I'm running a training with my colleagues this week and we installed VC 2.5 Update 4. At the moment we enabled the VUM plug-in we had the following error:

Error Message

"The VMware Update Manager cannot accept requests now because VirtualCenter server cannot be reached, or the database cannot be reached, or it is in the process of stopping."

Found a great article on the VMware Community . Although we didn't do an upgrade (we did a fresh installation), the solution worked:

Changed:

To:

Restarted the VUM Service and we we're good to go... Oh yeah, the file had the readonly flag, so remove it to be able to save the corrected file (duh).Oh, yeah,I'll shutdown the environment at 20:00 tonight. If it was a succes, I'll start a batch again next monday!

Check all post about vCenter Mobile Access:

• Screenshot
• NTPRO
• ICT-FREAK

Today I finally got my HP LO 100c card in my ProLiant ML 110 G5 finally running (and fully functional)!

I tried using Firefox, Internet Explorer 6 & 7, Java version 1.4, 1.5 and 1.6... Nothing really helped. The problem was that the login was quite fast, browsing through all options were great but opening the 'Virtual KVM/Media' took a very long time and the Media part was not working . Listening to my lately favorite online radio station DI FM Exposure NYC I finally found the solution. I removed the file which starts with: 'npjpi....'. The .... part depends on your version. I tested with 1.5 and 1.6 and worked like a charm... I could have renamed it of course, but I guess you can do that too. Oh yeah, the location: 'C:\Program Files\Java\<version>\bin'. Me very happy now! I you want to see all the details about this little nifty card, check it out here !

Yesterday I needed to change the syslog.conf on 96 servers. Offcourse I did write a script but security in our environment is the tightest you can think of so using sudo or su - interactively was not an option. I had to start the script by hand after logging in . Now I had some smart tricks on my sleeve so I finished the job within the hour. Perhaps you know some already, but I'll share them anyway - it could improve your workflow:

• Put putty in your path environment variable: This allows you to do <Windows-Key>-<r> and type 'putty <servername>'
• Copy the password in your windows buffer (you know, <Ctrl>-<c>) and insert it in the session using <Shift>-<Insert>
• Log in with elevated priviledges
• Start the script, which was on NFS in my case like: /vmfs/volumes/nfsdatastore/startscript.sh - BUT USE THE<tab>KEY:/vmf<tab>v<tab>n<tab>s<tab><enter>
• Log out using <Ctrl>-<d>, <Ctrl>-<d>!The first one logs you out from root, the second from the initial connection.
• Start the whole cycle again...

Awesome right? If you would like to know more cool tricks, check out this site . I like using:

• <Ctrl>-<l> to clear the screen
• <Ctrl>-<z> and command 'bg' to put the current job in the background, check status using command 'jobs'
• <Shift>-<PgUp> and <PgDn> to scroll throught the output (works on your ESX console too)
• <Ctrl>-<r> and start typing a part of a previous command, it will autofill
• 'history' to scroll through previous commands, execute one by using '!<number>'
• use !$, like 'cat <very_long_absolute_path_to_a_file_including_the_file>' and now I want to edit the file. Instead of using 'vi <very_long_absolute_path_to_a_file_including_the_file>' I use 'vi !$' where !$ means: use the last argument from the previous command
• Use 'cd ~' to go to your homedir. Use 'cd -' to switch back to your previous dir
• .... Can't think of anymore, but I'll post some more if you like them and I can think

Have fun consolling!

Tonight I was reading the Planet V12n list, looking for new interesting articles. Now one spotted my eye which is very cool. Mike La Spina has written detailed info about the VMFS. Read the full article here. Now the thing I really like was the part for 'backing-up' your VMFS. I quote:

"

For example we create a new VMFS store on the same storage backing with the same LUN size as the original and it shows up as a LUN with a device name of /dev/sdd we can use esxcfg-vmhbadevs -m to find it if required

In reply to NTPRO : the new launchpad from Eric looks awesome I think. Check it out: http://vlp.vmware-land.com/index.html

Click to enlarge