There are a number of new patches available for your ESX 3.0.1 hosts:
ESX-2066306 Patch 12/28/06 Critical Patch
ESX-6921838 Patch 12/28/06 General Patch
ESX-8173580 Patch 12/28/06 General Patch
ESX-9986131 Patch 12/28/06 Security Patch
Check it out on http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/index.html
When using Citrix or Terminal Services with roaming profiles, you have to be aware of the fact that the following file C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\VMware\hgfs.dat causes roaming profile headaches in a virtual environment.
This is caused by the Shared Folders option (available in VMware Workstation) being activated during the installation of the VMware tools. This feature does not exist on an GSX/ESX host. However, even on ESX this feature can be "enabled" (not used) by selecting the Complete install option during VMware tools installation.
Check out the following VMware KB: https://xmail.xylos.be/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1317
Wilco van Bragt has written an article on the infamous Shadow Key timestamp. Normally, when you install an application, you have to set your terminal server into Change user /install (command line) or via Add/Remove programs so it will redirect all HKCU keys to a special place, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\Install\Software.
Only problem is that the timestamps on the server are, when installing a new Citrix server, more recent then the timestamps of the roaming profiles. When users log on, there roaming profile is older then the Shadow keys on the server. Example: Office 2003 signatures will be lost because the Citrix server rebuilds the HKCU! There are some tricks to avoid this (RDT/SDT tools, set server clock in the past, etc.)
Read the article here
Microsoft SA clients will be able to buy Vista Enterprise and Desktop optimalisation pack which will include Softgrid desktop clients. Desktop Optimalisation Pack will bundle products from Softricity, Winternals, ... other companies recently bought.
Pricing will be as low as 11$/desktop/year. Available from 17/Oct 2006, purchase open in January 2007! The current license form will exist till 30/06/2007.
A new version of Softgrid (version 4.5) is expected End Jan 2007. This version will be compliant with Vista.
Brian Madden has done an interview with Citrix on VDI/ Project Trinity. Check it out here
Patrick Rouse (from Session Computing Solutions) has written an excellent article on VDI and the different vendors / approaches.
Check it out here!
Tim has released an updated version of his Illustrated OSD tool:
This small tool allows you to explore the xml syntax of the OSD file in an interactive way. Place mouse over items in the OSD file below for a description of the item.
What's an OSD file? Open Software Description: a standard format created by Microsoft as part of an obscure project to database software applications using XML. This format was discovered by Softricity long before their Microsoft relationship began. Softricity used this as a base and extended the DTD to meet their needs. A OSD formatted file is now used by SoftGrid as the shortcut description to a SoftGrid client on how to access a SoftGrid enabled application. These files use names that end in ".OSD" as the extension. In addition to this tool you may be interested in the updated SoftGridOSD Schema file in the Tools section of the website.
Don't forget to check out his video garden (Advanced Sequencing)!
Citrix has aquired Ardence. Ardence makes it possible to stream an OS (!) & its applications. Main purpose is to add more Citrix servers in a farm on the fly.
ESX does not support dynamic multipathing. Therefore, manual multipathing must be configured on each ESX host. This is necessary, because if all datastores use the same path, I/O contention can appear. Example: as we are using an IBM DS 8000, we are able to use 8 targets (Storage Processors) on the device. An ESX host itself has 2 HBA’s (vmhba), so in total we have 16 paths to use.
A path is created by combining 3 components: HBA ID, target ID and LUN ID:
vmhbaX:Y:Z, where:
It is therefore easy to calculate the optimal path (see screenshot below). For the best performance, make sure all paths are divided equally. In our example below, vmhba1 has 4 paths and vmhba2 has 4 paths. Each target has 1 path. There are 8 SAN LUNs configured. When additional LUNs are created, (example: LUN 8), target 0 will get 2 paths, etc.
Thomas Koetzing has written an excellent article on understanding context switches in a Citrix environment. He uses process explorer (and perfmon) to track problems.
Check it out here
Ever wondered how you could easily move a VM from one datacenter to another? Wonder no more! You can use VMware Converter (in beta now & free) to export & inject a VM from one VC/ESX host to another VC/ESX host on the fly. Converter is in fact a combination of VM Importer 2.0 and the good ol' P2V assistant.
This is great for DR purposes! The only drawback now is that Converter is still rather slow in importing/exporting VMs and the VM has to be shutdown before migration...
Check them out here
As you may know, the license server for VI3 (provided by FlexLM) can only use 1 license file. This file is called vmware.lic and is stored (latest version) in C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware License Server. As the .lic file is a plain text file, it is easy to combine 2 .lic files into one.
The first part looks like this, don't touch it!:
SERVER this_host ANY 27000
VENDOR VMWARELM port=27010
USE_SERVER
Then you have the VC license:
INCREMENT PROD_VC VMWARELM 2007.03 permanent 1 \
VENDOR_STRING=licenseType=Server ISSUED=12-Jan-2007 \
NOTICE=FulfillmentId=1234 SIGN="1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 \
1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 \
1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234"
Now comes the fun part :)
INCREMENT VC_ESXHOST VMWARELM 2006.07 permanent 8 \
VENDOR_STRING=licenseType=Server;capacityType=cpuPackage \
ISSUED=21-Jan-2007 NOTICE=FulfillmentId=1234 SIGN="1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 \
1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 \
1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234"
INCREMENT VC_ESXHOST VMWARELM 2007.07 permanent 8 \
VENDOR_STRING=licenseType=Server;capacityType=cpuPackage \
ISSUED=21-Jun-2007 NOTICE=FulfillmentId=1234 SIGN="1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 \
1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 \
1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 1234"
I am currently working on a VCB implementation for a very large customer (together with Geert Baeke). The customer uses TSM (Tivoli Storage Manager) to backup full .vmdk files.
TSM uses a pre-command to snapshot a list of VMs. However, this is a string in a small textbox. It works in the following format: pre-command <jobname> <VM1.FQDN> <VM2.FQDN> <...>. Needless to say this is very difficult to maintain and is error-prone. That's why I wrote a vbscript to replace the default pre-command.bat file and use a text file as VM list.
---------------------------------------------------------------Option Explicit
On Error Resume Next
Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2, ForAppending = 3
Const TristateUseDefault = -2, TristateTrue = -1, TristateFalse = 0
Dim strVCBFile, strVCBList, strPreCmd, strJobName, objFSO, objShell, objFile, objStream, strStream
strVCBFile = "VCBList.txt"
strPreCmd = "pre-command.bat"
strJobName = "VMFullJob"
strVCBList = ""
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
If objFSO.FileExists(strVCBFile) Then
Set objFile = objFSO.GetFile(strVCBFile)
Set objStream = objFile.OpenAsTextStream(ForReading, TristateUseDefault)
Do While Not objStream.AtEndOfStream
strStream = objStream.readline
strStream = Trim(strStream)
strVCBList = strVCBList & " " & strStream
Wscript.echo strVCBList
Loop
'run the backup command
objShell.Run strPreCmd & " " & strJobName & strVCBList
Else
'do nothing
End If
'cleanup
Set objFile = nothing
Set objStream = nothing
Set objFSO = nothing
---------------------------------------------------------------
Additional steps to perform:
VM1.contoso.com-FullVM
VM2.contoso.com-FullVM
Citrix released an updated Citrix Presentation Server Client Package version 9.230. This is NOT a Vista release yet. Download it here
A customer of ours had a problem with his Secure Gateway after the firmware and management software (HP Proliant Support Pack) where updated to the latest versions. The CSG and HPMHP (Management Homepage) use Apache as there default webserver, so a specific .exe file rotatelogs.exe gets replaced by HP.
Use the following workaround:
