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Entries Tagged ‘VMware’

VMware Server guest machine accessing tape drive on Windows host

Did some testing today with a Windows 2003 server running VMware Server and a Linux (Ubuntu) guest.  The Linux guest already had tape backup software installed (BackupEdge) and needed to be able to access the tape drive (400GB LTO) on the Windows host.  I knew this should work in theory but had never tried to do [...]

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SSH access to ESXi

Despite the service console being removed in VMware ESXi an unsupported workaround can be used to enabled a limited CLI and SSH access to an ESXi host. The procedure is as follows: From a screen and keyboard connected to the ESXi host press ALT+F1 keys Type: unsupported Type in your root password From the command [...]

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Windows Server licensing and Virtual Machines

Spent sometime today clarifying Microsoft’s stance on licensing Windows Servers as virtual machines, this applies regardless of which virtulisatuion platform the VM’s are running on e.g. VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server, Hyper-V. With standard Windows server licences you have to buy a licence for each VM running Windows Server as the guest OS. With an enterprise [...]

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64bit guest virtual machines won’t power up

Tried to install a 64 bit Windows 2003 VM today, threw up an error when trying to power on the VM, turned out Intel-VT hadn’t been enabled in the BIOS of the ESX host which is required for 64 bit guest support.

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Poor performance of virtual machines on VMware ESX

Had and issue today with virtual machines running on an ESX host. the VM’s were exhibiting poor performance and relatively high CPU usage even when doing very little. Problem was eventually traced to Intel-VT not being enabled in the ESX host BIOS, as soon as the ESX host had Intel-VT enabled in the BIOS performance [...]

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