26 Apr 2012 Manual download and install of VMware Tools in linux
This post describes how you can download and install the latest version of VMware Tools to a linux guest from a ESXi 5.0 host. You need SSH access rights to a VMware host to follow this guide.
- Allow SSH access to the VMware host you are about to access.
- This can be done in the vSphere Client: Choose the VMware host you would like to access.
- Go to the Configuration tab and select Security Profile under Software. Edit Services Properties and start the SSH daemon.
- Verify that the firewall allows SSH traffic
- All the VMware Tools are located in the /vmimages/tools-isoimages/ folder on the host. Download the ISO-image with the tools you need
- Issue this command from a machine that has access to the VMware host.
sftp username@vmhost.tld:/vmimages/tools-isoimages/linux.iso
Type in your password and the download will start
- Issue this command from a machine that has access to the VMware host.
- Mount the ISO-file and copy the VMware Tools installer file to the desired VMware linux guest using SSH
-
# mount linux.iso /media/cdrom/ -t iso9660 -o loop # scp /media/cdrom/VMwareTools-8.6.5-652272.tar.gz username@vmguest.tld:
-
- Manual install of VMware Tools on a vmguest as a privileged user
-
# tar xfz VMwareTools-8.6.5-652272.tar.gz # cd vmware-tools-distrib # ./vmware-install.pl
Follow the instructions and finish the installer. A reboot may be required to load the necessary kernel modules.
-
Your VMware Tools are now installed and should work as it would on a normal VMware Tools installation.
This procedure can also be used on other operating systems. This is a list of all the VMware Tools ISO-images available in the /vmimages/tools-isoimages/ folder on a ESXi 5.0 host
sftp> ls -l -rwx------ 1 root root 12576768 Apr 13 09:17 darwin.iso -rwx------ 1 root root 256 Apr 13 09:17 darwin.iso.sig -rwx------ 1 root root 16021504 Apr 13 09:16 freebsd.iso -rwx------ 1 root root 256 Apr 13 09:18 freebsd.iso.sig -rwx------ 1 root root 65200128 Apr 13 09:15 linux.iso -rwx------ 1 root root 256 Apr 13 09:17 linux.iso.sig -rwx------ 1 root root 1738 Apr 13 09:17 linux_avr_manifest.txt -rwx------ 1 root root 540672 Apr 13 09:17 netware.iso -rwx------ 1 root root 256 Apr 13 09:16 netware.iso.sig -rwx------ 1 root root 13006848 Apr 13 09:17 solaris.iso -rwx------ 1 root root 256 Apr 13 09:16 solaris.iso.sig -rwx------ 1 root root 451 Apr 13 09:17 tools-key.pub -rwx------ 1 root root 13664256 Apr 13 09:18 winPre2k.iso -rwx------ 1 root root 256 Apr 13 09:17 winPre2k.iso.sig -rwx------ 1 root root 49 Apr 13 09:18 winPre2k_avr_manifest.txt -rwx------ 1 root root 62128128 Apr 13 09:17 windows.iso -rwx------ 1 root root 256 Apr 13 09:18 windows.iso.sig -rwx------ 1 root root 1069 Apr 13 09:17 windows_avr_manifest.txt
Tags: esxi5, firewall, sftp, VMware, VMware Tools, vSphere Client
Posted by Hans-Henry Jakobsen
25 Apr 2012 Change how the swap memory behave in Ubuntu
This post is just a cut and paste job from the Ubuntu SwapFaq for my future reference Ubuntu installation.
The swappiness parameter controls the tendency of the kernel to move processes out of physical memory and onto the swap disk. Because disks are much slower than RAM, this can lead to slower response times for system and applications if processes are too aggressively moved out of memory.
- swappiness can have a value of between 0 and 100
- swappiness=0 tells the kernel to avoid swapping processes out of physical memory for as long as possible
- swappiness=100 tells the kernel to aggressively swap processes out of physical memory and move them to swap cache
The default setting in Ubuntu is swappiness=60. Reducing the default value of swappiness will probably improve overall performance for a typical Ubuntu desktop installation. A value of swappiness=10 is recommended, but feel free to experiment. Note: Ubuntu server installations have different performance requirements to desktop systems, and the default value of 60 is likely more suitable.
To check the swappiness value
# cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
To change the swappiness value A temporary change (lost on reboot) with a swappiness value of 10 can be made with
# sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=10
To make a change permanent, edit the configuration file with your favorite editor:
# gksudo gedit /etc/sysctl.conf
Search for vm.swappiness and change its value as desired. If vm.swappiness does not exist, add it to the end of the file like so:
vm.swappiness=10
Save the file and reboot.
Tags: swappiness, sysctl, Ubuntu
Posted by Hans-Henry Jakobsen
02 Feb 2012 Recursively symlinking files
This is a short script I use to symlink all my JPG image files on my file server to a flat folder accessible to my DLNA enabled devices.
My files are organized in year folders and under each year there are month folders:
-2011 --2011-01 --2011-02 --2011-03 ... -2012 --2012-01
I avoid duplicate symlinks by using file names like 20110102-1234_DSC…JPG or YYYYMMDD-HHMM_OriginalFileName.JPG
The script looks like this
#!/bin/bash
SRC="/media/Images"
DEST="/media/SymlinkTarget"
# Create a symlink under $DEST for each JPG file under $SRC
find $SRC -type f | grep -i jpg | while read PATHNAME; do
NEW="$DEST";
echo "$NEW";
ln -s "$PATHNAME" "$NEW";
done
Posted by Hans-Henry Jakobsen
13 Jan 2012 Using Lsyncd to perform “live” syncronization of a local directory to a remote directory
This post is a short HOWTO and describes how you can install and run lsyncd to perform a rsync syncronization from local to a remote server using SSH.
Lsyncd is a daemon to continuously synchronize directory trees and relies on inotify. If you need real live syncronization DRBD might be a better alternative since it is a block level syncronization.
Installing Lsyncd 2.0 from source on CentOS 6
Lsyncd is not included as a package in CentOS 6, so you need to download the source file from http://code.google.com/p/lsyncd/downloads/list.
You should have rsync, GCC and lua-devel installed on your system before you continue installing Lsyncd.
# yum install rsync lua-devel
Unpack the lsyncd source file and run the following commands from the unpacked file
# configure # make # make install
make install copies the compiled files and install them to the right directories in your system.
I need to configure a non password SSH communication between the two servers with a shared SSH key.
On the source server run the following command to generate a SSH key, if you have not done this already.
Remember to do this as the user you are going to perform the sync with.
# ssh-keygen
Secure copy the generated SSH key from the source server to your target server
# scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub root@remoteserver:/tmp
On the target server you need to add the copied SSH key to your existing authorized keys file.
Also remember to do this with the user you are going to connect with from the source server.
# cat /tmp/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
If you do not have this file, just create it using the touch command described below
# touch ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
Test if you can ssh without a password from your source server to the target server.
I have made a config file, /root/scripts/lsyncd.conf that tells Lsyncd where to put the log- and statusfile. That it should be running as a daemon in the background, and a sync should occur after 900 seconds (15 minutes) if there have not been any filesystem changes and there should not be more than 6 parallell Lsyncd processes.
settings = {
logfile = "/tmp/lsyncd.log",
statusFile = "/tmp/lsyncd.status",
nodaemon = false,
maxDelays = 900,
maxProcesses = 6,
}
sync{default.rsyncssh, source="/path/on/source/", host="hostnam.target.server.tld", targetdir="/path/on/target/"}
To start lsyncd you run the command
# lsyncd /root/scripts/lsyncd.conf
You should now see a Lsyncd process running as a daemon on your system. It performs a sync when you start and then waits for any filesystem changes or sync after 900 seconds.
If you would like Lsyncd to start at boot, just add the following line to the bottom of file /etc/rc.local
lsyncd /root/scripts/lsyncd.conf
You do now have a working secure rsync syncronization between two servers.
What directories you are syncing
# tail -f /tmp/lsyncd.status
What is happening now
# tail -f /tmp/lsyncd.log
Tags: CentOS, howto, lsyncd, rsync, ssh, ssh-keygen
Posted by Hans-Henry Jakobsen
02 Jan 2012 How to join *.001,*.002,… files from your Linux terminal
This is a easy way to combine/join/merge several .001 .002 .003 etc files to one file.
# cat filename.avi.* > filename.avi
The .001 .002 .003 files can be deleted after you have verfied that the files have merged together successfully to one file.
If you were using Windows you would normally use a software like HJSplit or similar.
Posted by Hans-Henry Jakobsen
