Viewing ESXI Host messages

Viewing ESXI Host messages

Navigate to: https://10.96.4.231/host/messages (using the example of the support server, substitute IP address of server in question) and then enter in root and password for local root user.

Disable "old" physical NIC in machines that have been virtualized

Disable "old" physical NIC in machines that have been virtualized

 Follow these steps to sort it out:

How to upgrade the free version of ESXI

How to upgrade the firmware without the paid products

The primary way to manage an ESXi system is via Windows. To this end, you will need the VMware vSphere CLI package (available from the VMware website) installed as well as the vSphere GUI client. Both are available for Windows; however, only the first is also available for Linux. The GUI client will not allow you to upgrade the firmware of ESXi, which is why you need the CLI tools (but you do need the GUI client to manage/shutdown/suspend the virtual machines in order to do the upgrade). So, because the client only runs on Windows, you will either need a Windows system available, or a virtualized Windows install on another machine that is separate from the ESXi host.

Enable Jumbo Frames for VMware vSphere ESXi 4.x

Enable Jumbo Frames for VMware vSphere ESXi 4.x

Credit goes to Marc Kean:


1.    Logon to the vSphere client > Inventory > Configuration > Networking > You will most likely have one Virtual Switch already configured. The aim here is to add Jumbo Frames to a new VMkernel Port by adding a new VMkernel port with Jumbo Frames.

HyperV and Windows Backup

There's a registry hack that will also enable windows backup...

From http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958662:

To register the Hyper-V VSS writer with Windows Server Backup, follow these steps:

1.    Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

2.    Locate the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\

Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

Make VMware Virtual NICs part of an "identified network" to avoid firewall issues on running VMs

Make VMware Virtual NICs part of an "identified network" to avoid firewall issues on running VMs

When you add VMware workstation or viewer to a Windows 7 machine you will notice that this causes extra information to be carried in the "bubble" that appears when you over over the network icon.

You can make the extra virtual network cards part of an "identified network" to avoid this issue.

Using a Netgear ReadyNAS as a datastore for ESX/I

Using a Netgear ReadyNAS as a datastore for ESX/I

There are two methods of connecting the ReadyNAS via ESX to use as a datastore. First, we are going to show how-to using the NFS protocol. Then, will we show connecting via iSCSI as well.

Method 1 : ReadyNAS NFS share as a Datastore
Method 2 : ReadyNAS iSCSI target as a Datastore

Converting VMware Images to Hyper V ones

I found this in a newsgroup posting: have not tried it yet but it seems an elegant solution. The excerpt below is from a posting by Steen Kirkby.

Running VMware Images and Hyper V Images on the same box

I was asked to do this the other day and it can cause you a lot of headaches. So hats off to Steve Graegert who has a nice solution in his blog, see link for details