Category: VMWare

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CentOS Linux VMWare

Install VMware Tools in CentOS 6.1 command line

Here is how I went about installing VMware Tools on CentOS 6.1 using the command line.

1.In VMware Fusion or Sphere Client: Virtual Machine / Guest > Install/update VMware Tools
2. Within the VM – using command line (I’m not using x) at the prompt:
3. mkdir /mnt/cdrom
4. mount the virtual cdrom using; mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
5. cd /tmp
6. tar -xvf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools* or tab to auto complete
7. cd vmware* or tab to auto complete
8. ./vmware-install.pl; accepting defaults throughout. (If not already installed – yum install perl)
9. umount /mnt/cdrom
10. In Fusion / Vsphere Client VMware tools should now display as installed. Check via Virtual Machine / Guest > Install/VMware Tools > will display as “Reinstall” or “OK” version dependant.

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HowTo Guides VMWare

Shrinking vmdk disks in VMWare ESXi

I needed to move a VM from the Datastore onto my laptop today, and found that my VM had numerous vmname-001.vmdk / vmname-002.vmdk virtual disks. The size on these disks would mean it taking hours to move the VM from the VM server to my laptop – so I needed to tidy up and shrink if possible.

I first found that deleting any old or redundant snapshots (taken as a safety measure when updating items within my VM!) consolodated all the -001 / -002 / etc .vmkd files into one ‘master’ vmname.vmdk file. But this file was the full size of the allocated disk size – in my example 160Gb, but the VM was infact only using about 40Gb… time to shrink! Via SSH to the console, I ran the following (with the VM shutdown and powered off of course!).

Firstly – get yourself into the VM storage area for your VM :

cd /vmfs/volumes/vmstorename/vmname

Now run the VM Filesystem tools to shrink your .vmdk – this may take a while, in my case from 160Gb down to 36Gb took about 10 mins :

vmkfstools --punchzero vmname.vmdk

36Gb – Much easier to move around.

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HowTo Guides VMWare

VMWare ESXi 5.0 Whitebox Server build � Part 2

The build has started, everything has arrived – so far so good. First job with everything was to update the firmware, as it is a lot easier to do it now than when you have everything up and running and rely upon the uptime!

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HowTo Guides VMWare

VMWare ESXi 5.0 Whitebox Server build – Part 1

So, we have meant to move both produciton servers and develoment servers accross to a virtual server platform for a while now – but time / development time has been at a minimum. Recently however I came accross this great post by – Tinkererguy on Tinkertry.com. Tinkererguy had picked out a very similar spec whitebox ESXi to my goal – a resonably priced / high-end workstation, capable of easing us across to virtualization without a large supplier bill!

Continue reading “VMWare ESXi 5.0 Whitebox Server build – Part 1”