No SSH access for vSphere 4.1

After a upgrade to VMware vSphere 4.1 I couldn’t SSH to the Service Console. First I thought the password wasn’t correct, but after checking to login on the console directly I noticed that the password is correct. When I enabled rootlogin in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config -> permitrootlogin yes, I could login as root through SSH, so SSHD was working. So I must be a new security feature in vSphere 4.1. Then I changed the vSphere permission in the vSphere client to for my user to Administrator. After this I was able to SSH to the server. I’m haven’t had the time to check witch feature is responsible for this but I’m going to.

PFN_LIST_CORRUPT with VMware Workstation 7

During a lab of the N309o course (Deploying Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 for Linux) a student experienced a blue screen on this VMware Host workstation. This workstation was running Windows XP 64 bit with VMware Workstation build 203739.

The student was trying to install a package on a SLED 11 virtual machine through Yast. For this package Yast needed the SLED 11 DVD. The virtual CD-ROM player was configured as Auto, witch means that the physical CD-ROM player of the host is connected to the virtual CD-ROM player of the virtual machines.

If you Google on the error PFN_LIST_CORRUPT you will find that this error is mostly RAM corruption. In this case VMware Workstation passes wrong information to the memory therefore the blue screen.

Resolution: Configure the virtual CD-ROM player to use a ISO file.

I didn’t test this with VMware Workstation version 7.1. But this is on my list.

NSS on LVM

By default is you create a NSS pool or volume, these are management by EVMS. EVMS is a disk manager original developed by IBM.
This is a quote about EVMS from the sourceforge website

The Enterprise Volume Management System (EVMS) Project has the goal of providing unparalleled flexibility and extensibility in managing storage. It represents a new approach to logical volume management for Linux. The architecture introduces a plug-in model that allows for easy expansion and customization of various levels of volume management.

EVMS provides a single, unified system for handling all of your storage management tasks. EVMS recognizes all of the disks on your system and allows for a variety of partitioning schemes. Software-RAID and logical volume groups can be managed in EVMS. Filesystems can be created and checked, and are automatically updated when changes are made to the underlying volumes. With EVMS, there is no longer a need for several individual utilities for performing each of these tasks.

In 2006 IBM discontinued development of the project. There have been no further releases until know. Therefor Novell announced in 2008 that they will be moving from EVMS to LVM for NSS.

From OES2 it’s possible to run NSS on LVM with some with some disadvantages:

• no iManager support
• no NSS tools who uses EVMS (like software RAID and the creation, modifiying and deletion of patitions)
• no NSSMU support (the feature F4 update NDS works!)
• no Clustering

Advantages of NSS on LVM are:

• Better support of LVM in Linux
• Creation of a aligned partition (VMware)

So how can we create a NSS Pool with LVM?

1. Create a empty (aligned) partition with Yast
2. Create the NSS Pool
   mkfs -t nsspool -n nsspoolname devname
3. Create a directory for mouting the NSS Pool
   mkdir /mnt/pooldir
4. Mount the pool
   mount -t nsspool devname nsspoolmountpoint -o name=nsspoolname
5. Add the NSS pool to eDirectory
   NSSMU | Pools | F4 (NDS Update)
6. Add the NSS Pool mountpoint to the fstab file
   devname nsspoolmountpoint nsspool auto,rw,name=nsspoolname

And know the NSS  Volume

1. Create the NSS volume
   mkfs -t nssvol -n nssvolname nsspoolname
2. Create the mountpoint for the NSS volume
   mdkir /media/nss/nssvolname
3. Mount the NSS volume on the mountpoint
   mount -t nssvol nssvolname volmountpoint -o name=nssvolname
4. Update eDirectory
   NSSMU | Volume | F4 (NDS Update)
5. Add the NSS volume mountpoint to fstab file
   nssvolname nssvolumemountpoint nssvol auto,rw,name=nssvolname

Now you have a NSS Pool and Volume with LVM

openSUSE 11.3 is out!

Just a quick copy/paste action from the opensuse.org site:

openSUSE 11.3 is finally out! The openSUSE Project is pleased to announce the release of openSUSE 11.3. openSUSE 11.3 includes new versions of GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, the Linux kernel, and many, many more updates and improvements. In 11.3 you’ll find more than 1,000 open source desktop applications. openSUSE also includes a full suite of server software and a rich selection of open source development tools. Get it today!

Novellcongres.nl presentation: OES2 on vSphere best practice

In June I gave a presentation OES2 on vSphere best practice. After this session I got a lot of possible response from
the people in the studio.

Although you can download the presentation a long time from the novellcongres.nl site, I thought to post it out here also. One disadvantage, because the congres is called novellconges.nl the presentation is in Dutch. But although Dutch isn’t your native language, I guess you can make some sense reading the presentation and looking at the commands. Especially the commands about aligning NSS on a VMware virtual disk is nice!

I only have 1 condition if you download the presentation. You must give me feedback 🙂