Plealse help me!

I install VirtualServe2 on redhat as4, and i install licenseServer on window2k3, install VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client 2.0 on win2k3

; then i plan to use vic2 to connect virtualserver2,

  and the description is below:

\[2006-12-01 14:29:04.484 'App' 1052 verbose] \[VpxdHostAccess]  Connecting to 10.64.224.5

\[2006-12-01 14:29:04.484 'App' 1052 verbose] \[VpxdHostAccess] Attempting to connect to vpxa on 10.64.224.5

\[2006-12-01 14:29:04.703 'App' 1052 error] \[VpxVmdbCnx] Authd error: 500 Unknown command 'CONNECT_VPXA vpxa-vmdb'

\[2006-12-01 14:29:04.703 'App' 1052 error] \[VpxVmdbCnx] Failed to connect to host 10.64.224.5:902. Incorrect authd version detected

\[2006-12-01 14:29:04.703 'App' 1052 verbose] \[VpxVmdbCnx] Failed to connect to host <10.64.224.5>

\[2006-12-01 14:29:04.703 'App' 1052 warning] \[VpxdHostAccess] Host has an old version of authd  - needs to be updated

\[2006-12-01 14:29:04.703 'App' 1052 verbose] \[VpxdHostAccess] Attempting to connect to host agent on 10.64.224.5

\[2006-12-01 14:29:04.906 'App' 1052 error] \[VpxVmdbCnx] Authd error: 530 Please login with USER and PASS.

\[2006-12-01 14:29:04.906 'App' 1052 error] \[VpxVmdbCnx] Failed to connect to host 10.64.224.5:902. Check that authd is running correctly (lib/connect error 11)

\[2006-12-01 14:29:04.906 'App' 1052 verbose] \[VpxVmdbCnx] Failed to connect to host <10.64.224.5>

\[2006-12-01 14:29:04.906 'App' 1052 verbose] \[VpxdHostAccess] Attempting to connect to serverd on 10.64.224.5

\[2006-12-01 14:29:15.140 'App' 1052 verbose] Connected to stream: \[class Vmacore::Ssl::SSLStreamImpl:03413578]

\[2006-12-01 14:29:15.453 'App' 1052 verbose] \[VpxVmdbCnx] Connected to host 10.64.224.5

\[2006-12-01 14:29:17.703 'App' 1052 error] \[VpxdHostAccess] Failed to enable administration account(err: -2000:Invalid username or password)

\[2006-12-01 14:29:17.734 'App' 1052 verbose] \[VpxdMoEventManager] Event\[74]: Connection failed for 10.64.224.5 in New Datacenter: Failed to configure management account

\[2006-12-01 14:29:17.734 'App' 1052 verbose] \[VpxdHostAccess] Disconnecting from 10.64.224.5

\[2006-12-01 14:29:17.750 'BaseLibs' 5980 info] VmdbCnxRecvTuples got invalid remote path /vm/

\[2006-12-01 14:29:17.875 'App' 1052 verbose] \[VpxVmdbCnx] Disconnected from host 10.64.224.5

\[2006-12-01 14:29:17.921 'App' 1052 verbose] \[VpxdMoEventManager] Event\[75]: Failed to reconnection to 10.64.224.5 to New Datacenter

\[2006-12-01 14:29:17.921 'VpxdProfiler' 1052 verbose] counter name: /vpxd/methodStats/vim.HostSystem.reconnect/TotalTime

\[2006-12-01 14:29:17.921 'VpxdProfiler' 1052 verbose] value: 13453

please help me!

Hi all

This new thread is a spin-off of thread http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=63666 as I think that this could be a different issue.

I have a classroom with several pcs running VMware server on Mandriva 2007 32 bits that I use to teach. VMware is configured with a bridged vmnet0 to the only one eth0 interface, and Mandriva get its network configuration through DHCP.

Everything installed without problems, and my pupils were a couple of days loading VMs and playing happily with them.

But suddenly at the start of a class last Friday, everyone of them started to suffer the same symptoms: VMware server hangs on start, and it last 40-60 seconds to load, instead of the usual 4-6 seconds. And when it loads, the GUI is rather unresponsible and everything is "sluggish".

I discovered that if you shut down the network interface that the VM is bridged to, VMware server start snappy and everything seems to function OK... until you reconnect the bridged interface. An this happens in all the servers (7) that I have in the student's pcs.

I had the clear impression that the server hangs waiting "something" on the bridged vmnet0 and, as soon as the eth0 interface it is bridged to is shutted down in the host OS, the server continues to function as usual.

I have been checking /var/log/messages today and have found something that appears to be the culprit of the "hangins" of VMware server.

Next follows some of /var/log/messages output as I pressed the reset button on a running VM. VMware server hangs at 18:42:12

Lines marked with double asterisks and dashes are the hot spots.

\----

Dec  5 18:41:48 localhost kernel: device eth0 entered promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:41:48 localhost kernel: audit(1165340508.156:16): dev=eth0 prom=256 old_prom=0 auid=4294967295

Dec  5 18:41:48 localhost kernel: device lo entered promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:41:48 localhost kernel: audit(1165340508.164:17): dev=lo prom=256 old_prom=0 auid=4294967295

Dec  5 18:41:50 localhost kernel: device eth0 left promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:41:50 localhost kernel: audit(1165340510.297:18): dev=eth0 prom=0 old_prom=256 auid=4294967295

Dec  5 18:41:50 localhost kernel: device lo left promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:41:50 localhost kernel: audit(1165340510.317:19): dev=lo prom=0 old_prom=256 auid=4294967295

Dec  5 18:41:50 localhost kernel: device eth0 entered promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:41:50 localhost kernel: audit(1165340510.369:20): dev=eth0 prom=256 old_prom=0 auid=4294967295

Dec  5 18:41:59 localhost kernel: bridge-eth0: enabled promiscuous mode

\**** Dec  5 18:42:12 localhost kernel: bridge-eth0: disabled promiscuous mode 

\----- Dec  5 18:42:57 localhost kernel: device eth0 left promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:42:57 localhost kernel: audit(1165340577.677:21): dev=eth0 prom=0 old_prom=256 auid=4294967295

\----

From 18:42:12 to 18:42:57 VMware server is "hanged". It appears to me that the transition from promiscuous to non-promiscuous mode in eth0 is causing VMware server to "hang on something".

I can reproduce those "hangins" simply by pressing the reset or stop buttons in the GUI for the running VM.

In the following output VMware server "hangs" at 18:48:37 and 18:50:04

\----

Dec  5 18:47:37 localhost kernel: bridge-eth0: disabled promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:48:37 localhost kernel: device eth0 left promiscuous mode

\**** Dec  5 18:48:37 localhost kernel: audit(1165340917.118:33): dev=eth0 prom=0 old_prom=256 auid=4294967295

\----- Dec  5 18:50:03 localhost kernel: device eth0 entered promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:50:03 localhost kernel: audit(1165341003.339:34): dev=eth0 prom=256 old_prom=0 auid=4294967295

Dec  5 18:50:03 localhost kernel: device lo entered promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:50:03 localhost kernel: audit(1165341003.351:35): dev=lo prom=256 old_prom=0 auid=4294967295

Dec  5 18:50:04 localhost kernel: device eth0 left promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:50:04 localhost kernel: audit(1165341004.463:36): dev=eth0 prom=0 old_prom=256 auid=4294967295

Dec  5 18:50:04 localhost kernel: device lo left promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:50:04 localhost kernel: audit(1165341004.487:37): dev=lo prom=0 old_prom=256 auid=4294967295

Dec  5 18:50:04 localhost kernel: device eth0 entered promiscuous mode

\***** Dec  5 18:50:04 localhost kernel: audit(1165341004.531:38): dev=eth0 prom=256 old_prom=0 auid=4294967295

\-----  Dec  5 18:51:22 localhost kernel: bridge-eth0: enabled promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:51:43 localhost kernel: bridge-eth0: disabled promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:51:43 localhost kernel: bridge-eth0: enabled promiscuous mode

Dec  5 18:51:43 localhost kernel: hdc: packet command error: status=0x51 \{ DriveReady SeekComplete Error }

Dec  5 18:51:43 localhost kernel: hdc: packet command error: error=0x54 \{ AbortedCommand LastFailedSense=0x05 }

Dec  5 18:51:43 localhost kernel: ide: failed opcode was: unknown

\----

As I said before, if I shut down eth0, VMware server starts up rather quickly (4-6 seconds). Also, if I start VMware with eth0 enabled, the server last between 40-60 seconds to show the GUI. If I disable eth0 while VMware server is starting up, the server appears to response with normal speed.

I have to note that I also run VMware server in the classroom firewall/server (with to NICs and the same version of Mandriva) without any of this problems.

Does anyone here have a clue on this scenario? What/where can I look to find clues on this?

Thank you all

I am running a test of VMWare Server and USB hardware keys and so far it is failing. I have 4+ USB dongles that are all recognized by XP and Server 2003 as the same thing (Aladdin Knowledge Systems USB device) although they are all hardware keys for different products. The devices all have unique Device Instance Ids but VMware seems to not use this to track which dongle is assigned to which guest OS.

Right now I have dumbed down my config and have two dongles and two guest XP VMs. When I reboot the host (Server 2003 R2) system the dongles are not properly allocated. Sometimes one guest has two dongles, sometimes they have one each but the wrong one, and sometimes it works perfectly..

Is this a bug in VMware, or is there an advanced configuration option that I'm not aware of? I could understand that it would be a problem if they all had the same Device ID but that's not the case..

Dongle A = \USB\HASP\6&3A9EE628&0&00

Dongle B = \USB\HASP\6&3B71D525&0&00

Thanks..

Hello. Is there a way to remove the floppy drive from Guest OSs?  I am running on Windows Server 2003, and do not have a floppy drive on this machine.  It's creating some issues for me, and even disabling it in the guest device manager won't do because it ties up the drive letter still.  Additionally, I cannot remove the drive letter in disk management because the device does not show up there.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

I am running Windows server 2003 as host and guest.

The host has lpt2 and lpt3 parallel ports.

I have reinstalled vmware server because I installed these ports after installing vmware server.

I have assigned lpt2 to my virtual windows server 2003. This works fine.

Now I want to assign lpt3 to another virtual machine (nt4 server). But starting this nt server the following message occurs again:

"Cannot open VMparport driver for lpt3: Überlappender E/A-Vorgang wird verarbeitet

Failed to connect to virtual device parallel0"

It means "overlapping I/O-processing occurs" ore something like that.

Is it not possible to assign different parallel ports to different virtual machines ?

I would be gratefull for some advice.

regards

H. Keil

I would like to be able to deploy an unattended W2003 X64 on VMware Server. However, sofar all my attempts have resulted in an BSOD.

Here are the details.

I have created an WinPE cd, that will enable me configure network settings and access the windows install share on the network.

On the network share i have created the "textmode" directory and placed the LSI Logic 20320 x64 drivers in it (lsi_scsi.inf, lsi_scsi.pdb, lsi_scsi.sys, p2k3amd64.cat and textsetup.oem)

The article

http://kb.vmware.com/KanisaPlatform/Publishing/261/2241_f.SAL_Public.html

informed me to download the lsi logic drivers from the LSI site.

I also altered the unattended.txt file, so that the storage driver can be loaded (info from OPKtools)

Now when the setup get to the point of the "textmode" setup, it still results in an BSOD with code 0x0000007b

Now i know, that means that there is an inaccesible boot device.

What am i doing wrong??

greetings,

Kick

PS: The vmx file states that it is configured with an lsi device.

I am trying to boot an image of an IBM 4690 Supermarket Application OS into VMWARE Server. I used LiveView to create a VM from a DD image of the hard drive.

The system boots to a blank screen with an underline cursor in the upper left corner, just as the real system does. But then it does nothing else.

I've tried every choice of guest OS, but of course IBM 4690 OS isn't on the list.

Does anyone have any knowledge of how this might be accomplished?

Hello All,

I am running VMware server v1.0.1 build 29996. After shutting down one of my VMs I get this error when trying to start it.

VMware Server unrecoverable error: (vmx)

NOT IMPLEMENTED

C:/ob/bora-29996/pompeii2005/bora/lib/disklib/sparseChecker.c:1231

....

Now I first thought this was a error with my VM as my other VM works fine. So I restored VM from tape and then did a system state restore as VM is a domain controller. Powered up VM without an issue and all worked sweet. Have left it a few days and was thinking I would backup my VM again just to be sure so I would not have to spend so much time restoring if there was a problem. Shut VM down, copied files. What do you know VM has same error when powering up. So googled the issue and found a few posts that were not extactly the same errors but were close. Nothing worked. Tried removing hdd from VM and re-attaching, no luck. Re-installed / repaired VM server, no luck. I don't want to do a restore of my VM again if I can help it as I do not think it is my vm. Even if I do I think it will die when I power it off. Has anyone else had this error or similar? I have the log files and dump files but don't know what I am looking at. Any help would be very much appreiciated.

TIA

miked

I think I did everything right...

I built a VirtualMachine.  Selected Ubuntu as the type. Booted Simply Mephis 6.04, which loads the "live CD".

In the Live CD, I run the install.  Format the 'virtual disk', install grub, etc.

When the install is finished, it prompts for a reboot.  Reboot brings up the kernel panic error.

This is my first attempt to install anything into a VM.  I instaled VMwareServer yesterday for the first time.  I've tried this installation 3 times now, so I'm any help would be appreciated!

Regards, and THANKS!

I have a new Win 2000 Pro guest running on a WinXP Pro host using bridged networking, but the guest is getting a private IP from VMNet0 instead of the external DHCP it is meant to use.  VMNet0 is set to automatically get IP and DNS from the external DHCP we use but it is not working correctly.

Any help would be appreciated.

          Windows 2000 Pro Guest:

C:\>ipconfig /all

Windows 2000 IP Configuration

        Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : win2000pro

        Primary DNS Suffix  . . . . . . . :

        Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast

        IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

        WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

        Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

        Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VMware Accelerated AMD PCNet Adapter

        Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0C-29-9B-06-56

        DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

        Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

        Autoconfiguration IP Address. . . : 169.254.198.61

        Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0

        Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

        DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . :

          WinXP Host:

Microsoft Windows XP \[Version 5.1.2600]

(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

        Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : DELL-LAPTOP51

        Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . : insourcellc.local

        Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid

        IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

        WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

        DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : insourcellc.local

Ethernet adapter VMware Network Adapter VMnet0:

        Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

        Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter for

VMnet0

        Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-56-C0-00-00

        Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

        Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

        Autoconfiguration IP Address. . . : 169.254.167.187

        Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0

        Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

Ethernet adapter Wired Network Connection:

        Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected

        Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit Cont

roller

        Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-15-C5-50-82-8A

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:

        Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

        Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Networ

k Connection

        Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-18-DE-38-02-C4

        Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

        Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.10.10.237

        Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

        Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.10.10.1

        DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.10.10.1

        DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 68.87.71.226

                                            68.87.73.242

        Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Monday, February 12, 2007 17:19:17

        Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Monday, February 12, 2007 18:19:17

Hi !

I have a problem running vmware-config-tools.pl on my slackware 11.0 (kernel 2.4.x).

I did all that needed to be done (rc0.d -> r6.d stuff ... etc).

But when I launch ./vmware-config-tools.pl I got a nasty stuff ...

root@darkstar:/usr/bin# ./vmware-config-tools.pl

sh: /etc/vmware-tools: is a directory

Making sure services for VMware Tools are stopped.

Unable to stop services for VMWare Tools

Execution aborted.

root@darkstar:/usr/bin#

HELPPPPPP please.

Cordialy,

Benoît.

Hello,

I'm running VMware Server on the latest update of RHEL 4 but I'm having some problems, but I'm not sure if it's RHEL or VMware Server at fault.

I have 3GB installed on this host server. I have setup two guests, both running Windows 2003. The guests have 1GB and 1.5GB of memory assigned to them. This leaves 512MB left for the host OS.

The problem I am getting is that RHEL kills off one or both guests randomly. Here is an extract from dmesg when this occurs:

/dev/vmmon: 2777/18 waiting for mutex "global" probably held by -1/25.

/dev/vmmon: 2777/18 waited  for mutex "global"          held by 2777/25.

/dev/vmmon: 2224/17 waited  for mutex "global"          held by 2777/29.

oom-killer: gfp_mask=0xd0

Mem-info:

DMA per-cpu:

cpu 0 hot: low 2, high 6, batch 1

cpu 0 cold: low 0, high 2, batch 1

Normal per-cpu:

cpu 0 hot: low 32, high 96, batch 16

cpu 0 cold: low 0, high 32, batch 16

HighMem per-cpu:

cpu 0 hot: low 32, high 96, batch 16

cpu 0 cold: low 0, high 32, batch 16

Free pages:        2568kB (1664kB HighMem)

Active:416921 inactive:344092 dirty:36 writeback:6 unstable:0 free:642 slab:3658 mapped:339494 pagetables:844

DMA free:16kB min:16kB low:32kB high:48kB active:12kB inactive:12700kB present:16384kB pages_scanned:15378 all_unreclaimable? yes

protections[]: 0 0 0

Normal free:888kB min:936kB low:1872kB high:2808kB active:1008kB inactive:849408kB present:901120kB pages_scanned:901395 all_unreclaimable? yes

protections[]: 0 0 0

HighMem free:1664kB min:512kB low:1024kB high:1536kB active:1666664kB inactive:514260kB present:2228172kB pages_scanned:0 all_unreclaimable? no

protections[]: 0 0 0

DMA: 04kB 08kB 116kB 032kB 064kB 0128kB 0256kB 0512kB 01024kB 02048kB 0*4096kB = 16kB

Normal: 04kB 18kB 116kB 132kB 164kB 0128kB 1256kB 1512kB 01024kB 02048kB 0*4096kB = 888kB

HighMem: 364kB 228kB 1816kB 732kB 364kB 1128kB 0256kB 1512kB 01024kB 02048kB 0*4096kB = 1664kB

Swap cache: add 6716, delete 5011, find 329/563, race 0+0

0 bounce buffer pages

Free swap:       2044912kB

786419 pages of RAM

557043 pages of HIGHMEM

7323 reserved pages

998768 pages shared

1705 pages swap cached

Out of Memory: Killed process 2160 (vmware-vmx).

vmmon: Had to deallocate locked 378993 pages from vm driver f6f00000

vmmon: Had to deallocate AWE 4917 pages from vm driver f6f00000

So from looking at this I gather RHEL kills the guests because it is running out of memory. From looking at how I split up the memory allocation for the guests I do not understand why RHEL does this, even if it did reach the maximum amount of physical memory surely it should start using swap? (which I have 2GB worth of)

The only vaguely similar problem I could find on the VMware forums is a post (http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=20690&filterOrder=DESC&tstart=-3) which says that "vm.min_free_kbytes" as setup by the RHEL kernel is set at a very low default value. I've tried setting this to a higher value as suggested but I still get the same problems.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

sidafydd

I have scheduled the following batch file to shut down  our virtual machines (so that the backup job may read the files) using GSX 3.2.1 on a Windows 2000 host:

C:

cd "\Program Files\VMWare\VMware GSX Server"

call vmware-cmd "C:\Virtual Machines\psdtsc42k\win2000Serv.vmx" stop

call vmware-cmd "C:\Virtual Machines\PSDTest-1\winNetStandard.vmx" stop

call vmware-cmd "C:\Virtual Machines\psdfs8\netware6.vmx" stop

Then when the backup job completes,

C:

cd "\Program Files\VMWare\VMware GSX Server"

call vmware-cmd "C:\Virtual Machines\psdtsc42k\win2000Serv.vmx" start

call vmware-cmd "C:\Virtual Machines\PSDTest-1\winNetStandard.vmx" start

call vmware-cmd "C:\Virtual Machines\psdfs8\netware6.vmx" start

Unfortunately, the Netware 6.5 box never completely shuts down - does not get backed up, and does not (of course) come back up.

I have the latest VMWare Tools installed... can anyone lend a hand and help me figure out why?  thanks

When I converted my MS virtual machines to VMWare, ended up with hidden network adapters that are assigned the IP address it had when it was a MS virtual machine.  When I try to set the IP address of the VMWare created network adapter, I get an error telling me that the IP address is being used by hidden network adapters.  The Virtual Server doesn't respond to that IP address though.

Does anyone know how do deal with this problem?

Host is a dual XEON 3GHz with HT disabled, 6 GB RAM, 6 disks configured in 3 mirrors.

It's running linux (CENTOS 4.3), 32 bit.

Guests are 3 Windows 2000 server, 2 with raw disks, 1 (less loaded) in  a 16GB virtual disk.

If i try to assign 1 GB each, one is frequently killed for Out of Memory:

Sep 24 10:14:19 hstvmx01 kernel: Out of Memory: Killed process 13458 (vmware-vmx).[/b]

The same happen if assign 1 GB, 1GB and 512 MB.

All seem work assigning 768 MB, 768 MB and 512 MB.

Host OS (CENTOS) is 32 bit but it can use all 6GB of RAM, /tmp has more than 10GB free.

In console i set "Fit all virtual machines in reserved host RAM" and "host ram for all virtual machines" is 5479 MB.

Why can't i use more than 2GB for virtual machines?

Thank you for any help

Bye

E. Corbetta

Message was edited by:

        eco

"511 vmware-serverd service is not running."

This is the message i've got after trying to connect to local computer.

PentiumIII 900 mhz

Windows XP SP2

8 GB harddisk

512 MB memory

GSX Server 3.2.0 build-14497

My first installation on my home pc works fine. Now i want to install on my notebook to continue my work on business-trips.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Chris

Hello, I'm trying to shrink a vmdk file and getting an error "failed to lock file" Any ideas why this may be happening? It is a growable disk so I assume I should be able to shrink it.....

Jon

I just finished installing fedora core 5 as guest system on an XP host. Everything went well in the installation and was able to stop and restart the vm. However today it refused to boot with the following message:

   Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting the kernel

   Red Hat nash version 5.0.32 starting

   sda: assuming drive cache: write through

   sda: assuming drive cache: write through

      Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while...

      Found volume group "VolGroup00" using metadata type lvm2

      2 logical volume(s) in volume group "VolGroup00" now active

   Kernel Panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init

The only thing I did was to add some hardware (usb and sound), but when I removed it kept hanging, so perhaps has nothing to do with it. Can some good soul help me? Thanks.

Daniel

I've recently duplicated our producion environment into VM's to allow us to test upgrades and patches without having to arrange outage windows, come in on the weekend or waste a night rebuilding a production server after a patch went bad.

After much trial and error, using Ghost, Barts PE with the Ultimate P2V plugin and LiveState Recovery, I've found the following method to work perfectly every time:

1) Start with a VM running a clean OS install + VMWare tools. Make sure you are runing the same version and service pack version as that of the system you want to restore

2) Use NTBACKUP to take a copy of the windows partition and system state of the physical machine. Copy the resulting BKF file into your clean guest OS.

3) Use NTBACKUP to restore the system state + C drive into your VM. Because ntbackup keeps the hardware specific registry settings of the machine it's restoring to, you shouldn't see the STOP 0x7 error on restart.

4) After restoring, restart the guest OS. If everything starts, logon to the guest, reinstall VMWare tools and be happy. If you've restored from a Compaq (HP) server you might find the system hangs after the bios but before the Windows logo. Compaq/HP servers seem to use a different HAL from your run of the mill acapi HAL which doesn't agree with VMWare. In this case:

5) Boot from the Windows 2003 setup CD. (Hint: convert it to an ISO, copy it to your VMware host and attach it to your virtual CD ROM drive - Windows Setup will boot about 60% to 70% faster!)

6) Start the recovery console and drop to a command line

7) copy \WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386\HALAACPI.DLL \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\HAL.DLL (overwrite the existing file)

8) Exit the recovery console and watch your VM boot (hopefully!) Install VMTools and be happy.

So far, this method has worked perfectly for me. There hasn't been a single machine that has failed to run or given me problems after restoring.

My questions are:

Is anyone aware of any problems with this method? and, seeing as it works so well, what benfit is there using a commercial P2V product? We've actually just purchased Symantec Live State with the restore anywhere option for our production servers, to allow us to restore them into VM's for disaster recovery purposes. I'm starting to regret this decision now, as it would appear I could have done the same thing with good old NTBACKUP!

hi all,

I  am using vmware server 1.0.1 and red hat linux as both host and guest.   i have added one physical disk to to vmguest. now i am executing 1 c program which is writing into a file( present in that physical disk).

Now during execution of program i pulled out fiber channel cable . i got following error

Operation on file "/dev/sdd" failed (Input/output error).

Choose Retry to attempt the operation again. Choose Abort to terminate this session.

Choose Continue to forward the error to the guest operating system.

if i am choosing continue program runs as usual and writes in the file. which should not happen.

if i am choosing abort and try to run the program it's not running till i connect fiber channel cable again.

Please let me know why the program is writing into the file successfully even in the absence of fiber channel cable when i am choosing continue.

Is it known bug?

Thanks in advance.