Linux, Virtualization, VMware

Linux P2V CentOS 4/5/6 VMware Converter

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Recently I have been working on a project that had quite a few physical Linux servers, mainly of the the CentOS distribution. I have done the odd one here and there in the past but never really documented the process and with me attempting to update my blog more frequently what better place to document it.

First I will give a brief overview of the process then will detail the how-to. This post is for physical to virtual (P2V), I did have to tackle a few virtual to virtual (V2V) that were based on KVM to VMware which I will also document.

Overview

The version of Converter used during this project was 5.5.0 build 1362012 and CentOS versions 4.9, 5.1 and 6.5 x64. The sole use of converter may work on your combination of Converter, ESX and CentOS but in my case I had to create a new initial RAM disk as the converted VM would kernel panic due to disk configuration changes.

  1. Document kernel version
  2. Use VMware Converter to convert machine
  3. Create a new initial RAM disk
  4. Configure Network Connection
  5. Install VMware Tools

Continue reading Linux P2V CentOS 4/5/6 VMware Converter →

Avamar, EMC, Microsoft, Sharepoint

Avamar MOSS GLR Plugin

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I was recently setting up MOSS (Microsoft Office Sharepoint Sever) for GLR (Granular Level Restores) using the Avamar plugin. When I installed the MOSS plugin and selected the GLR component it fails the installation with the following error also shown above.

AvFSCreateProcArg: Command ‘”C:\Program Files\avs\bin\axionfs.exe” /regserver’ failed, exitCode=-2147024891:80070005

This is due to UAC (User Account Control) in Windows 2008 / 2008 R2 which can prevent software from being installed with administrator privileges, unless an administrator authorizes the elevated privileges. So the GLR component fails to install because of inadequate permissions for several custom actions. These custom actions are related to AvFS (Eldos).

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There are 2 workarounds:


1. Turn off UAC.

Do so as follows. Start -> Control Panel. Select User Accounts and User Accounts again. Select Change User Account Control settings. Drag slider to “Never notify”. Reboot. Run the MOSS VSS MSI installer from the Avamar Server, e.g. AvamarMossVSS-windows-x86_64-6.0.1xx-xxx.msi

2. Open command window and run as administrator.

Download the MOSS VSS installer MSI file from the Avamar server, e.g. AvamarMossVSS-windows-x86_64-6.0.1xx-xxx.msi. Start -> Right-click on the Command Prompt icon. Choose Run as Administrator. CD to the directory containing the downloaded MOSS VSS MSI file. Run the MOSS VSS MSI file from the command prompt to perform the installation.

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Full instruction are detailed in the link below, page 12 onwards. For some reason I missed this and suffered the hard way. Whats that saying, RTFM 🙂

EMC Avamar Microsoft SharePoint Client 5.0 User Guide

Apple, Diary Entry

Apple iPad PDF FAIL – DD – 31st July 2010

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Second time I’m typing this due to the iPad WordPress App crashing and losing my post, not a good day on the iPad.

This entry is just a moan about the iPad. I feel I’m slowly moving away from using it.

I will start with me making a bad decision and bringing only the iPad away with me on a business trip. I assumed the iPad would be able to handle everything I would want it to do while away from home. So in an attempt to travel light I left the MacBook at home – FAIL

It was going well until I wanted to download a PDF, which iBook reads and can display quite well. I opened up Safari, found the PDF file – FAIL. Unable to do anything with it. I assumed that because I can download pictures in Safari and see them in the Photo App I would be able to download PDFs and see them in iBooks – FAIL

Everyone talks about how Apple make things easy but they don’t in this case. To load PDFs onto my iPad I have to download them on my desktop or laptop and transfer them to my iPad using iTunes, is it me or does that seem silly? I know there is probably an App that will download the PDFs but I bet none of them will store it in iBooks.

So going forward, if I want to bring the iPad I need to make sure I have everything pre loaded onto it before setting out and if anything is missing TOUGH!

Second is to travel heavy and bring both the iPad and the laptop but that is just silly don’t you think?

I guess I’ll have to wait, like I’m waiting for iOS 4. Probably won’t be supported until the third generation, a bit like copy and paste!

So I’m left with a picture frame, sofa surfer, bedtime reader 🙁

Thanks for reading and hope you can relate.

EH

Tech Blog by Ezra Hill