Kernel update on Vmware ESX

[fraber01]

Anyone can tell me if there's a plan to use 2.6 kernel un future versions of esx server... I am using usb disks to copy some critical vmdk and I would create a udev rule to mount/unmount the drives, but since I esx runs on 2.4.21, udev isn't available.

[RParker]

Just upload them using VI Client to the datastore on the ESX host.

ESX doesn't have a linux kernel, the kernel is a servic console of the machine. They probably won't update it since there is no need, the kernel that ESX uses is proprietary, and they only use the SC to boot the box and make changes, and the Service console is going away (probably in the next release of ESX). So get used to making external connections or uploading it to datastore or using the vmkernel to connect to a NFS share.

Or use veeam to upload files.. There are many ways to do besides inside the service console which is a very innefficient way to accomplish this.

[fraber01]

I tried this, however, copying large files over a nfs share take way too much time. I want to connect the disks to the SC... I created 'manuals' scripts to mount and unmount the disks, but I'd like to automate this with udev... I hope the SC won't go away :smileygrin:

[Texiwill]

Hello,

The SC (management appliance) happens to be GNU/Linux. On ESXi the management appliance is a GNU/Posix environment. Both are booted using the vmkernel, NOT LINUX. So the real question is when will ESX/ESXi support USB devices.... THat is unknown at this time.

As for using USB devices from the SC. That is also possible and you do not need udev to use it. However, I have found and others have found that writing to USB devices will cause the GNU/Linux Environment to spew write errors. So in effect writing to USB is not available at this time. Even though you can mount them without using udev.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

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Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization