I recently was confronted with a VM that was out of space on /usr/local. The filesystem was already using LVM so I just added a new virtual disk and stretched the /usr/local volume over the new disk. The whole process is even easier in VMware as you can add the new disk while the machine is running and run through the whole process without a reboot, providing you don't have daemons or processes running in /usr/local that stop it from being unmounted. Here's how I did it:

init 1
umount /usr/local

Going to runlevel 1 may not always be necessary but was in my case. pvcreate enables the new physical disk for use with LVM. Then vgextend extends the volume group, and lvresze resizes the logical volume. In my case the new disk that was added became known to the system as /dev/sdc.

pvcreate /dev/sdc
vgextend VolGroup00 /dev/sdc
lvresize /dev/VolGroup/lvol0 -L 12.7G

Then use resize2fs to extend the file system into the free space. You are required to fun a filesystem check first.

e2fsck -f /dev/VolGroup/lvol0
resize2fs /dev/VolGroup00/lvol0 12700M
mount -a
init 3

In my example the previous size was 7.7Gb, I added a 5Gb disk and extended to 12.7Gb.

Syntax Highlighter plus (plugin for wordpress). Link

IMO this is the best code highlighting plugin for WordPress. Here's a quick example: 

[lang='bash']ls -la
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade[/lang]

Does exactly what is says on the tin and has the 'view source' button to you to copy and paste the plain text version of your code into notepad or Putty sessions.

Second quick mention is EasyVMX. Link

Ever wondered how to create a new VM for VMware player? Just visit the EasyVMX site, fill in the form and click go, and your VMX file is created. Then just give the file to VMware player and you can boot into your new machine. Genius!

The software you need to do this is already installed on the source and destination server, but has to be enabled in the virtual infrastructure client first on both servers:

• Log into VIC as root
• Click on ESX Server in the tree (top level)
• On the Security tab, click on Security (may be called Security Profile)
• Click on the "Properties ..." link
• Tick the boxes for SSH Client and SSH Server
• Click OK

Log on to the destination server using Putty. We need to find out the real name of the data store directory.

ls /vmfs/volumes

It should look something like this:

View of /vmfs/volumes

The dark blue text is the real name of the directory. The light blue is a symbolic link to that directory. Make a note of the full path of the data store you want to migrate to, e.g:

/vmfs/volumes/47cd0bf3-b4b7eef9-5985-0017a4f6b9f1

Now log on to the source server using Putty.

• Before you do anything, remember to shut down the guest VM you are copying
• Navigate into your data store where the source VM is held, e.g:

cd /vmfs/volumes/ SERVERNAME\ Storage

• Pull up the directory listing using ll (this is an alias of ls -l)
• Again, make sure this VM is powered off
• Use SCP to copy the whole directory to the destination server. The syntax is as follows below.
• Note that your source_directory will typically be the name of your VM
• Your destination is the name of your target ESX server

scp -r -C -o CompressionLevel=6 source_directory root@destination: /vmfs/volumes/data_store_name

Using compression is optional, but it will speed things up a bit. You can leave this bit out if you want: -C -o CompressionLevel=6

If you receive this message, say yes:

The authenticity of host 'server (10.11.2.120)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 49:04:65:6e:20:40:e0:fc:a6:75:14:10:bf:6e:a7:70.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

• Once finished, log on to the destination ESX using VIC
• On the summary tab browse the datastore where the VM was copied to
• Right-Click on the vmx file and select 'Add to inventory'
• Fill in the form with relevant values
• Power up the VM and create a new identifier for the VM if prompted
• Check if everything is working correctly
• Backup the VM on the source server before deleting the files

Technorati Tags: ESX Server

Create template
Install and configure your virtual machine exactly how you want it. Give it a generic name like "TEMPLATE" and leave it in a workgroup. If your template is a Windows 2003 server "sysprep it" by following this article. Power your VM down and your template is now ready.

Deploy the template
This is how it works:

• Create a new Windows 2003 VM, configure the disk to be as small as possible
• After creation, edit the VM settings and delete the disk
• Open an SSH session to the ESX server using Putty
  • cd /vmfs/volumes/ESXservername\ storage/TEMPLATE
• Copy the VM disk to the new machine:
  • cp *.vmdk ../new_server_name
• In VIC, edit the settings of the VM, add a new disk, point it to /storage/new_server_name/disk_file.vmdk
• Boot the VM up run through sysprep
• Let it run for about five minutes while sysprep takes place, set computer name and NIC details etc when prompted
• The server will then restart.
• The server is now ready and just needs to be joined to the domain.

The whole process should take no longer than half an hour.

Technorati Tags: ESX Server, VMWare

First download it from vmware and untar it:

tar zxfv 3.0.1-32039-full.tgz
cd 32039
ls

You will the tarball contains a load of .rpm files. Updating from this directory should then be as easy as:

/usr/sbin/esxupdate -n update

However if you have already done some patching on your server you may receive the following error:

INFO: 1 packages need to be downgraded.
Please use the --force option and try again.

Do not use the --force option in this situation as doing so will downgrade your previously installed patches. Instead, check your update log and see which packages are flagging the errors.

grep -i downgrade /var/log/vmware/esxupdate.log

Then use the -x switch to exclude those patches from the esxupdate.

/usr/sbin/esxupdate -x VMware-esx-scripts.i386 -x krb5-libs.i386 -n update

The -n switch supresses an automatic reboot so you can review the output of the command, but you will need to restart your server when the update has finished.

Technorati Tags: ESX Server, Server Administration

VMTS Patch Manager

It's also clever enough to recognise patches that will downgrade your system or are not required, and it will not install them for you. It's not quite perfect and does have a few quirks and rough edges, but I would definitely recommend the download if you have an ESX deployment that needs patching. I've seen a few alternatives to VMTS Patch Manager that are basically perl scripts and http repositories, but nothing else I've seen is as good as this.

Technorati Tags: ESX Server, Administration, ESX Patching

Before starting please note the following:

• Microsoft's diskpart utility can only be used to extend dynamic disks. Before using this utility you will need to convert your disks to dynamic using the Disk Management utility in the Computer Management console.
• System or boot volumes cannot be extended using diskpart.
• GParted cannot manage dynamic disks. If you are resizing a system or boot disk, configure it as a dynamic disk after it has been resized. If you convert to dynamic first, you may not be able to convert it back to a basic disk.
• Before making any changes ensure you have a backup of your server, or at the least a snapshot of your VM.

1. Power down your VM gracefully
2. SSH to the ESX Server hosting the VM
3. cd to the directory containing your .vmdk disk file (you can check the name and location on the Hardware tab of your VM in Virtual Infrastructure Manager). e.g.

cd /vmfs/volumes/vmStore

4. Use vmkfstools to extend the disk using the following syntax: (Please use a double dash, not a single dash. WordPress automatically reformats this from a double to single dash)

vmkfstools --extendvirtualdisk [size] [vmdk filename]

Size can be in Mb, for example 5000m, or in Gb, for example 5g. e.g.

vmkfstools --extendvirtualdisk 11g S05010094.vmdk

If you are resizing your C: drive or system/boot partition, continue at step 9. Otherwise, continue below:

5. Power up your VM
6. In Computer Management ? Disk Management you should now see the unallocated space on the disk.
7. Open a command prompt window and use the diskpart utility to extend the partition.

Diskpart
List volume
Select volume z
Extend size=x disk=y

Where z = the volume number, x= the size in MB and y= the disk number in Disk Management

8. Your server may need a restart for the changes to take effect.

If you are resizing your C: drive , follow steps 1-4 above. Then:

9. Obtain a copy of the GParted live CD iso, copy it to your ESX server and configure it as your CD ROM drive on your VM.

Note: GParted will only recognize your disks if your VM's SCSI Controller is configured to emulate a BUS Logic SCSI controller. Changing type from LSI Logic to BUS Logic is dangerous. Make sure you know what you are doing or you could make your disk inaccessible to Windows.

10. Change SCSI Controller type from BUS Logic to LSI Logic.
11. Boot your VM from the ISO image.
12. Use GParted to delete the extra space and extend your volume into the unallocated space.
13. Power down VM. Change SCSI Controller type from LSI Logic to BUS Logic. Configure VM to boot from hard disk.
14. Power on VM, chkdsk should run as part of the startup proces and your disk should then be extended.