kb.hurricane-ridge.com » Virtualization

Hot Adding a Disk to a Linux ESX VM

admin — Mon, 02 May 2011 19:11:18 +0000

Add the disk through the VMware user interface. Then, force the host to rescan for the new drive, as root:

for i in /sys/class/scsi_host/*; do echo '- - -' > $i/scan ; done

Reference: Vmware Linux Guest Add a New Hard Disk Without Rebooting Guest

Using the em0 device on a FreeBSD VM under VMware

admin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:24:48 +0000

Remove the VM from the inventory of virtual machines.

In the host OS for Server, and in the , edit the ‘.vmx’ file for the FreeBSD host, adding the following line::

ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"

Then, in the FreeBSD guest, change all references to le0 to em0 (such as in ‘/etc/rc.conf’ and ‘/etc/rc.conf.local’). Do the same thing for ethernet1, le1 and em1, etc.

Once you’ve saved changes to the .vmx file, re-register the VM with an ESX host (e.g. use “vmware-cmd -s register …”).

The Most Useful VMware KB Article Ever: Timekeeping best practices for Linux

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:02:48 +0000

By far, the VMware KB article I’ve gotten the most mileage out of is 1006427, Timekeeping best practices for Linux – effective workarounds for one of the roughest edges remaining in virtualizing Linux under VMware.

(Link here is pretty much solely for my ease of later retrieval.)

Windows P2V to VMware ESX notes

admin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:07:36 +0000

Make sure you have the local Administrator password to the virtual before you begin. You will likely lose contact with your domain during the migration and need to log in with a local account to reconfigure the machine.
If moving a machine from Microsoft Virtual Server, remove Virtual Server’s “Virtual Machine Additions” using the Add/Remove Programs control panel prior to migration; if you do not do this, you may lose access to the mouse when VMware Tools are installed. (VMware Converter appears not to completely remove the Virtual Machine Additions.)
Do not have VMware Converter install the VMware Tools; do it manually, after booting (and waiting for Windows to prompt you to reboot) the migrated VM so that Windows can reconfigure itself for its new virtual hardware first.
After the migration, the machine will likely boot without network connectivity if you are using static IP addresses: The IP address of the machine will be bound to the remains of old NIC, which will be hidden. To remove the old NIC completely, do the following:
- Open a command prompt.
- Type in “set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1” followed by “devmgmt.msc” (both without the quotes).
- In Device Manager select “Show Hidden Devices” from the “View” menu.
- Uninstall the old device not available on the new virtual hardware.
Remove any devices from the VM which will cause issues with VMotion, such as serial ports.
For NetApp NFS storage, edit the following registry entry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Disk\TimeoutValue, setting its value to 190 (decimal).
As of this writing (6/2009), VMware Converter 3 still appears to be more reliable than 4; if the conversion won’t work with version 4, revert to version 3.
Post-P2V is a good time to run mbralign; note that mbralign may lose a drive letter – you may need to manually add it back.

References: Remove Hidden Devices from Windows, Minimizing P2V trouble with VMware Converter, The IP address you have entered for this network adapter is already assigned to another adapter, How to P2V multi-proc box to uni-proc without doing a HAL downgrade?

OpenVZ P2V migration

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:30:05 +0000

A quick guide in the OpenVZ forums on physical-to-virtual migration:

OpenVZ Forum: Support => Re: debian+networking