Since the release of Windows 7, VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client needs special attention for installation on this platform.  Keep in mind that VMware VI Client is not supported on Windows 7; however, you can follow this guide to get it installed and functioning correctly.

1. The following ’system.dll’ file is required. This can be downloaded via the hyperlink below.

system.dll (this file has been zipped)

2. Once downloaded, either open the zip file or unzip it and place the ‘system.dll’ file into one of the following directories depending on the version of Windows 7 being used, which would be either 32 or 64 bit.

x86 Directory Path = C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Virtual Infrastructure Client\Launcher\Lib

x64 Directory Path = C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\Virtual Infrastructure Client\Launcher\Lib

Note: If the ‘Lib directory does not exist, create it within the ‘Launcher’ directory.

3. Edit the VpxClient.exe.config file which is located in the ‘Launcher’ directory, making the changes as outlined below and as seen in the image.

<runtime>
<developmentMode developerInstallation=”true”/>
</runtime>

Once the file has been edited, save the changes and close the file.

Note: If you receive a warning stating you cannot save the file, either reboot the computer or ensure that any VMware related software is closed and try again. If this doesn’t work then copy the file out of the “Launcher” directory, edit it, save it and then copy the file over the original one.

4. Next, edit the system properties of your machine. This can be achieved by right clicking on ’Computer’ (was usually known as ‘My Computer’ in older Microsoft OS versions) and selecting ’Properties’. Select ‘Advanced System Settings’

5. Select the ‘Environment Variables’ button

6. Add a new System variable. To do this, click ‘New…’ and add the following details.

Note: Depending on the Windows 7 OS version will depend on which Variable is required. Ensure the same path is used as per step 2.

Variable name = DEVPATH
Variable value (x86) = C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Virtual Infrastructure Client\Launcher\Lib
Variable value (x64) = C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\Virtual Infrastructure Client\Launcher\Lib

Once this text is entered into the required fields, click OK, OK, OK and then close the View basic information about your computer properties window.

7. Launch the VI Client.

Note: You should run the VI Client with administrator privileges.

Finally today I had implemented NIC bonding (bind two NICs so that it works as a single device for load balancing and/or fault tolerance).  The idea here is to improve performance by pumping out more data from both NICs via NIC bonding/teaming

This box act as datastore server for my test VMware environment.  Each virtual machine is run on top of an ESXi box, and the storage is stored on this server.  Each virtual disk is anywhere between 15GB and 50GB.  Since the virtual disks are stored on a separate piece of hardware from the virtualizing hardware, we must have a high level of throughput for our network traffic.  I am using CentOS 5.3 for the purpose of this document.  This process should readily work for most if not all Red Hat based distro’s.  Click to continue »

If you are having issues mounting your ntfs partition you will need to add a couple of rpms to make it happen.

You will need these rpm’s installed to make it happen:

fuse, fuse-ntfs-3g, dkms, dkms-fuse

Before installing these you need to install dag’s rpm repo.  You can download the rpm for CentOS 5.* and RHEL 5.* here

Tip: Use wget from the directory you want to put the file in to download it so you don’t have to download locally then upload to your server.

install the rpm by issuing:

# rpm -ivh rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm

Once rpmforge has been added to yum, install the ntfs rpm’s by issuing:

# yum install fuse fuse-ntfs-3g dkms dkms-fuse

That will install all the needed software to mount your NTFS volume in rw mode.

next find where the NTFS partition is:

# fdisk -l | grep -i ntfs
/dev/sdd1   *           1       60800   488375968+   7  HPFS/NTFS

Now that we know where the NTFS partition is, lets create a mount point.
# mkdir /mnt/ntfs

now lets mount it up:
# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdd1 /mnt/ntfs

That should have your ntfs partition mounted to /mnt/ntfs

Change to the directory and list the contents:
# cd /mnt/ntfs
# ls

dd is a perfect tool for copy a file, converting and formatting according to the operands. It can create exact CD-ROM ISO image.

This is useful for making backup as well as for hard drive installations require a working the use of ISO images.

How do I use dd command to create an ISO image?

Put CD into CDROM

Do not mount CD. Verify if cd is mounted or not with mount command:

# mount

If cd was mouted automatically unmout it with umount command:

# umount /dev/cdrom

OR

# umount /mnt/cdrom

Create CD-ROM ISO image with dd command:

# dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/tmp/cdimg1.iso

Where,

• if=/dev/cdrom: Read from /dev/cdrom (raw format)
• of=/tmp/cdimg1.iso: write to FILE cdimg1.iso i.e. create an ISO image

Now you can use cdimg1.iso for hard disk installation or as a backup copy of cd. Please note that dd command is standard UNIX command and you should able to create backup/iso image under any UNIX like operating system.

I was sent this link today…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28039226/?pg=7#Tech_JerkGadgets

This is my response:
Linus is my homeboy. And yes, my mastery does excuse my “neck-beard”

I’m sick of how people complain about how hard Linux is. windows is just as hard… it’s just that people put forth the effort to learn it because “That’s what everyone uses”. They know windows and are comfortable with it and therefore Linux is too hard. OK, Linux may be a bit harder, but when it runs it runs… it doesn’t crap out for some unapparent reason like windows. it doesn’t get attacked by “In the wild” viruses. The only thing attacking it is script kiddies that think they’re hackers using a windows box. 99.99% of those attacks a so far from unsuccessful it’s ridiculous… the other 0.11% is an actual person that knows what they’re doing … probably using some attack application they wrote on a UNIX based system in perl, python or C.

if windows is so great, why is it that all the banking institutions run UNIX based servers for their highly sensitive transactions? why is it that the military servers run UNIX based servers? why is it that all your big phone systems have a UNIX based cluster under it? Wait they don’t I know of a particular one that was written on windows server 2003… and it crashes ALL the time, and they’re always chasing their tails trying to figure out why. at least Ma Bell knows better.

If UNIX/Linux breaks it’s because someone did something wrong or a piece of hardware actually failed and needs to be replaced… it doesn’t break “Just because it needs a reboot”.

I will be doing this on a Red Hat based distro, but should be very similar on a Debian or bsd style box.

First install mysql and mysql-server:
yum install mysql mysql-server

After the install has completed, start mysqld:
/etc/init.d/mysqld start

After that you need to login and set a root password. (It is BLANK by default)
mysqladmin -u root password 'new-password'

I would recommend changing ‘new-password’ to something you are not using anywhere else and not the one you are planning on using as the actual root password since this command can be viewed in the bash history and anyone with access to your box can read your shell history.

The next step is to login to the console and change it to what you want it to actually be. This step will not record the password in the shell history.

Login to mysql with the following command:
mysql -h localhost -u root -p

Don’t put the password after -p, if you do it will be recorded in the shell history. If you leave off the -p it will error saying no password used. Enter the command as above and it will prompt you for the password.

Now lets update the password:
mysql> USE mysql;
mysql> UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('new-password') WHERE user='root';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Now you can either go forth and set other user accounts from here or simply type ‘exit’ to exit the command line interface. If you have installed phpmyadmin or mysqllcc, or any other of the mysql admin tools, you may also go now and use those to do your db administration.

If you are running Cisco’s VPNClient on Mac OSX, you might be familiar with (or tormented by) “Error 51: Unable to communicate with the VPN subsystem”. The simple fix is to quit VPNClient, open a Terminal window, (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal) and type the following:

sudo /System/Library/StartupItems/CiscoVPN/CiscoVPN restart

and give your password when it asks. This will stop and start the “VPN Subsystem”, or in other words restart the CiscoVPN.kext extension. Cisco seems to have problems when network adapters disappear and reappear, something that happens commonly in Wireless or Dial-up scenerios. Sometimes putting a system to sleep, disconnecting an Ethernet cable or simply reconnecting your wireless will cause CiscoVPN to loose track of the network adapters on the system. Considering that CiscoVPN is typically used by telecommuters, this is an astonishing oversight on Cisco’s part. The above hack should side-step all of these issues by causing the CiscoVPN to re-initialize. It makes one ask, why couldn’t Cisco have just put the restart into their client? Or a better idea would be to not reinvent the wheel and use the existing IPSec VPN support in OSX! Am I missing something?

When running yum, you get the error:

Metadata file does not match checksum

Run:

yum clean all

When setting up a new mysql server, if you want to manage it from another machine, you will have to grant that machine access.  If you don’t, you may get an error that says: “host is not allowed to connect to this mysql server“.  This is how you fix it:

Log in to mysql on the mysql server:

[root@mysql-server nss]# mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 118
Server version: 5.0.45 Source distribution

Type ‘help;’ or ‘\h’ for help. Type ‘\c’ to clear the buffer.

Grant permissions for root to connect to this server from your management machine. You can replace hostname with the IP Address if you’d like.
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO root@'hostname' IDENTIFIED BY 'root-passwd-goes-here' ;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)


We’re all done so exit:
mysql> exit
Bye


Problem: include/asm/bitops_32.h:9:2: error: #error only <linux/bitops.h> can be included directly, and vmmon-only compile failes

Solution: change line 74 in vmmon-only source file to read: #include “linux/bitops.h”

Steps:

1. cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source
2. cp vmmon.tar vmmon.tar.orig
3. sudo tar xvf vmmon.tar
4. cd vmmon-only/include/
5. sudo vi vcpuset.h
6. change line 74 from: #include “asm/bitops.h” to: #include “linux/bitops.h”
7. cd ../..
8. rm vmmon.tar
9. sudo tar cvf vmmon.tar vmmon-only/
10. sudo rm -rf vmmon-only/
11. sudo vmware-config.pl

That’s it, the compile will work now and vmware should be usable as normal.