Saturday, July 25, 2009

VMware Server 2.0 (free) gotchas

Just a couple gotchas I figure I would document for my own use later and for anyone else that finds it using google.

Gotcha1: USB Devices in VMware guests

Using VMware Server 2.0 (free), I ran into my first requirement of needing a USB Software Dongle Key to work inside a virtual machine running Windows XP. All the documentation kept mentioning the steps of a) add a USB Controller to the virtual guest inside the VMware Server control web interface (this was the easy part) and then b) Enable the USB Device in the web interface on the VM.

I for the life of me couldn't find where it meant there was somewhere to enable the specific plugged in USB device that you had plugged into the Host machine, allowing it to work on a specific guest... after much googling and not coming up with something, I finally noticed a new button on the VMware guest page in the web interface, to the right of the regular 4 buttons (Stop, Pause, Play, Restart), a new button appears with the USB Icon, and you can enable/connect the USB Device to the VMware guest by clicking on it, and checking off the appropriate USB device... as simple as that. (gee whiz)

Gotcha2: Adding Datastores to VMware 2.0 (free)

I was trying to determine how to add additional datastores to VMware Server 2.0 to no avail... everything kept mentioning or even showing pictures of the screen with the boxes to fill in, but nothing mentioned how to get this screen up in the first place, or at least not enough for me to clue in and I was unable to find it... after googling for a while, I went back to the web interface, and eventually lucked out (and apparently I am blind... or was very tired), and determined that if you just click on the Server in the list on the far left of the web interface, on the far right is your standard options such as "Create Virtual Machine", "Add Virtual Machine to Inventory", and... you guessed it, "Add Datastore" ... not sure how I missed that one... but I actually didn't "SEE" it until I clicked on the one original/default datastore that was added during configuration, from the list/display window in the middle of the web interface with the server selected... which showed some additional options for that datastore (rename, refresh, remove datastore).. and I finally saw the "Add Datastore above all those new options.

So, I guess the 2nd one wasn't really a gotcha... just more of a blind mistake or I was more tired than I originally thought. Anyways, a heads-up for anything that may be blind like myself.

Gotcha3: VMware Server 2.0 (free) 64-bit Host, but unable to successfully use 64-bit Guests

I am using some second-hand HP DL585 G1 servers with 4 x Opteron 848 2.2Ghz CPU's in them... I totally forgot about having earlier checked if they had VT/AMD-V capabilities months earlier (they don't with this cpu revision of CG or C0 (I forget which C* they are, but anything C* generation or older do not work ie. stepping CG does not, but E1, E4 or E6 does support it))

So, off to HP's site to see if there are firmwares that work with the E* revision cpu's, and then off to Ebay to try and poach some.. since they seem to be quite reasonable prices.. assuming they work with my server(s). Just for anyone else that might be trying to run older gen Opteron's without AMD-V support, and trying to setup 64-bit virtual guests unsuccessfully.

fi.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Windows Update fails in Vista using Shaw Internet using "Automatically Detect Settings"

If you've got Vista installed on a PC or Laptop computer, but your Windows Update is failing (I can't remember with what code off-hand, as I'm not typing this the same day/week I ran into this problem, though I will update the post if I run into it again, or feel like re-creating the problem), simply try the following:

In Internet Explorer 7 or 8, open the Tools Menu (press the ALT key once if the menu bar is hidden), choose Internet Options down at the bottom of the Tools Menu, Choose the Connections Tab from the list of tabs across the top, Choose LAN Settings down near the bottom right of the window, and make sure to UNCHECK "Automatically Detect Settings".

Problem should be solved, simply try Windows Update again, this has fixed the error for me on several machines... I don't know if its my local shaw proxy server that is being detected, and failing for some unknown reason.. but, thought I would blog about it since its happened several times in the past, and seems to be better to simply disable the proxy anyways.

fi.

edit: apparently i have an older post in my blog that describes this exact issue, including the error codes... and here I was thinking my blog could act as my memory on some things... go figure :p

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

"Grub hard disk error"

short story:

- installed ubuntu server 8.04.2 LTS on machine using 160gb IDE drive (hda), including a single /boot partition and an LVM partition for root (/) and another LVM partition for swap.

- installed new 500gb Sata drive into machine

- created similar partition schema (partition 1 = 250mb /boot partition (sda1)), (partition 2 = logical of the rest of the space (sda2=extended info, sda5=data partition that was created inside the extended partition

- used dd to copy hda1 (250mb /boot) to sda1 (new 250mb /boot)

- made sda1 bootable using cfdisk

- added sda5 partition to main volume group using pvcreate

- used pvmove to tell LVM to move anything on the /dev/hda5 physical volume

- after ~4 hours (150gb @ 12mb/sec average, since its slow due to using atomic writes, etc), it was done moving all data off of the old 150gb physical volume

- used vgreduce to remove the hda5 physical volume from the main volume group (since nothing is on that partition now (well, technically its probably got all the data if you wanted to try recovery of some kind, I don't believe it writes 0's or anything to it during a pvmove))

- tryed using grub to re-install to new hard-drive (sda), all messages seemed to be fine

- shutdown machine and removed the 160gb IDE drive

- got "Grub hard disk error" ... with no other useful information, or ability to "enter" grub

- attempted to manually fix grub using rescue mode of ubuntu server install CD

- googled for a while

- didn't find anything that really helped me, but some useful information none-the-less

- then realized one of the options in the rescue menu was "reinstall grub" or something to that effect, I chose to re-install to (hd0) (thats hdZERO)

- I then chose to reboot the system

- Magic happened, and grub loaded correctly, and then promptly loaded Ubuntu Server for me, along with my VMWare instances that were set for autostart.

- Problem solved... why my manual grub flailing around didn't fix anything (tried many different things between grub-install, setup-grub, setup (hd0), etc, I have no idea why, but I'm happy that this route worked for me