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I have already posted about Sun xVM VirtualBox as a great open source alternative to VMware Workstation. ZDNet also wrote a comparison article of VirtualBox and and VMware Server that I reported on here at VM /ETC. I’ve been using VirtualBox as a free virtualization solution (replace VMware Server 1.5) on my notebook since Sun’s version 1.6 was released. So, when Rick Vanover began his series of posts on the SearchServerVirtualization Blog about VirtualBox I was more than interested. This post is a summary of (and links to) Rick’s posts with some of my personal experiences and opinions thrown in.

Networking Features

In my opinion, one of the biggest adjustments between VMware’s products and VirtualBox is having to

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There are several ways to determine if you have virtual machines with snapshots. Why you would want to know has been covered In various other posts both here at VM /ETC as well as on the other virtualization blogs. It’s so important that the virtualization community has created different tools and scripts to identify and monitor snapshot files for administrators.  So, when I read the post WWoIT - Wayne’s World of IT: Find VM snapshots in ESX/VC I had an experience that Aaron Delp described as “/HEADDESK” (when he commented on my uploading files with the VI Client post).

It may not be the fanciest of methods, but probably the quickest way to find VM snapshots is to use the ls command from the ESX Service Console. By piping the output with grep to find files with the snapshot extension, .vmsn, and using the recursive switch you can scan all the VMFS LUNs visible to an ESX host. That’s so simple it hurts!

To use the ls command to find snapshots do the following:

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Lately, I have had several clients and peers ask me how to get disk usage and performance statistics from their current virtual infrastructure of ESX hosts and virtual machines . Some needed data for planning and sizing a new SAN, while others needed statistics for upgrading, adding more disks, or for optimizing multi path and VMFS performance. In one case the customer was trouble shooting poor VM performance issues. Regardless of the objectives there are some built in tools in both VirtualCenter and ESX server that can get this information for you. This post explains 2 native methods:

• Using the VI Cleint to access the Performance data in VirtualCenter
• Using esxtop from the ESX Service Console

I have included plenty of screenshots. As always, click on them for larger views. The rest of this post is in an outline format, but should be easy enough to follow.

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While troubleshooting poor performing VMs this week I was explaining to a customer the process of trying to downgrade the multi processor HAL of a Windows VM that was created by a P2V migration with VMware Converter. I ended up sending them a link to an older VMware Communities forum thread in which Mike Laverick of RTFM Education provides a quick how to guide. I also wrote (and sent the customer) a post earlier this year that offers similar advice, but P2V multi processor servers to single processor VMs instructs you to install a patch specifically for Windows Server 2003 VMs which then allows you to downgrade to a single processor.

The other difference worth mentioning between these two posts is the links to the Microsoft DevCon tool. Although VMware will not officially support using this tool on VMs, using this utility for forcing a HAL downgrade is possible when all else fails.

Check out the following instructions copied here and the various links in this post for more information.

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Based on best practices, this post is a “formula” for planning and sizing SAN storage for maximum VMFS performance. This is intended to be for all protocols where VMFS volumes are utilized ( FC, iSCSI ) and conservative enough to allow general sizing estimates while ensuring high performance of the running VMs.

WARNING: The storage design resulting from following these recommendations will not be the most cost effective solution. As storage performance generally requires the most spindles (disks) possible and this formula requires as many dedicated LUNs as possible, the cost for storage will be maximized. More often than not, compromises between performance and cost have to be reached that keep the design within the expected budget.

This post is split into 2 sections. The first section lists the VMFS Maximum Performance Rules while the second section uses a 25 server example to walk through the design rules.

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Duncan over at yellow-bricks.com has posted a very helpful VMware HA troubleshooting tip. Changing the IP-address of an ESX host and HA deals with fixing HA issues that arise after changing the ip address of ESX hosts. In summary, Duncan was helping a colleague that was having trouble reconfiguring HA on an ESX cluster, and even though all the standard steps for resolving the issue were followed the HA feature could not be enabled on the cluster. Duncan was able to to identify that the issue was caused because a HA agent auto-generated file still contained the wrong ip address information. Specifically the /etc/FT_HOSTS file was the culprit.

Read the yellow-bricks.com post for the full details, but I am copying the t-shooting and resolution steps here for my future knowledge base.

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Running the latest version of ESX3.5 enables a lot of usability enhancements in the VI Client. Many of the administrative tasks and configurations previously performed on the Service Console or by third party tools are now accessible as new options directly from the GUI. For example, you previously could not use the Datastore Browser to upload files such as ISOs to the ESX hosts, but instead had to use a tool such as WinSCP or other similar methods. With the ESX3.5 VI Client you can now transfer files right from the client. What makes this native ability even cooler is the fact that you no longer have to enable remote root access or create a special user. If you connect the VI Client to VirtualCenter as a local administrator, or if you connect to the ESX host as root you can use the VI Client to upload files without any other configurations.

The following screenshot of the VI Client is showing the Summary Tab of the ESX host.

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Many administrators today are testing Microsoft Server 2008, or even testing running Server 2008 as a guest hosted on various virtualization products. There are also plenty of projects not even related to virtualization involving testing applications and services on Microsoft’s newest server operating system. For those looking for a little more time, there is the option to extend the standard Server 2008 evaluation period. The Dugie’s Pensieve blog post Extend the Windows Server 2008 evaluation period (KB 948 472) first made me aware this was possible.

Normally, installing Server 2008 without a key gives you a 60 day evaluation period. As Dugie’s post point out, Microsoft has provided a KB article titled How to extend the Windows Server 2008 evaluation period which fully explains the use of the script and how many times you can “re arm” the evaluation.

From the KB article:

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VI3 Enterprise features VMotion, DRS, and HA require identical virtual networking settings on all of your ESX hosts. Unfortunately, VirtualCenter does not apply a central configuration policy or inheritance of settings from the cluster. Maybe a future version of VirtualCenter will evolve to include global configuration abilities? Until such a version is created, each ESX server’s virtual networking settings will continue to be configured individually by most administrators. However, there are some time saving, global configuration options available today. This post summarizes two methods provided by the virtualization community for creating PortGroups simultaneously across multiple ESX hosts.

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While attempting to clean up unnecessary virtual hardware after several P2V migrations this week, I was unable to remove the virtual USB Controller from new virtual machines. I got an uneditable device warning pop up window that said “Internal problem: The system information reported by the host for ‘VirtualUSBController’ is inconsistent. This device cannot currently be edited.”

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A common issue after installing ESX servers that do not have all their NICs cabled is that you can not ping the host. For example, say you have an ESX host with 6 1GB network cards - 2 on board and 4 PCI. You would think that cabling the 2 on board cards would cover network connectivity. Unfortunately the order that ESX recognizes the NICs is not determined in a logical, expected order such as on board and then PCI cards. In fact, if you know how ESX determines how to order the network cards please comment and let us all know! In the meantime, here is how to use a few esxcfg- Console commands to make sure the cabled NICs are linked to the vSwitch that has the Service Console PortGroup (where the ip address is assigned).

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To clone a virtual machine with VirtualCenter you have to power off the guest, but what if your next maintenance window isn’t any time soon, you can’t afford to schedule the outage, or you just need a copy of the VM during normal business hours? Did you know that making a copy of a running, powered on VM is possible. At a high level the process requires a snapshot to freeze the VM’s original disk which in turn allows you to clone the frozen disk. This is essentially the way VCB, vRanger, or any of the live VM backup products work. Therefore, cloning a powered on VM can be accomplished with a little Console command magic.

I want to acknowledge that researching this method was inspired by the VMTN Virtualization Roundtable Episode 1 Podcast’s coverage of snapshots. Specifically Eric Siebert mentions that using VMware Converter as an alternative to committing snapshots is not the best option and offers the idea of using vmkfstools to do the job.

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