VMware vSphere Client & VMware Converter Plugin on Windows 7
I am frustrated with VMware like many others are using the vSphere client on Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2 due to the fact that the client does not work without a hack. I am not going to go over the fix in this post, the information can be found in KB1011329. I was actually at a client a few weeks ago while working on an ESX 3.0 host and needed my client but was unable to use it on my laptop due to this issue. This forced me to me waste time attempting to install the older client on two of their servers which would not work. I ended up using the web interface after wasting much time with the client.
But I digress, after following the steps in KB1011329 the I received the following error.
Failed to load shared library in C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Virtual Infrastructure Client\Launcher\ssleay32.dll:1260
I tried KB1005446 in an attempt to resolve the issue, however after making the changes I was still getting the error. Since having this plug-in is not critical for me I uninstalled it and was able to launch my vSphere client.
I am disappointed in VMware and the fact that they have not released an official fix for this. Windows 7 has been coming for a long time now through the beta, RC, RTM, and now officially out. The fact that they either were unaware of this problem or simply have chose not release an update to resolve the issue is surprising to say the least.
Update: Brian commented that this issue has been fixed in vCenter 4.0 Update 1 so be sure to upgrade for that and all the other fixes/enhancements.
Ext2Fsd BAD_POOL_HEADER BSOD on Windows 7
I have been using Ext2Fsd for a long time, everything was fine while using Vista. I decided to upgrade to Windows 7 after the release candidate was made available. For the most part everything was fine, until I started browsing my ext3 /home partition where I keep all my data. Sometimes I would get lucky and be able to open the file I wanted, however in most cases I was met with a BSOD saying something about a BAD_POOL_HEADER.
I am not a programmer, in fact I am probably one of the worst candidates for a programmer, I don't like it either. Thankfully for me though a gentleman named Bo Brantén developed a version that eliminates this issue. He describes the issue on the Ext2Fsd project page as a response to the posting of version 0.48. Apparently the issue was caused when the driver referenced memory after it was freed.
The updated version can be downloaded from the link below. Replace your ext2fsd.sys in C:\Windows\System32\drivers with the updated version and reboot.
Dell OpenManage 6.1.0 Fails To Install on ESX 4.0
Normally, the installation of OpenManage can be run after extracting the archive with the following command unless you want to supply optional arguements.
./srvadmin-install.sh
We had upgraded one of the two servers from VMware ESX 3.5 to 4.0 and upgraded OpenManage from the previous version to 6.1 with no problems. However, on this server, after upgrading VMware from 3.5 to 4.0 we recieved the following error when trying to install OpenManage 6.1. The error message is basically saying that three OpenMange packages were already installed and during the upgrade process could not find asssociated files. The problem with this is that this was a fresh installation and those packages should not have existed at all.
Server Administrator version 6.1.0-426 is currently installed.
Installed components are:
- srvadmin-omilcore-6.1.0-426
- srvadmin-hapi-6.1.0-426
- srvadmin-ipmi-6.1.0-426.DUP
Upgrading Server Administrator to 6.1.0-648warning: srvadmin-hapi-6.1.0-648.i386.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 23b66a9d
Preparing... ########################################### 100%
/var/tmp/rpm-tmp.49620: line 355: /tmp/dellupdatepackage-hapi-12342-24438/omil/prereqcheck/Funcs.sh: No such file or directory
error: %pre(srvadmin-omilcore-6.1.0-648.i386) scriptlet failed, exit status 1
error: install: %pre scriptlet failed (2), skipping srvadmin-omilcore-6.1.0-648
/var/tmp/rpm-tmp.49620: line 6: /tmp/dellupdatepackage-hapi-12342-24438/omil/prereqcheck/Funcs.sh: No such file or directory
error: %pre(srvadmin-hapi-6.1.0-648.i386) scriptlet failed, exit status 1
error: install: %pre scriptlet failed (2), skipping srvadmin-hapi-6.1.0-648
/var/tmp/rpm-tmp.49620: line 2: /tmp/dellupdatepackage-hapi-12342-24438/funcs/srvadmin-omilcore.sh: No such file or directory
error: %preun(srvadmin-omilcore-6.1.0-426.i386) scriptlet failed, exit status 1
I called Dell technical support to for assistance since I did not know what the issue was even after Googling. She had me check to see what packages were installed on the system.
rpm -qa | grep srv
With those packages identified she had more remove them.
rpm -e --nodeps --nofiles --noscripts srvadmin-ipmi-6.1.0-426.DUP
rpm -e --nodeps --nofiles --noscripts srvadmin-omilcore-6.1.0-426
rpm -e --nodeps --nofiles --noscripts srvadmin-hapi-6.1.0-426
Once the packages were removed the isntallation was successful. She explained that this was caused by upgrading the BIOS before OpenManage was installed, and that once the BIOS upgrade was complete it was trying to update OpenManage to report the BIOS version. However because OpenManage was not installed it could not update the version and left the packages on the server.
So with that said, you have two options. You can upgrade the BIOS and firmware, remove the orphaned packages, and install OpenManage 6.1 or better yet isntall OpenManage 6.1 then upgrade the BIOS and firmware so that those upgrades are completed successfully. On the other hand, Dell should correct this issue as it is more of a bug than working as it should since the orphaned packages should be deleted if OpenManage is not installed.
Invalid CD/DVD-ROM Selection Error When Attempting To Attach Virtual Media ISO on DRAC
This issue is isolated to Internet Explorer 8, I have tried this on multiple systems running version 8 and all have the same problem. When you try and attach the media it throws an error saying "Invalid CD/DVD-ROM Selection" and the CD/DVD-ROM drive path behind the error is changed to C:\fakepath\whatever.is. This issue does not occur in Internet Explorer 7 and I would assume would be fine in version 6.
I called Dell technical support and the error can be resolved by adding the IP address as a trusted site in Internet Explorer 8. Once that is done you should be able to connect your ISO. The person I talked to at Dell had never seen this error so it could possibly be fixed with a future firmware upgrade. Nevertheless it is another example of the problems encountered when forcing users to use Internet Explorer due to ActiveX rather than creating web based software that relies on open standards.
Bring A Dell PowerVault MD3000i Disk Online From The Command Line
When two drives in a RAID 5 array going offline, so goes your data. If this happens, hopefully the disks are not truly failed but simply offline for some reason. This was the case with a client recently. For some reason when we put new drives in the Dell PowerVault MD3000i it took 2 drives in a RAID 5 array offline which took down a virtual machine that resided on that datastore.
If you have more than one drive offline and simply re-insert those drives they will still show as failed and will not come back online and rebuild if necessary. Instead you can force the state of the drive back to good condition which will bring them back online, after which the SAN can determine which disks if any needed to be rebuilt.
Below is the command to bring slot 12 in enclosure 0 back online. You will need to modify it according to what disks have failed, if more than one drive has failed re-run the command a second time and change the drive number. If you have one or more MD1000 connected to your MD3000i you will also need to change the enclosure number (in this case 0) to the correct number.
C:\Program Files\Dell\MD Storage Manager\client>smcli -n "<Storage Array Name>" -c "revive physicalDisk [0,12]";
After this command is run the drive should come back online and hopefully your data will be intact.
Syntax check complete.
Executing script...
Script execution complete.
SMcli completed successfully.
New Theme
I have changed the theme I am using, I like this one better. I need to make the content section wider to accommodate the size of my images or re-size them. I also need to modify the code tags so they stand out more.
Aside from that what do you think about the new theme?
Linux Based Cereal
Linux has entered the breakfast food market even with struggling with the desktop market. There is really no price difference with the Frosted Flakes coming in at $2.63 for 17oz and Sugar Frosted Flakes costing $1.78 for 12oz. While there is no justifiable ROI in buying the Sugar Frosted Flakes at least you get the satisfaction of a penguin on the box, am I right?
System Administrator Appreciation Day Boss Reminder
OpenDNS is an amazing free service that everyone should be using in my opinion be it business or home use. Even if using another content filtering product a backup and secondary filter is always nice. I use OpenDNS at home and we use it at work and recommend it to everyone.
As a network consultant I know how it goes when it comes to making a mistake or wrong decision and paying for it either from users, management, or my employer. I also know that it is very nice to get a little bonus here and there or being taken to lunch. Of course it doesn't come across very well if you walk into your manager's office and say something like, "Don't forget about System Administrator day, its July 31st."
So OpenDNS has done another nice thing and created a System Administrator Appreciation Day Boss Reminder that you can sign them up for and they will get reminded by OpenDNS instead of you.
Installing VMware ESXi 4.0 On A USB Drive From Linux
Find what your USB drive location is (/dev/sdb for example)
sudo fdisk -l
Mount the ISO
sudo mount -o loop VMware-VMvisor-Installer-4.0.0-164009.x86_64.iso /mnt
Extract the image
tar zxf /mnt/image.tgz -C /tmp
Unmount the ISO
sudo umount /mnt
Change directories to the location with the image
cd /tmp/usr/lib/vmware/installer
Write the image to your USB drive
bzcat VMware-VMvisor-big-164009-x86_64.dd.bz2 |sudo dd of=/dev/sdb
Datastore Missing After Replacing Motherboard Or Storage Controller
This weekend I migrated to VMware ESXi, I previously did this but due to a bad motherboard had to scratch the project. I got a new motherboard for the server and all is well now. When I booted the system with the new motherboard I was missing my VMFS volume and the error message below was logged in ESXi.
Issue detected on in ha-datacenter: LVM: 4482: vmbha0:0:0:1 may be a snapshot: disabling access. See resignaturing section in SAN config guide.
Thankfully, I had encounter this same problem at work with one of our clients after Dell replaced a bad motherboard in a PowerEdge 2950 server and the datastore with 5 production servers went missing. If you get this warning, select your host and go to the 'Configuration' tab. Select 'Advanced Features' and a window will pop up, on the left hand side select 'LVM' and change 'LVM.EnableResignature' to 1 and click OK.
Once you have done that select 'Storage Adapters' on the left hand side and click 'Rescan' on the top right corner and your datastore should show up, named as a random string, you can rename it if you like. Now open the datastore and go into each virtual machine folder, right click the .vmx file and select add to inventory which will add your guest back into the host.