The host machine and OS is a Thinkpad T410 and Windows 7 64bit, respectively. The T410 (lovingly dubbed “Athena”) has an Intel Core i5-520M processor running at 2.40Ghz, integrated graphics and 4GB of RAM. However, these instructions should work on any machine capable of running Ubuntu and its host OS simultaneously. The version of Virtualbox used was the latest at the time–3.2.6.

When you open Virtualbox, you should see something like this:

From the default window, press the “New” button and the virtual machine wizard will load. The first window asks you to name your new virtual machine and which OS you will install on it.

N.B. You will see the “64 bit” option in OS type for Ubuntu. Use that ONLY if you are running a 32 bit host and you wish to emulate 64 bit:

If you want to use 64-bit guest support on a 32-bit host operating system, you must also select a 64-bit operating system for the particular VM. Since supporting 64 bits on 32-bit hosts incurs additional overhead, VirtualBox only enables this support upon explicit request.

On 64-bit hosts, 64-bit guest support is always enabled, so you can simply install a 64-bit operating system in the guest. (Source)

Clicking “Next” brings you to a slider that allows you to set how much RAM you wish to allot to your VM–how much RAM the emulated system will see. Don’t go past the green section or you risk freezing your host. I put 1.5GB, as Ubuntu runs fine with that much.

Next is configuring the virtual hard drive.

If you haven’t already created a hard disk, the wizard will walk you through that too. The virtual disk wizard has preset options that work fine. If you’re curious as what the differences between options are and don’t understand the brief description provide in the wizard, go read the manual.

Once you have configured your virtual disk, you should be led to this summary:

After hitting finish, you should see your new VM on the left. Select it and click “Start”.

When a VM in virtual box runs for the first time, the first run wizard pops up and asks you to load installation media. I’ve chosen an ISO image of Ubuntu 10.04 64bit. You can either use an ISO (easily downloadable from the ubuntu homepage), or a physical Ubuntu CD or DVD.

Ubuntu ISO booting:

Note: there are various alerts that will pop up that you should read at least once.

Now that the ISO is finished booting, you will be given the option to either try or install Ubuntu. You should know where to go from here.

Treat the virtual hard drive that Ubuntu detects normally. Partition however you are used to.

Installation takes a while. Go grab food or something.

Once the installation is complete, restart as prompted and you will boot into your new virtual Ubuntu installation!

Notice the low resolution. This is an indicator that Ubuntu doesn’t realize that it’s being run in a virtual environment. In order to fix this, Virtualbox has a patch called Guest Additions. But before that, update the system.

The first update generally takes the longest (unless you have an uber-fast connection). I got through a chapter of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and half a podcast of a college lecture before the system was fully updated. Ubuntu will probably ask for a restart so that it can load the updated kernel. Do so.

Once the desktop comes back up, go to Devices > Install Guest Additions. That will load an ISO into the VM’s CD drive. Ubuntu will detect it automagically and will want to auto-run it. I ignored that and opened a terminal and did the following:

This will install Guest Additions in Ubuntu.

After that’s done, it will ask to restart yet again. After boot you should notice a refreshingly better resolution:

Since it’s a virtual machine, I turned off the screensaver and power options, and enabled auto login.

Lastly, for whatever reason, Virtualbox crashes when desktop effects are enabled. This also occurs when I attempt to shutdown/restart/logout/etc with desktop effects enabled. So beware of that. YMMV. Cheers.

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You can easily determine the type of disk using vmkfstools -t0, for example:

The following is an example of a zeroedthick disk

# vmkfstools -t0 /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/EagerBeaver/EagerBeaver.vmdk | more
Mapping for file /vmfs/volumes/4aef08e3-671b60d5-927b-00188be583a5/EagerBeaver/EagerBeaver.vmdk (8589934592 bytes in size):
[           0:   196083712] --> [VMFS Z- LVID:4aef08e2-0e1d23e2-2505-00188be583a5/4aef08e2-046dd3fa-28b3-00188be583a5/1:( 275392790016 -->  275588873728)]
[   196083712:    12582912] --> [VMFS Z- LVID:4aef08e2-0e1d23e2-2505-00188be583a5/4aef08e2-046dd3fa-28b3-00188be583a5/1:( 275379158528 -->  275391741440)]
[   208666624:  8381267968] --> [VMFS Z- LVID:4aef08e2-0e1d23e2-2505-00188be583a5/4aef08e2-046dd3fa-28b3-00188be583a5/1:( 275588873728 -->  283970141696)]

Note: Notice in the zerothicked VM’s you have a Z following VMFS. This indicates that the block has been zeroed, but not written.

Now is an example of an eagerzeroedthick disk

# vmkfstools -t0 /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/EagerBeaver/EagerBeaver_1.vmdk | more
Mapping for file /vmfs/volumes/4aef08e3-671b60d5-927b-00188be583a5/EagerBeaver/EagerBeaver_1.vmdk (8589934592 bytes in size):
[           0:  7516192768] --> [VMFS -- LVID:4aef08e2-0e1d23e2-2505-00188be583a5/4aef08e2-046dd3fa-28b3-00188be583a5/1:( 283970141696 -->  291486334464)]
[  7516192768:   460324864] --> [VMFS -- LVID:4aef08e2-0e1d23e2-2505-00188be583a5/4aef08e2-046dd3fa-28b3-00188be583a5/1:(  5015371264 -->   5475696128)]
[  7976517632:   613416960] --> [VMFS -- LVID:4aef08e2-0e1d23e2-2505-00188be583a5/4aef08e2-046dd3fa-28b3-00188be583a5/1:( 291486334464 -->  292099751424)]

You’ll notice that following the VMFS you have --, which indicates that it has the bit been completely zeroed.

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• A virtual machine is not responding during the shut down process
• You cannot power off a virtual machine while it’s running
• A virtual machine stops responding

If so, you can force power off of a virtual machine within fusion doing the following:

1. Click Virtual Machine
2. Press and hold down the Option (Alt) key. The menu option for Shut down changes to Power off (In Fusion 3.x, Force Shut Down)
3. Click Power off (In Fusion 3.x, click Force Shut Down)

Related posts:

1. Disable CTRL-ALT-DEL from rebooting a Linux machine

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) has
assigned the following names to the security issues fixed in
JRE 1.5.0_18: CVE-2009-1093, CVE-2009-1094, CVE-2009-1095,
CVE-2009-1096, CVE-2009-1097, CVE-2009-1098, CVE-2009-1099,
CVE-2009-1100, CVE-2009-1101, CVE-2009-1102, CVE-2009-1103,
CVE-2009-1104, CVE-2009-1105, CVE-2009-1106, and CVE-2009-1107.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has
assigned the following names to the security issues fixed in
JRE 1.5.0_20: CVE-2009-2625, CVE-2009-2670, CVE-2009-2671,
CVE-2009-2672, CVE-2009-2673, CVE-2009-2675, CVE-2009-2676,
CVE-2009-2716, CVE-2009-2718, CVE-2009-2719, CVE-2009-2720,
CVE-2009-2721, CVE-2009-2722, CVE-2009-2723, CVE-2009-2724.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has
assigned the following names to the security issues fixed in
JRE 1.5.0_22: CVE-2009-3728, CVE-2009-3729, CVE-2009-3864,
CVE-2009-3865, CVE-2009-3866, CVE-2009-3867, CVE-2009-3868,
CVE-2009-3869, CVE-2009-3871, CVE-2009-3872, CVE-2009-3873,
CVE-2009-3874, CVE-2009-3875, CVE-2009-3876, CVE-2009-3877,
CVE-2009-3879, CVE-2009-3880, CVE-2009-3881, CVE-2009-3882,
CVE-2009-3883, CVE-2009-3884, CVE-2009-3886, CVE-2009-3885.

The following table lists what action remediates the vulnerability
(column 4) if a solution is available.

VMware Product Running Replace with/
Product Version on Apply Patch
============= ======== ======= =================
vCenter 4.0 Windows affected, patch pending *
VirtualCenter 2.5 Windows Update 6
VirtualCenter 2.0.2 Windows affected, patch pending

Workstation any any not affected

Player any any not affected

Server 2.0 any not being fixed at this time
Server 1.0 any not affected

ACE any any not affected

Fusion any any not affected
ESXi any ESXi not affected

ESX 4.0 ESX affected, patch pending *
ESX 3.5 ESX affected, patch pending **
ESX 3.0.3 ESX affected, patch pending
ESX 2.5.5 ESX not affected

vMA 4.0 RHEL5 affected, patch pending

* The JRE version of vCenter 4.0 and ESX 4.0 will be updated in the
Update 2 release of vCenter 4.0 and ESX 4.0. See VMSA-2009-0016.1
for the update of JRE in vCenter 4.0 Update 1 and in ESX 4.0
Update 1.

** The JRE version of ESX 3.5 will be updated in an upcoming patch
release. See VMSA-2009-0014.2 for the update of JRE in ESX 3.5
Patch 18.

Notes: These vulnerabilities can be exploited remotely only if the
attacker has access to the Service Console network.

Security best practices provided by VMware recommend that the
Service Console be isolated from the VM network. Please see
http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/726 for more
information on VMware security best practices.

The currently installed version of JRE depends on your patch
deployment history.

4. Solution

Please review the patch/release notes for your product and version
and verify the sha1sum or md5sum of your downloaded file.

VMware Virtual Center 2.5 Update 6
———————————-
Version 2.5 Update 6
Build Number 227637
Release Date 2010/01/29
Type Product Binaries

http://downloads.vmware.com/download/download.do?downloadGroup=VC250U6

VirtualCenter DVD image – English only version
File size: 854 MB
File type: .iso
md5sum: d83b09ac0533a418d5b7f5493dbd3ed3
sha1sum: 1b969b397a937402b5e9463efc767eff7a980ad0

VirtualCenter as a Zip file – English only version
File size: 625 MB
File type: .zip
md5sum: 760f335ebcd363e0e159b20da923621f
sha1sum: e400bc1008d1e4c44d204a8135293b8ae305f14e

VMware vCenter Converter BootCD
VMware Converter Enterprise BootCD for VirtualCenter
File size: 97 MB
File type: .zip
md5sum: e49e0ff0f2563196cc5d4b5c471cd666

VMware vCenter Converter CLI (Linux)
VMware Converter Enterprise CLI for Linux platform
File size: 37 MB
File type: .tar.gz
md5sum: 30d1f5e58a6cad8dacd988908305bc1c

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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

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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

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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 remove a datastore, which had been decommissioned.

This caused the hamsters in my head to kick into overdrive, and reminded me that I read something similar to this on VMware’s forums.

Without doing anything else to the underline ESXi server, I went ahead and did a re-scan of the storage adapters, and functionality was restored. I then went ahead and re-scanned the hosts that were associated to the same backend storage.

Here’s an understanding of what happened:

Which is an excerpt from http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/, which I found at the end of the link after doing some more post-mortem research

So just a heads up to you guys..

If you’re removing a datastore, be sure to rescan your storage adapters asap.

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As always the openSUSE team has updated their openSUSE 11.1 BuildService with the newest build and it is available for download:

You can add the repository with:
sudo zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Virtualization:/VirtualBox/openSUSE_11.1/ VirtualBox

You can mark the repository for auto refresh with:
sudo zypper mr -r VirtualBox

Install virtual box with
sudo zypper in virtualbox

I’ll do write up of VirtualBox again (I’ve converted from VMware Workstation even though I have a free license for since I’m a VCP).

Oh.. if you require features like USB support etc, you can download the closed source version of VirtualBox from:
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

Do you have experience with VirtualBox? VMware Workstation? tell me about your experiences.

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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 the following error:

Host in HA Cluster must have userworld swap enabled

Well, DUH!. I thought to myself. There’s no local drive to have appointed a local swap partition to (default is /tmp/swap I believe).

So how do you get around this?

Here’s the following from vmware.com kb article 1004177

On the VirtualCenter Server, select the ESXi 3 Server host.
Click the Configuration tab.
Click Advanced Settings.
Choose ScratchConfig.

Configure ScratchConfig.ConfiguredScratchLocation to a valid directory with sufficient space (1GB) to hold the userworld swap file. The userworld swap can be configured on local storage or shared storage.

Note: Each swapfile needs a unique name across all ESX hosts.

For example, /vmfs/volumes/.

Select the ScratchConfig.ConfiguredSwapState option.
Click OK.
Reboot the ESX Server 3i system.

However the above article is kind of misleading as it seems as thought you have to have each swap file on a different datastore, but the truth is you only need to be in a unique directory (the UUID can be the same for the datastore).

You can now add the host into the cluster with HA capabilities.

Come back for some topics on VIMA, StorageVmotion, VKernel SearchMyVM etc.

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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 only (not during run time), it forces startup and shutdown scripts to run sequentially on a single CPU instead of simultaneously on multiple CPUs. Setting this to “no” can prevent some timing issues if they exist.

2. Edit the /etc/init.d/vmware file in your favorite editor. There are two sections that include information about a file called “not_configured”. Edit them as follows:

a) From this

check_configured() {
if [ -e "$vmware_etc_dir"/not_configured ]; then
echo “`vmware_product_name`”‘ is installed, but it has not been (correctly) configured’
echo ‘for the running kernel. To (re-)configure it, invoke the’
echo ‘following command: ‘”$vmdb_answer_BINDIR”‘/vmware-config.pl.’
echo
exit 1
fi
}

To this

check_configured() {
if [ -e "$vmware_etc_dir"/not_configured ]; then
rm -f “$vmware_etc_dir”/not_configured
fi
if [ -e "$vmware_etc_dir"/not_configured ]; then
echo “`vmware_product_name`”‘ is installed, but it has not been (correctly) configured’
echo ‘for the running kernel. To (re-)configure it, invoke the’
echo ‘following command: ‘”$vmdb_answer_BINDIR”‘/vmware-config.pl.’
echo
exit 1
fi
}

Is this very graceful? Probably not, but it does it does delete the not_configured file if it exists, before it can run a check to see if it exists. If vmware-config.pl hasn’t ever been run, be sure to run it after making these changes, otherwise you may have a hard time figuring out what is wrong.

b) From this

if [ "$exitcode" -gt 0 -a `vmware_product` != "ws" ]; then
# Set the ‘not configured’ flag
touch “$vmware_etc_dir”‘/not_configured’
chmod 644 “$vmware_etc_dir”‘/not_configured’
db_add_file “$vmware_db” “$vmware_etc_dir”‘/not_configured’ \
$vmware_etc_dir”‘/not_configured’
exit 1
fi

To this

if [ "$exitcode" -gt 0 -a `vmware_product` != "ws" ]; then
# Set the ‘not configured’ flag
# START EDIT
# touch “$vmware_etc_dir”‘/not_configured’
# chmod 644 “$vmware_etc_dir”‘/not_configured’
# db_add_file “$vmware_db” “$vmware_etc_dir”‘/not_configured’ \
# “$vmware_etc_dir”‘/not_configured’
# END EDIT
exit 1
fi

This is redundant, but it prevents the not_configured file from ever being created.

Remember that if the kernel is ever upgraded that the vmware-config.pl does need to be ran again, but hopefully this workaround is found useful by some.

Source: Novell Cool Solutions
Authored By: joharmon

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You reboot the host, check it in VC and the build number is right, however, you do not get the “Health Statistics” under the “Configuration” Tab.

It seems as though during the upgrade of the Virtual Center Database from Version 4 to 5 doesn’t actually add either the required tables, or the required views to the hosts that are still pre u2 (this shouldn’t be the case, as you should ALWAYS upgrade Virtual Center before going to the new version of ESX).

One of the main reasons for moving to u2 for me was this health status feature. So I needed to find a plan. VMware was unable to give me any solution, or any reason of why it happened, but I found that disconnecting then reconnecting the host in virtual center will give you the Health Status option.

I’ve tried bouncing the management daemon, bouncing the box, and neither worked (so to me it wasn’t ESX related, but what the host was allowed to “show” in its view).

Oh, and if you really want to, you can put the host in maintinence mode, remove it and re-add it, but why do that when you can disconnect and reconnect without moving any of the virtual machines?

Hope this helps someone out there.

Ben

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Other services that check licenses (ie Vmotion / HA / DRS) may also not work.

Please see the knowledge base from vmware:
http://kb2.vmware.com/kb/1006716.html

Here is a copy of the Symptoms from Vmware’s website:
A virtual machine fails to power on, fails to leave suspend mode, or fails to migrate with VMotion and the following message is displayed in the vmware.log file for the virtual machine:
This product has expired. Be sure that your host machine's date and time are set correctly.
There is a more recent version available at the VMware web site: http://www.vmware.com/info?id=4.
--------------
Module License Power on failed.

Currently running virtual machines will continue to run but will not be able to perform migration with VMotion, or power on virtual machines.

The workaround is to disable NTP if set, and change the date to a previous date (I would do the 8th .. so you have time to upgrade with the new ESX 3.5u2 packages due out Aug 13th at NOON PST.

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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 post for an installation of VMWare Workstation 6.5 on openSUSE 11.0 since there are currently some “Gotha’s” in the beta because of how GCC is detected.

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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.

Here is the link to my wiki with all the notes:
VMWare VCP 3.0 Notes

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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 and transfer them to your esx server
scp -r patchrootdir user@server:/tmp/patches

ssh into your ESX server with your local ESX server account.
ssh servername

One you are on the host change user to root
su -

If you copied over the zip files change directory to the patches location and unzip all the patches
cd /tmp/patches
for i in *.zip; do unzip $i; done; rm *.zip

Now install the patches
for j in ESX*; do cd $j; esxupdate –noreboot update; cd ..; done
Note: If there are dependancies and not all of them are install just run the command above twice.

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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).

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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).

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I’ll post up tomorrow after the test how it goes.

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You can confirm this by running:

grep usb cat /etc/fstab

You can login to your favorite editor and change it to auto and you are good to go.

I will add a quick howto on my Wiki for future references

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