Microsoft - Booting Hyper-V 2012 from a USB stick

Coming from a VMware Virtualisation background and being new to Hyper-V I wanted to look at how I would do common tasks - in VMware ESXi gets installed on a internal USB stick (well, that's the option we use and how the servers are configured) so how do I do that in Hyper-V?

In short - you can't if you want any support off Microsoft.

NOTE: They do have a guide which allows OEMs to do it for you which is supported.

That aside, feel free to follow the guide to install it in a lab environment which will be what I'll be doing!

I also found a short video showing you how to do this (which follows the Microsoft instructions).

Alternatively you just get the ISO image for ESXi and follow the installation instructions to install it on hard disk or USB...... just a thought.....

Microsoft - Hyper-V 2012

Investigating Hyper-V 2012 which has been getting some good reviews.

There are a number of Hyper-V Jump Start videos available which I've been using.

The first one in the series is called Core which you can find here

If you want to check costs Windows 2012 licensing information can be found here

A video of Virtualisation Products comparisons are available from Microsoft (hmmm....) which are taken from there TechEd 2012 conference VIR311 and one about Private Cloud comparisons VIR312

XenServer - Technical Master Class 101

Another Citrix webinar covering XenServer can be found here - you will have to login to view.

When I first heard the presenters I thought Mark and Lard had found new jobs with Citrix (BBC Radio 1 in the early Noughties)

XenApp - Desktop Virtualisation for VMware vSphere

I was lucky enough (management buy) to listen to a Citrix webcast during work hours which covered XenApp deployment on VMware vSphere.

It covered some tips and tricks to get better performance out of XenApp and one of the speakers was Elias Khnaser who is a CTP and vExpert.

Webcast can be found here - you will have to register to watch it

VMware - RVTools 3.4 (new release)

Just read that the latest release of the excellent RVTools is available and can be found here.

Produces really good reports that can be exported to Excel and CSV - I've been using it in its various forms since 2008.

The Health tab is very useful as it warns you about Zombie VMDK files, VM Tools being out of date, Disks running out of space, inconsistent folder names, etc, etc.

Zombie VMDK files are interesting in the fact that they may, or may not, be still linked to the Guest still. Personally I've found a load of former snapshot files which have become "lost" in the system i.e. snapshot manager doesn't state there are any outstanding for the Guest so I remove them. You can always move them first before deleting on the safe side to see if there are any adverse reactions from the Guest!

Additional information about Zombies can be found on the Communities Forum (feedback to a question)

Script - BE patching script

If you've read the previous blogs for the u10 BE patching process you'll know it is a bit long winded - so I've tried my hand a little bash scripting. It has been tried out on a test box and it works.....

The error handling isn't exactly what I want and therefore the script will be subject to change.

u10 upgrade script (updater)

#!/usr/bin/ksh
# Bash script for Solaris patching
# To be stored in /usr/local/sbin for Systems Administrator

# Prior to running script make sure enough free space is available on the target server.
# Enough space is required for:
# Patch bundle - 2Gb
# Extracted patch bundle - 4Gb
# BE patches - 20Mb
# New boot environment - 6Gb

clear
df -h
sleep 5

# Mount the NFS patch area
clear
if mount | grep /mp > /dev/null; then
    echo "/mp already mounted"
    sleep 3
    else
    if [ -d "/mp" ]; then
        mount -F nfs <mount_point> /mp  || { echo "Mount command failed"; sleep 3; exit 1; }
        echo "mounted sol_nfs_patch"
        sleep 3
        else
        mkdir /mp || { echo "Create /mp directory failed"; sleep 3; exit 1; }
        mount -F nfs <mount_point> /mp || { echo "Mount command failed"; sleep 3; exit 1; }
        echo "created /mp and mounted sol_nfs_patch"
        sleep 3
    fi
fi

clear
# check if /cpu folder exists, if not create
if [ -d "/cpu" ]; then
    echo "/cpu directory already exists"
    sleep 3
    else
    mkdir /cpu  || { echo "create /cpu failed"; sleep 3; exit 1; }
    echo "created directory /cpu"
    sleep 3
fi

clear
# Choose from available patches
ls /mp/cpu
echo "Choose a CPU: "
read CPU
clear
echo "$CPU is the file you have chosen"

clear
# Copy recommended zip file over to /cpu
if [ -f "/cpu/$CPU" ]; then
    echo "File already exists in /cpu"
    sleep 3
    else
    echo "Copying $CPU to /cpu"
    cp /mp/cpu/$CPU /cpu || { echo "Failed to copy $CPU file"; sleep 3; exit 1; }
    echo "Copied $CPU file to /cpu"
    sleep 3
fi

# unzip the CPU file
cd /cpu
unzip /cpu/$CPU || { echo "Failed to unzip $CPU file"; sleep 3; exit 1; }

# free space up on local server by removing zip file
if [ ! -f "/cpu/$CPU" ]; then
    echo "$CPU file not found"  
    sleep 3
    else
    cd /cpu
    rm $CPU || { echo "Unable to delete $CPU"; sleep 3; exit 1; }
    echo "$CPU file removed"
    sleep 3
fi

# The unzipped directory is
UDIR=$(ls -t /cpu | head -1)
echo "Unzipped directory is /cpu/$UDIR"
sleep 3

# Run pre-resquisite patchset install on existing BE
echo "Installing pre-resquisite patchset"
sleep 3
cd /cpu/$UDIR
./installcluster --apply-prereq --s10patchset || { echo "Unable to apply-prereq"; sleep 3; exit 1; }

# Create BE
echo "Creating a new BE called $UDIR"
sleep 3
lucreate -n $UDIR || { echo "Unable to create $UDIR BE"; sleep 3; exit 1; }
lustatus
sleep 3

# patch created BE
echo "Patching $UDIR BE"
sleep 3
luupgrade -n $UDIR -s /cpu/$UDIR/patches/ -t `cat /cpu/$UDIR/patch_order` || { echo "Patch of BE failed"; sleep 3; exit 1; }
echo "Script finished"
sleep 3
exit 0

AIX - version and patch level

I had to look at a AIX server recently and had to look around to web to find out how I would find out what version and patch level it was at.

To see what the OS version is:
# oslevel

To see what the OS version and maintenance level
# oslevel -g

 Maintenance Level and Service Pack
# oslevel -s



5300 = AIX version
05 = Maintenance Level
00 = Service Pack

NOTE: I'm assuming the information I gathered from the web is correct along with my interpretation of it!