Nice little error message shown when trying to hot add a new HDD to a VM running on ESXi 4.0.
How much need have have do you need?
Addendum:
Clearly I'm not the first to notice this rather peculiar wording in ESXi 4. Maish Saidel-Keesing posted the same screenshot back in May 2009 in his post called Hot Add and "Need have have".
Read that post instead of mine, it also highlights what ESXi 4 is missing as well as poorly worded error messages.
Funny thing is that I can even remember reading Maish post back when it was published, but I don't remember seeing that weird error message. Oh well. :)
Thanks to Jase McCarty for pointing this out to me.
September 23, 2009 at 12:56pm | 1 Comment
Tagged: esxi, virtualization, VMware and vSphere
vmwarewolf.com
has posted ESX PSODs
If you happen to search Google for one of the following phrases you might expect Google to return a list of official VMware Knowledgebase articles on the topic.
- crash debug screen
- machine crash screen
- ESX Server PSOD
- Purple screen crash report
- Decode purple screen error
I know this is a direct copy of some of that article, but it's an attempt to help out getting ESX Server PSOD ranked in Google. I'm sure I'll be forgiven for the verbatim copy/paste job.
September 23, 2009 at 12:26am | 0 Comments
Tagged: google, psod, ranking, virtualization and VMware
Cody Bunch over at professionalvmware.com has started a series of posts called "The Best Tools You Didn’t Know You Needed". So far Cody has featured GParted and TeraCopy, both truly great tools to have in your virtual or non-virtual tool-belt.
I have my own series of posts outlined, still in draft mode though, that I plan to publish within the next week or so and thankfully they highlight different tools than the ones already covered by Cody in his series.
Seems like I need to speed up the publishing of my posts now! I'm sure there are other great (free) tools out there that are missing the recognition they deserve.
Can you think of any? Any freebie tools that make your day as a (virtual) sysadmin easier?
Leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you!
September 22, 2009 at 7:02pm | 0 Comments
Tagged: sysadmin, tools, utilities, virtualization and VMware
I recently did a rather big reorganization of my domain controllers, in relation to an domain wide upgrade to 2008 server, and as a I result of this I had to re-configure the DNS settings for all my member servers. Being somewhat lazy and not particularly fond of repetitive tasks, I figured there had be a way to automatically change the required settings.
I ended up using a couple of great tools and some vbscript "magic" and was able to change the DNS settings on all my member servers within a couple of minutes.It would have been much more time consuming having to do this server by server manually, and this process also guarantees that the settings are the same on all my servers.
Enough with the rationale already, let's get into the solution itself. It's pretty easy, but does require a couple of easily available tools, a bat file and a VBscript.
Tools:
- psexec
psexec @servernames.txt -c -p administrator -u [password] SetDNS.bat
- DumpServernames.vbs
This dumps all the server names in a given OU into a text file
Usage: cscript DumpServernames.vbs > servernames.txt
Set colItems = GetObject _
("LDAP://ou=Servers, ou=something, dc=something, dc=local")
For Each objItem in colItems
Wscript.Echo objItem.CN
Next
- SetDNS.bat
netsh interface ip delete dns "Local Area Connection" all
netsh interface ip add dns "Local Area Connection" [IP DNS SERVER]
netsh interface ip add dns "Local Area Connection" [IP DNS SERVER] index=2
ipconfig /all
Caveat alerts:
- The netsh command outlined requires that the network connection you want to change settings on is called "Local Area Network".
If you have manually renamed your network connections inside Windows 2003/2008, this will fail, so update the script accordingly
You will need to update the vbscript with your local OU setup as well as edit SetDNS.bat and insert your own DNS server IP values
September 11, 2009 at 12:17pm | 0 Comments
Tagged: Batch, management, microsoft, networking, PsExec, VBscript and windows
A while ago I got an email from a local vendor here in Bergen, Norway, pimping the PatchSee Optical Technology cables. Intrigued by the idea of being able to identify both ends of the cables in our server room I ordered a free demo kit.
A few days ago the demo kit arrived, but while it's impossible to see on the poor mobile photo of the demo kit above, I was very surprised when I examined it closely:
- The demo light only works for about 10 minutes.
Thats probably fair enough, but as I only have one cable I don't really see why they should limit it at all?
- The cable itself. I mean, would it kill them to actually provide a fully functional Cat6 cable?
The demo cable isn't even wired properly end to end, so it's basically useless.
I can understand the need to limit the demo kits, but I can't really understand a vendor that intentionally sends you a demo of their product where the demo itself is so limited that it's basically useless.
Would you buy something from someone who "demonstrates" their products this way?
September 9, 2009 at 10:00pm | 2 Comments
Tagged: Cable Management, Cables, Cheap, Demo Kit and PatchSee
