Manual format a local VMFS partition

During a ESX 3.5 course a student accomplished to create a VMFS partition but not to format this partition.

In the VI-Client, you only can create a new VMFS Datastore a an empty LUN. So if you select your local disk, the Service Console partitions get earesed during initialization.

A quick look in Google tolled me the solution to format the partition by hand. So I posted it out here for my own documentation.

Step #1 Run fdisk -l and find the partition that you want to format with VMFS3. This is marked as fb.
Step #2 Then run esxcfg-vmhbadevs -l to see which vmhba devices is mapped to the partion in step #1
Step #3 run vmkfstools -C vmfs3 -S “vmkfs volume name” vmhba#_from_step#2
Step #4 rescan in VI Client and watch your new vmfs volume show up.

Novell Brainshare Salt Lake City 2010

Novell has announced that there will be a Brainshare in Salt Lake City in 2010. The event will be from 21 till 25 march 2010.

Novell announced it will be going back to it’s roots with this Brainshare.

Quote:
The new Back-to-Basics BrainShare will focus almost exclusively on valuable skills and training. Plus, in response to your feedback, we’re lowering the price by $300. If you’re looking to jumpstart your IT mindset, we’ve got just what you’ve been waiting for.

I reserved the 21 till 25 of march in my calendar!

More info: http://www.novell.com/brainshare

fault.CustomizationPending.summary

While developing a vSphere cause I got the error fault.CustomizationPending.summary while deploying a Virtual Machine from a Template in vShpere.

The problem was simple but it took me a while to figure it out, so I thought to posted it out here for you guy’s.

Before I converted a Virtual Machine to a Template, I cloned it from another Virtual Machine. The I also used sysprep through the Customization Wizard but never powered on the Virtual Machine to let him finish the customization. Instead I converted the Virtual Machine right to a Template. So when I deployed a Virtual Machine from the template and used the Customization Wizard I got the error.

While typing this post, I thought by me self. So what if I did not use the Customization Wizard when I wanted to deploy a Virtual Machine from the Template but just choose  the option “do not customize”.
This is not the fact. Somehow the Sysprep isn’t started so the Guest OS isn’t customized.

vSphere kickstart script

For a while now, I’m giving a self made course about VMware ESX 3.0. Until now, the customer provided the hardware or the company who heirs me for this course provided the hardware. This was a time consuming tasks because a employee form this company (Ictivity Training) had to put all the hardware is his car (2 till 4 Dell PowerEdge 2900 server, 3 switches, 1 NetApp Fas270 and a lot of cables) drove to the customers site and setup the hardware.

Now with vSphere where planning to give all courses on-line. So the hardware keeps in de datacenter in Eindhoven and the onlything a customer must provide is a internet connection. Only disadvantage is that VMware vShpere has to be installed on the hosts. No problem but this also can by time consuming.

There for I created a kickstart script. I posted out here so you can make advantage of it. Just save the text below in a ks.cfg text file. Make some changes to the password and ip information  and put it on a USB flash drive.
Start from DVD where vShpere is located and choose the 3th option to start a kickstart script from USB.

The root password is: vmware

install cdrom
keyboard us
#Network Setup
network –device=vmnic0 –bootproto=static –ip=192.168.10.1 –netmask=255.255.255.0 –gateway=192.168.10.254 –nameserver=192.168.10.254 –hostname=esx1.vmware.lan –addvmportgroup=1 –vlanid=0
rootpw vmware
firewall –enabled
#Authentication
authconfig –enableshadow –enablemd5
#Time Setup
timezone Europe/Amsterdam
#Bootloader
bootloader –location=mbr

#Partitioning
#Note all partitions on the first disk will be cleared! Remove any FC links!
clearpart –firstdisk –overwritevmfs
part ‘/boot’ –fstype=ext3 –size=200 –onfirstdisk
part ‘Storage1’ –fstype=vmfs3 –size=20000 –grow –onfirstdisk
part ‘none’ –fstype=vmkcore –size=100 –onfirstdisk
#Virtualdisk
virtualdisk ‘esxconsole’ –size=15000 –onvmfs=’Storage1′
#Partition the virtualdisk
part ‘/’ –fstype=ext3 –size=10000 –grow –onvirtualdisk=’esxconsole’
part ‘/var/log’ –fstype=ext3 –size=3000 –onvirtualdisk=’esxconsole’
part ‘swap’ –fstype=swap –size=1000 –onvirtualdisk=’esxconsole’

#License Agreement Accept
accepteula

%post –interperter=bash

Groupwise 8 SP1 available

As you have read on many site including Novell Coolsolutions, Groupwise 8 sp1 is out!

Tonight I’m going to upgrade my Groupwise server. We will find out what’s new!

What’s for sure, that there are many bug fixes. Here you can find a list. It’s to long to post it here.

Ok, 20 minutes later and I updated my system. After a first look I don’t see any issue. If I find them, I will posted it here!