ESXi 6

Hello old|new friend. Like most folks I have been working with ESXi for more years then I want to admit. I have always ran a home lab, which including running our windows VM’s. Just over 2 years ago, I had a hyper-v project I needed to work on, and I converted my server to that technology. What was supposed to be a quick project, wound up running for a long time. 

With my recent motivation to move back to VMW technologies, it was time to rebuild to ESXi. The first step was to move the one VM that actually has a purpose. My wife has one windows application that she must use for work. I picked up a copy of Fusion and Windows 10. I must say its pretty slick when she 3 finger swipes between her Mac and Windows OS screens. 

Since our move, my servers are not as easily accessible and I needed to get the iLOM on-line for remote access. Simply plug in the Ethernet, right? Of course not, nothing seems to go down with out Yak Shaving. It seems there has been some java security updates and the remote KVM won’t start anymore. After a few hours I found a post on-line that has a work around. While it deprecates the security levels, it allows it to work. 

One of my new co-workers recommended using USB to boot/run ESXi to save the internal disks for VM’s. I decided to give it a whirl. A quick search on-line led me to a nice script to create the bootable USB thumb drive.  Worked like a champ, but alas the server wouldn’t boot to it.  Decide I was not in the mood to debug, and kicked it old school. Burned a CD and installed. 

The next issue that I hit was during install. At what seemed to be the end of ESXi loading, before it starts the install, it hung at loading kernel drivers. A quick search on-line led to a post about running headless. You can either modify the boot parameters or your Bios. I choose the bios route and the install worked on the next try.

I now have ESXi 6 U2 up and running. There are several, new to me features since I last ran ESXi. The first is that VMware now provides a web interface per ESXi host. Its somewhat similar to the vCenter appliance. It's a great addition and I am glad to have it. The other new feature to me is VMware Remote Console. This a great little app that installs on OS X that allows you to run console windows to your VM’s, through the new web gui. 

And as I always do, the first VM that went onto the new server is Ubuntu, running the World Community Grid.  My philosophy is that if the server is going to be on, burning power, it should be doing something worthwhile. Check it out and feel free to join the team. 

Church Lab

After many years we recently moved into a newly remodeled church that was built in 1924. I needed to get my lab on-line and what should be a quick "its on line” result, turned into a serious amount of Yak Shaving. 

My lab has always been in the basement of our houses. However, the church doesn’t officially have a basement, it has a cellar. The ceiling is about 5 feet high which is fine for the servers, they don’t care how high the roof is. The builder who redid the church, I guess thought no one would use the space because the ceiling is too low. Step one: hire an electrician to extend the electrical plugs and lights for the servers. The really good news is there was electricity down there to extend. 

When the remodel was done the builder left the original outside walls which are 4 bricks thick. What seems like a previous life, in college, I ran ethernet cable for a telecomm company one summer. Yes those were the days when wireless was not even a thing. Hey you kids get off my lawn!!  While I have moved to wireless for my workstations and who only knows how many IoT devices, I have stayed wired for my servers. 

Now back to 2 points here: I know how to run cable, and those 4 brick thick walls. There is no way I was going to be able to run Ethernet to the servers.  I decided it was time to make the servers wireless. My first inclination was to find some type of wired/wireless bridge. 

There are as many opinions as products on the market as to how to solve this problem. As I was doing my research I had an aha moment. Many years ago I had purchased an airport express to make some wireless speakers. Over time we stopped using them, because we were invited to be a beta tester for Alexa. The express was not even on-line in our new house. There was not really an example of doing what I wanted to do with an airport express. Either it’s obvious so why bother posting it, or I was not googling right, but I decided to fire it up and give it go. 

After searching through boxes, and a firmware update, the airport express was on-line and sure enough it simply passes the ethernet port on it through the wireless it is connected to. My old switch lab is plugged into the express and my entire lab, after a 6 week interlude,  is on my network again. 

Evolution

Evolution of the church from 1937 as one of the first Christian churches in this area, to 1952 as a masonic lodge and community center, to 2016 a residential home...this place has great history and amazing brick walls with stories to tell.