VMware recently sent out the following vCenter security announcement:
1. Summary
Updated Java JRE packages address several security issues.
2. Relevant releases
Virtual Center 2.5 before Update 6
3. Problem Description
a. Java JRE Security Update
JRE update to version 1.5.0_22, which addresses multiple security
issues that existed in earlier releases of JRE.
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) [ continue reading... ]

Recently in the VMware Communities lamw posted a good tutorial on one of the methods available to remove the VMware ESXi Landing Welcome Page.
You can see the posting here:
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-11864
He also links to 2 other methods of removing the landing page which can be found here and here

Sun Microsystem is holding a webinar for the latest release of VirtualBox 3.1 titled, What’s New in 3.1.
Slated for the Webinar is:

Teleportation
Speedups
Snapshots 2.0
Live demo

You can register at the link below:
https://dct.sun.com/dct/forms/reg_us_0712_490_0.jsp

Today at work we ran into quite a crappy issue, which thankfully I read about a few days ago.
We started having some guests that were unresponsive, with the following error in /var/log/messages on the underlined ESXi 4 Server:
“NMP: nmp_DeviceAttemptFailover: Retry world failover device “naa.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx””
After talking to some of the other Admins, and looking at previous tasks and events, I saw that someone was trying to [ continue reading... ]

Looking to replace VMware Workstation with a free open source application? Well, VirtualBox is the application for you. Recently VirtualBox released version 3.0.0 which has these “major” changes:
Guest SMP with up to 32 virtual CPUs (VT-x and AMD-V only; see chapter 3.7.2.2 of the user manual)
Windows guests: ability to use Direct3D 8/9 applications / games (experimental; see chapter 4.8 of the user manual)
Support for OpenGL [ continue reading... ]

So today I installed the first of many VMware ESXi boxes that I had shipped in. These boxes are diskless running on ESXi via USB drive.
Everything was quite straight forward (i’ll do a different blog on installation of ESXi on a thumb drive). I added the newly created host to an existing cluster and had an HA error. I checked the alerts and saw [ continue reading... ]

After installing VMWare server 2.x onto OpenSuse servers/workstations, it was necessary to run vmware-config.pl after every reboot to get VMWare to load correctly, and behave as it should. The only solution I have found to prevent this is as follows:
STEPS:
1. Edit the /etc/sysconfig/boot file. Find the RUN_PARALLEL=”yes” line, and change it to “no”.
What does this do? On systems with multiple CPUs, during bootup and shutdown [ continue reading... ]

So the time has come. OpenSUSE is now in release canidate cycle, and VMWare has released VMWare Workstation 6.0.4 which will work on openSUSE 11.0 natively (without the need of the vmware-any-any patch for 2.6.25 kernel).
I have created a new wiki just for openSUSE 11.0 and VMWare Workstation 6.0.4.
You can find it here in the wiki
I will be creating a new Wiki and Blog [ continue reading... ]

Many people have contacted me asking for some notes on the ESX 3.0 VCP Test.
I know the test is no longer a VCP 3.0 test, but my notes should be fine with the exceptions of some of the Min / Maximums. Note that many of these are just references for me as a reminder of what each portion of VMWare does and how it works. [ continue reading... ]

VMWare releases patches for ESX quite often, and it can get tiring installing them all the time one by one. So I wrote a wiki for the methods I use, which cut down the time of installation (for me having 20+ production hosts) quite a-bit.
Here is the link:
http://www.benkevan.com/wiki/index.php/Installing_Patches_on_ESX_Server
Here’s a little excerpt from it:
Install Released Patches
To install patches released by VMWare download them [ continue reading... ]

Well, since I have been getting tons of hits on this page, I figured i’d blog it and let people know that it actually exists. Here is a nice little write up I made for installing VMWare Workstation on openSUSE 10.3.
http://www.benkevan.com/wiki/index.php/Installing_VMWare_Workstation_on_openSUSE_10.3
Hope it helps, and I’ll bring some more like this hopefully soon (when time permits, we all know how that is).

So, I was talking with a VMWare Personell today and they leaked that the next major release of VC (possibly 3.0?) will have a full function Native Linux Client.
I am going to try to keep close dibs on this, as it is one more function I can move off of my XP Virtual Machine (last is silly MMC’s).

Well, finished my VCP test and passed it with a 89. I wish I would have studied a little and understood what would be on the test, I feel I would have gotten in the high 90’s if I knew all the min / maximums. For those thinking of taking it before the change to 3.5, I say go hurry up.. that day’s coming soon [ continue reading... ]

So, I decided to take my VCP (VMWare Certified Professional) before they changed it on March 1st. Choosing to do it at the last minute has given me no time to study, so I am going to try to wing it.
I’ll post up tomorrow after the test how it goes.

So you fire up your openSUSE 10.3 machine and install VMWare 6.0.2 and your really excited because now you have USB 2.0 support. You plug in your Thumb / USB HardDrive and nothing. You don’t see it in your guest machine, but you do on your host. What can be causing this? Easy usbfs is set to noauto.
You can confirm this by running:
grep usb cat [ continue reading... ]