TheThomsen Blog

If you didn’t read a while back DropBox left user accounts wide open for a little while.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/06/21/dropbox.unlocked.wired/

This led me to try out a different service called SpiderOak. SpiderOak gives you a lot more power as to what files are copied and synced. You can also share files that are backed up.
Example: I have all our family pictures stored on my laptop. I now automatically back them up to the web. In addition I shared them out so within minutes of me adding pictures to my laptop the whole family can view them securely on the web with a URL and a login.

SpiderOak is also more secure, it is secured by your client so the data is encrypted and only accessible by you.
It’s free just like Drop Box. There is a client for Apple devices, Android, Linux and Windows (who uses Windows anymore)

If you sign up using this link you get an extra GB of storage (oh, and so do I)
Get Spideroak and Doug gets another GB of storage

copy and paste into your browser if the link above doesn’t work:

https://spideroak.com/download/referral/b5d8eb86a1322651276189bb1165a066

Also, use promocode “worldbackupday” and you will start with 6GB total space. That’s a lot!

I’m always searching for the same dang information and since I use my phone, Ipad, multiple desktops and laptops to get that information I need some of these links to be centralized. I figured what better way then to throw them on my blog and keep them up to date.

So…. without further blah blah blah:

Enhanced vMotion supported processors
vSphere version comparision
vSphere kits comparison
vSphere pricing

UPDATE: There is a new version of boot my isos that does all the work for you including downloading most of the ISOS. Go check it out. PenDriveLinux.com

So at the VMUG today I was talking with a few of you about the USB drive I use for installing ESXi (among other things). I told a few folks I would post the details out here so…. I figured why not start a whole thread where everyone can tell what tools they use to make deploying and managing their VMware infrastructure easier.

Overview:

I have an 8GB USB drive that has been formatted with BootMyISOs found at [pendrivelinux.com|http://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-iso-from-usb-flash-drive/]. What happens is you run an EXE in windows that will wipe the flash drive and make it bootable. At that point there is also GRUB for dos loaded on it. If you are familiar with GRUB then you will have no problem editing the menu.lst file that points to the ISOs you store on your USB drive.

My folder layout on the USB drive looks like this:

Example entry in the menu.lst looks like this:

title ESXi 4 Update 1
find –set-root /ISOs/VMware-VMvisor-Installer-4.0.0.Update01-208167.x86_64.iso
map –mem /ISOs/VMware-VMvisor-Installer-4.0.0.Update01-208167.x86_64.iso (hd32)
map –hook root (hd32)
chainloader (hd32)

I like my ISOs to sit in their own folder as it is a bit cleaner.

When you boot you get a GRUB screen based on what you have typed into the menu.lst file. The menu.lst file is pretty easy to follow, just open it in a text editor and add a section for whatever ISO you want to boot (and make sure you actually have that ISO in the location).

A few things to keep in mind:

1. The ISOs must be contiguous. There are two links on the pendrivelinux page that provide programs that will de-frag single files.

2. Some ISOs will not work correctly due to storage drivers. Windows OSes will not install out of this without some modifications. I have great luck with ESXi 3 and 4. I can load either one in about 3 min.

3. When you select the ISO to boot from it will copy the ISO into memory. Depending on the speed of the USB and the size of the ISO it may take a bit to copy.

4. When the ISO actually starts to boot you can pull the USB stick and start the next server.

Enjoy

Ok, it’s not as simple as that but…

I was trying to troubleshoot some slowness with my Citrix client running on Ubuntu. Seems that creating a symbolic link from /dev/random to /dev/urandom speeds up the initial connection to the system. I had to find out why.
Long story short, the Citrix client uses the random number generator to setup the SSL connection. In Linux the /dev/random (random number generator) is populated by input from the mouse, keyboard, disk and network i/o. There is a possiblity on a system without much activity to run out of i/o to fill the /dev/random thus the application is blocked and you wait. So, moving the mouse in circles helps to generate a random number which will aid in your application not being blocked. Or, you can create a symbolic link from /dev/random to /dev/urandom which is a pseudo-random number generator. (caution: not as secure).

For more info on dev/random vs /dev/urandom this is a good read (unless you are not a geek).
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/entropy.txt

So finally with Microsoft’s newest OSes (Windows 2008 and Windows7) they have realized the importance of aligning the partion with the underlying storage. I have had quite a few folks still not know this to be an issue so I figured I would post some great information on the topic.

Great explanation of the problem with graphics:

http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/rubenspruijt/archive/2009/12/11/vdi-and-storage-deep-impact.aspx?asrc=EM_NLN_10454479&uid=8257470

Ways to detect:

http://www.badkey.com/db/blogsphere.nsf/d6plinks/JWIE-7RLHAT

Way to fix without losing data: Caution!!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=424509

How to create the partition first to avoid the issue:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd758814.aspx

We’ve moved the blog to HostMonster.com and decided to start from scratch. I will be moving over some of the more important blogs as I have time.

Thanks

-Doug