Installing the HP NC365T in ESX4iU1

The HP NC365T 4 port nic is supported in ESX4iUpdate1 but is not recognized by default.
What I need to do before it is recognized, is to install the Intel driver for this card.

First you need to install the Vmware remote CLI

http://www.vmware.com/download/download.do?downloadGroup=VCLI41

Next you need to download the right package:

Link

Unzip de ISO en look for INT-intel-lad-ddk-igb-3.0.18-offline_bundle-396986.zip in the offline-bundle directory.

Put the zipfile in an easy directory like c:\vmware

Now we need to put the server in maintenance mode before we can install the driver package.

Start the Vmware CLI and use the following command: (do not copy, type instead)

vihostupdate.pl –server 192.168.1.1 –install –bundle c:\vmware\ INT-intel-lad-ddk-igb-3.0.18-offline_bundle-396986.zip.

Type your username and password. After this the update is installed you need to reboot the server before he recognized the NIC.

Download section for my documents

I have created a download section in the top menu, for my documents. I am planning a few new documents in a while.

First i have to finish my srm in a box document part 2. If this is ready i will focus at the next version of VMware.

How to recover your VMware ESX root password

I just came across a blog which linked my SRM in a box document. It was started a few days ago and is called:

Lewan-Ent Sytems and storage blog

Browsing around i found an excelent post about how to recover your root account in ESX.
Some times i come around customers and they installed ESX a long time ago and can’t remember the password. Or they only manage esx with vCenter with the administrator password so they forget the root password.

I suggest you print this one in pdf format and carry it along with you, just in case you might need this!

You can find this post here: http://lewaness.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/esx-35-server-lost-root-password-reset/

Disaster recovery book from VMware, FREE step by step with Netapp guide!

This free Disaster recovery book shows how to configure ESX to setup disaster recovery with a Netapp. This is a must read for everyone involving Netapp and VMware ESX.

This will guide you through all kind of considerations about Disaster Recovery settings and shows you how to configure your Netapp appliance to accomplish this for your site.

Right click and choose save to download the document:

Setting up “SRM in a Box”

Currently i am trying to setup a “SRM in a Box” configuration.However it is not working right now.

This is what i use:

1 hp proliant dl 110 g5 with 6 gb ram and a 500 gb hd with Vista buisiness installed.

On this server i’ve installed workstation 6.5.

In Workstation i created 2 folders names site 1 and site 2. In this folders i created 3 vm’s each.

in site 1:

1 vm with windows 2003 as a domain controller and Virtual center server with 768 mb ram
1 vm with Ubuntu desktop with the Netapp simulator serving 20 gb of iscsi storage with 512 mb ram
1 vm with a working ESX 3.5 update 2 with 1024 mb ram

in site 2:

1 vm with windows 2003 as a second domain controller and Virtal center server with 768 mb ram
1 vm with Ubuntu desktop with the Netapp simulator serving 20 gb of mirrored storage with 512 mb ram
1 vm with a working ESX 3.5 update 2 install with 1024 mb ram

At this time i have managed to setup SRM to see both storage sites, but i was unable to see a mirrord lun in the SRM storage configuration. Even if i do a rescan in the SRM dialog box it won’t display a mirrord lun. I am sure that i setup the snapmirror in a good condition.

Maybe the unsupported update 2 configuration is messing up things, or the simulator is failing on this one. Soon i wil post a detailed step by step guide if i manage to setup a complete working configuration.