for our internal business, so stability is a must. I've looked at several virtualisation techniques, both XEN and KVM are impossible for our situation. So VMware is our only option. Someone tipped me about ESXi, so I'd like to try that.
My question: will ESXi run on our machine? I checked the compatibility list and ESX should be okay, but there's nothing about ESXi. Does this mean it is not going to work at all, or that VMware doesn't give any guarantees (because tests simply didn't take place, for example)? If ESXi is not going to work, will VMware server be able to do what we want?
Thanks in advance!
Thread moved to ESXi forum.
Well, the 2850 is on Dave's list:
And if I recall, the difference between a 2850 and a 2800, is basically the layout (tower vs. rack mount)
So you may have success with ESXi.
Jase McCarty
Co-Author of VMware ESX Essentials in the Virtual Data Center
(ISBN:1420070274) from Auerbach
What happens when the BMC on the PE 2800 throws an event like "it's getting hot in here" or the DRAC reports "shutdown host operating system" or the PERC reports "another one ( UltraSCSI 15K drive ) bites the dust"? Normally the CPU would be booted into RHEL or W2K3 and DELL's software on those operating systems would detect the event and possibly shutdown the system in an orderly manner (or at least write to a log file somewhere). (Also, I'm assuming the DRAC does its remote-media trick at the firmware level and does not involve the host operating system, which is a big assumption.) So the question is, how is that handled under ESX 3i on a "supported" DELL server? Is all the critical stuff just standard ACPI or is it some kind of DELL proprietary interrupt? ESX 3u must have such built-in support for the DELL machines that it officially supports and so one can wonder if that DELL support would also work with the BMC on the PE 2800, or if it would merely treat these great machines like another white box and force us to rely on the DRAC for all monitoring (rather than OpenManage) and deal with the BMC/DRAC hard-crashing the operating system during catastrophic failures. So the original poster's question about whether or not this is a case where DELL just didn't test (and so can't "officially" support) or if it's some kind of incompatibility is really important.
Also, I noticed that the PE 2800's BIOS doesn't allow the Intel VT extensions to be enabled (so no mixed 64/32 bit support under say VMware Server for W2K3 v1.0.5). Is ESX 3i capable of disregarding the BIOS and enabling this (if supported by the processors) itself?
Lastly, the PE2800 uses UltraSCSI (probably the last model to do so) with an optional external SAS rack. It also has an on-board ATA (IDE) controller that can run drives that cost a tiny fraction of what DELL charges and it supports external USB2 drives (if the host operating system can handle it). Does ESX support booting from the battery-backed-up PERC4 UltraSCSI controller in RAID1 mode as well as non-bootable ATA/IDE drives (CD and HD) and non-bootable external USB2 mass-storage (even with a reformat)? Seems like it would, but just checking to see if anyone has actually done it.
Well, my boss was breathing down my neck this afternoon so I explained the situation to him. He then gave me the 'go' to just try ESXi. Actually, it installed quickly and flawlessly. As an absolute beginner with VMware, I find most of the procedures intuitive and straight forward. Too bad the Infrastructure Client seems to exist only for Windows (can anyone confirm this?). Since I'm running Ubuntu on my desktop, I am now administering the machine trough an XP session in Virtualbox :smileycool:
Too bad ESXi doesn't seem to recognize the USB2 drive I connected to it, which contains the ISO files of the guest operating systems I want to install. The Infrastructure Client only allows me to attach ISO's which are available to my desktop system, so I ended up connecting the USB2 drive to my desktop and streaming the ISO from my desktop, over the LAN to ESXi. Which is, of course, terribly slow.
I'll keep playing with ESXi for a while and hopefully I can get a solution to all the things vaxman mentioned.
About the PE 2800 in relation to VT: According to Dell, the PE 2800 doesn't support VT CPU's, even when upgrading to dualcore XEONs. The only CPU's available to the PE 2800 are Paxvilles and Irwindales, none of which have VT (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon ). So it's not surprising the BIOS won't let you tun on VT. I'm not sure if ESXi will let you bypass the BIOS, but for the PE 2800 it's of no use anyway.
Too bad the Infrastructure Client seems to exist only for Windows (can anyone confirm this?).
Yes, that's the only option.
You do have the option to copy the ISOs to the datastore of the ESXi host. It'll be faster than using the client drive option.
I'm not sure if ESXi will let you bypass the BIOS, but for the PE 2800 it's of no use anyway.
No, this would need to be set in the BIOS.
I just tried uploading a file through the Infrastructure Client... Result: a Windows bluescreen and immediate reboot (some Virtualbox quirk?). Then I tried to enable SSH (following the steps described here: http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/ESXi_enable_SSH.php ) to try to upload my files using sshfs. However, SSH doesn't seem to be available anymore. Even after enabling SSH, it's impossible to connect and a quick portscan shows no open port 22. Too bad VMware keeps me locked to Windows
The Windows bluescreen was in the VBox on your Ubuntu 'puter or did it happen on the PE 2800 after the upload completed? If it was on the Ubuntu side, would recommend trying (what else) VMware Server for Ubuntu instead of VBox.
Maybe you could reformat the USB drive to be in FAT32 (like a giant thumbdrive) and see if ESX 3i will support it!
Thanks for reporting your experiments!!
The bluescreen was indeed on the Ubuntu / Virtualbox side, the upload didn't even start. I havn't been able to get VMware player running in Ubuntu 8.04 and since Sun is offering working .deb's for Ubuntu, I havn't looked back. Perhaps I'll try a different approach: RDP'ing to a Windows box and connecting to ESXi from there (I'm getting this weird idea of RDP'ing to the virtual Win2003 I just set up and installing the Infrastructure Client on that machine to connect to ESXi... Would that be insane or what?! :smileylaugh: - seriously, we still have loads of non-virtualised Windows machines around, so it's not a big deal... yet).
It's not supported, but you can enable SSH access to ESXi and then copy the ISOs directly - http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/ESXi_enable_SSH.php.
Dave, thanks for the tip but I already tried that (see above) but it doesn't seem to work anymore. I guess VMware 'fixed' that in their latest release...
They haven't fixed it. I have a system updated to the latest (the time bomb patch) and it was Ok for SSH before and after.
>. I havn't been able to get VMware player running in Ubuntu 8.04 and since Sun is offering working .deb's for Ubuntu, I havn't looked back.
My 2 cents is that VBox and Parallels are junky/unstable. But with certainty, the folks at VMware need to lower the bar a bit in their Linux hiring practices so they can get some folks in who ENJOY things like making "apt get" and the "drake" system work. I know VMware's website is abhorrent to basically the entire Twitter-generation too. (Can't believe they are trying to sell consumer software --for the Mac even! through this cold Big Blue like interface.) Really weird that VMware does not support Mac with VMware Server Console or either Mac or Linux with ESX's management interface. If they are going to slow down Xen (which was presumably the reason they released ESX 3i for free), they really need to fix this issue.
Well, then I guess there's a difference between the latest full release and the patched old release... I followed the SSH guide to the letter and it simply doesn't work. If there's anything else I can try, please let me know.
Well, seems SSH actually does work. It just needs one more step which is not in the tutorial - restart inetd. This can be done by either rebooting the system, or by executing the following two commands in the console:
ps | grep inetd (to get the PID of inetd)
kill -HUP <PID>
After that, it works like a charm. Now all we still need is a Linux VI client... :smileyshocked: