VMWare VSphere 4i SSH

I haven't verified this, but I found this snippet on a web site earlier today
SSH in vSphere 4i
tweetmeme_url = 'http://www.itstuff.ca/2009/06/ssh-in-vsphere-4i.html';
To enable SSH in vSphere 4i we should do the following steps (similar as esx 3i):
1. First, press Alt + f1 then type “unsupported” and press enter.
2. At the prompt for password, provide the credentials, previously configured, and we will be able to log in to the service console.
3. Do a vi /etc/inetd.conf and look for #ssh. Remove the # and save the file after this.
4. Go to /sbin, and run this command ./services.sh restart

Now, we will have SSH enabled.

Virtualization for Dummies

In my job I have to read a lot of Vendor biased documentation, and occaisionally I run across a document that is actually useful for more than just understanding a certain vendors offering and can be applied across the board.

This article on virtualization, actually describes it pretty well and discusses why it is important. Keep in mind it does have a slant toward AMD processors and SUN, but nevertheless a good read of how different types of virtualization works specifically around x86 hardware. This document is mainly geared toward the SMB market and does not address the high end hardware virtualization methods of IBM, HP or even SUN. It is written by the authors of the "For Dummies" series of books so it is fairly easy to read, even if some of the content will make your head swim.

VMWare ESX fails to mount ISO image

I was installing the newest OpenSolaris on VMware ESX 3.5 tonight and I wanted to mounted to verify my disk image prior to the install so I thought simple; mount the ISO and browse the file system and that will show everything is ok. I created the mount point and ran the Linux mount commands and got an IOCTL error.

[root@x4100 x4100:storage1]# mkdir /tmp/isoimage
[root@x4100 x4100:storage1]# mount -o loop /vmfs/volumes/x4100\:storage1/OpenSolaris.iso /tmp/isoimage/


ioctl: LOOP_SET_FD: Invalid argument
 
After a lot of research I found this article. That explains that if you try to mount an ISO image from a VMFS file system you get the aforementioned error. The problem I had is the ISO I was trying to mount is on a VMFS filesystem and the mount command only works for images residing on a Linux filesystem, and vmfs doesn't count as a Linux filesystem. 

I moved the ISO to the /tmp filesystem and everthing worked as expected.

[root@x4100 x4100:storage1]# mv OpenSolaris.iso /tmp
[root@x4100 x4100:storage1]# mount -t iso9660 -o loop /tmp/OpenSolaris.iso /tmp/isoimage
root@x4100 x4100:storage1]# cd /tmp/isoimage/

[root@x4100 isoimage]# ls
bin dev jack pkg.zlib proc root solarismisc.zlib system
boot devices mnt platform reconfigure save solaris.zlib tmp
[root@x4100 isoimage]# cd ..
[root@x4100 tmp]# umount /tmp/isoimage/