The Lazy Sys Admin» ESX http://www.thelazysysadmin.net Why do things the hard way? Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:24:09 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 VMWare ESXi 4.0 and Boot from SAN http://www.thelazysysadmin.net/2009/05/vmware-esxi-40-boot-from-san/ http://www.thelazysysadmin.net/2009/05/vmware-esxi-40-boot-from-san/#comments Mon, 25 May 2009 07:14:56 +0000 Jon Smith http://www.thelazysysadmin.net/?p=228 VMWare have just released the free VMWare ESXi 4.0.

I have just tested and it now supports Boot from SAN. WOOT!! I have been looking into using USB drives as a way to boot my VMWare farm servers, but am a little nervous about the lack redundancy. So now I can carve out 2gb of redundant storage from my SAN for each server and save on having local disks that are very much under utilised.

It also looks like you can install the Free version direct to USB Drive rather than having to hack together something from the ISO and using DD or winimage to flash the USB.

This is an excellent move from VMWare and I look forward to reporting back on any other new features i find.

And as an a-side the Cacti Graphs found on this site still work under the new version. Now to find out if there is SNMP support in this release or not (I dont suppose I will be given everything I want in one go!)

]]> http://www.thelazysysadmin.net/2009/05/vmware-esxi-40-boot-from-san/feed/ 0 Monitoring VMWare’s Free ESXi 3.5 with Cacti http://www.thelazysysadmin.net/2009/04/monitoring-vmwares-free-esxi-35-with-cacti/ http://www.thelazysysadmin.net/2009/04/monitoring-vmwares-free-esxi-35-with-cacti/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:02:12 +0000 Jon Smith http://www.thelazysysadmin.net/?p=17 When I realised that the free version of VMWare ESXi only kept an hours worth of logging information I went looking for a solution to keep more statistical data. This is what I have come up with so far.

VMWare ESXi 3.5 CPU Graph in Cacti

VMWare ESXi 3.5 CPU Graph in Cacti

VMWare ESXi 3.5 Memory Graph in Cacti

VMWare ESXi 3.5 Memory Graph in Cacti

This method uses the VMWare Remove CLI tools to connect to the ESX server and download the information via an XML interface.

Software Required:

Firstly download and install the VMWare Remote CLI tools to your Cacti server.

Next you need to add a user to ESX for the statistics collection.

On the ESX Virtual Infrastructure Client goto the “Users & Groups” tab.

VMWare ESXi 3.5 Add Stats User Step 1

VMWare ESXi 3.5 Add Stats User Step 1

Right Mouse Click and “Add” a new user.

VMWare ESXi 3.5 Add Stats User Step 2

VMWare ESXi 3.5 Add Stats User Step 2

Then go to the “Permissions” tab, and Right Mouse Click to “Add Permission”.

VMWare ESXi 3.5 Add Stats User Step 4

VMWare ESXi 3.5 Add Stats User Step 3

Add the new StatsUser and select Read-Only for the assigned role and click Ok.

Now goto your Cacti installation and copy the “esxstats.pl” file into your cacti scripts directory and import the “cacti_host_template_vmware_esxi_3_5_host.xml” file into Cacti using the web interface. These scripts can be downloaded from the bottom of this post.

You should now be able to add a new ESX host into cacti. You will need to specify the “Downed Device Detection” mode to just “Ping” as there is no SNMP on the current Free version of VMWare ESXi 3.5.

I am hoping that SNMP support will come to the free versions as that would make life much easier.

Files Required:

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