DATAPUISTOKEMISTI

Lowest budget backups for your free VMware ESXi hypervisor.

Adding LSI RAID controller status to VI client and connecting to ESX using MSM (Megaraid Storage Manager) running on Windows.

VMware Converter does decent job converting old physical servers to virtual machines, but it refuses to do anything to servers using software RAID. I really don't get why such arbitary limitation is in place. It really doesn't matter if physical server used RAID, software or not, because everything is copied by Converter on file lever rather than block level.

Trying to move virtual machine between datastores (local or remote) can be painful without vCenter and SVmotion. Easy and fast way is to use traditional VI Client to move contents of virtual machine directory via datastore browser (Move To feature). Processing stays within ESXi and goes quickly. VMware converter could also be used, but it's SLOOOOOW and everything goes via management PC which is dumb design. GhettoVCB restores aren't fastest either. This is quite obvious workaround, but I have to admit didn't realize this until today. Since backups are NFS mounted I can simply import VMX file from backup directory using datastore browser. Yes, this will result in changes to backup which is not that great, but at least it's quick - even biggest VM can be restored in couple minutes. And that issue with changes to backup could be easily solved with ZFS snapshots.

After many, many months of waiting Cisco finally managed to build new version of CSR1000v 3.13 that is compatible with VMware ESXi 5.1. Another quiet release without release notes. As with earlier 3.13 versions this new 03.13.01S build is available only in OVA format without purchasing license (csr1000v-universalk9.03.13.01.S.154-3.S1-ext.ova). Not to worry as you can extract ISO image and even BIN images if needed for upgrading older install from OVA. If you're coming from 3.12 or older with eval license (which allowed creation of eval license locally) you'll need new licenses. Usual two month license is available from Cisco portal  but it's extra step compared to 3.12.  Another difference is performance levels for unlicensed and eval licensed modes. Unlicensed 3.12 is 2,5Mbit/s, eval licensed 3.12 is 50Mbit/s, unlicensed 3.13 is 0,1Mbit/s and eval licensed 3.13 is 10Gbit/s.

Initial version of Cisco CSR1000v 3.13 (csr1000v-universalk9.03.13.00.S.154-3.S-ext) was broken and kept crashing while booting on VMware ESXi 5.1, but apparently does work on ESXi 5.5. Cisco has silently replaced it with 3.13S0a version (csr1000v-universalk9.03.13.00a.S.154-3.S0a-ext) without providing any release notes or even updating filedates. Which is exactly as broken as old one - stuck in infinite reboot loop. Download is here , but for some reason for 3.13 only OVA packaged one is available after free registration. If you need ISO simply unpack OVA with 7zip and use ISO you can find inside for install. And then it will fail. Perhaps something to do with crazy nested virtualization CSR uses. Thanks guys.

While VMware Workstation supports passthru of USB storage devices BIOS used for virtual machines is not USB boot capable. As a workaround download Plop Boot Manager , extract plpbt.iso, mount it as CD on your VM, boot from CD and then select boot from USB. Blah. Spinning media is so yesterday.

Did P2V for old CentOS 5.5 i686 install and it failed to boot. Recreating initrd helped. Also see thread on VMware support forums .

VMware is weird company. They provide only Windows based management tools, but yet installing their products requires manual fiddling with Linux. Notes below are based on info from http://www.r71.nl/kb/technical/327-install-vsphere5-esxi-from-usb .

These are kind of "last resort" fixes if all normal ways fail to resolve problem. No guarantees. Worked for me...