DB2 to Postgre vCSA change

The vCenter Server Appliance in the not-released-yet 5.0.1 (5u1) version will be switching from embedded DB2 to Postgre. ARG. Drink up
Is this because the transaction log settings and otherwise working with DB2 to truncate existing tables has been an issue? I sure can't find any detailed information online with the inner workings of the DB2 db. Hopefully smoother sailings than I've had so far.

vDR email spam

Crazy crazy amounts of email spewing from a vDR 2.0 appliance. VMware says this is a known bug and you could turn off email alerts and/or reboot your appliance on a regular basis. Drink Up.

Come on  guys, really? That's not acceptable. How about I limit the number of outgoing packets per day on port 25? It worked this morning... but long term I hope that VMware is fixing this bug.

iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp --dport 25 -m limit --limit 10/day -j ACCEPT

Also I was trying to find a config file that would have the settings for the email reports, but perhaps this isn't kept in a config or xml file. find / -mtime -1 after I made changes in the UI didn't seem to point to any text files.

The VCP5 can smell fear

For me, it was the fact that I'd never actually gone through an AutoDeploy setup. I mean, Enterprise Plus license level only with large shops that are deploying massive hosts? Not used often. I use the ESX Deployment Appliance. The every-person's version of kickstart for ESXi systems. I love EDA.

Anyway. The test could sense that I had skimmed the AutoDeploy documentation. I'm sure it has sensed fear from others on different subjects. A respectable 400 considering that I probably missed all the autodeploy questions.

And I totally stole and modified the VCP button. VCP#22708 on 3,4&5. VCAP5-DCD next.

hostdatastoresystem.createvmfsdatastore for object datastoresystem error

Well, from the ramblings of other blogs and the community forums, that ^ error string from the vSphere Client could mean just about anything could be wrong with your storage, your LUNs or your storage network.
In my case, after a long call with Dell EqualLogic and VMware, it turned out to be MTU size. In order to make my world right again, the MTU size on the Dell 6224 switches needed to be higher than the MTU size on the surrounding infrastructure. So: vSwitch, VMKernel and EqualLogic mtu: 9000. 6224's: 9126

Previous to that, there were logins and logouts on the iSCSI side, all sorts of errors seen in the vmkernel logs, but nothing...absolutely nothing...pointed in the direction of the MTU.

So, my short story that was actually really long is to show you, dear reader, that the first blog post that you find with this error message might not be your problem, it might not be the third or fifth solution you find. You might need to get help from someone else to check your configuration for something stupid that you've missed because you are less familiar with jumbo frames.

ipcop 2.0.2

IPCOP2 still needs buslogic SCSI controller; and in order to use BusLogic, make sure you've chosen Other Linux 32bit.

And E1000 nics (but you should have known that).

Legacy Applications

I got it. I've got a better handle on "cloud" than ever before. Aaron Delp and Brian Gracely helped me there, putting it in perspective of "traditional" hypervisor/cloud stacks. Drink up: Drink Me. Google their names and great things pop up. From here in the trenches, it's good to get a high level overview every once and a while.

old linux VM trick..

I was re-deploying a vDR2.0 machine today and could *not* get the console keyboard to stop stuttering. I looked up the old trick for delay, but it doesn't seem to be taking effect. The options->general->config params are not available for this appliance, not sure if the machine is ignoring other options on the vmx file.. I ended up using the Microsoft on-screen keyboard to get in and set the IP. Here's the text of the kb article for future personal reference. I haven't had to use this hack in years.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/196

To reduce these effects, increase the time threshold necessary for auto-repeat in the remote console.

Power off the virtual machine. Add a line, similar to this, at the end of your virtual machine's configuration (.vmx) file:

keyboard.typematicMinDelay = "2000000"

The delay is specified in micro-seconds, so the line in the example above increases the repeat time to 2 seconds. This should ensure that you never get auto-repeat unless you intend it.

Power on the virtual machine. To make the changes using the vSphere Client: Power off the virtual machine Right click virtual machine select Edit Settings Click Options > General > Configuration Parameters Click Add Row Under Name enter keyboard.typematicMinDelay In the Value field 2000000 Click OK Power on the virtual machine