aptitude install autoconf automake binutils cpp gcc linux-headers-$(uname -r) make psmisc

2. Mount VMware Tools

mkdir /tmp/vmtools
mount /dev/cdrom /tmp/vmtools

3. Unzip the tools

tar -C /tmp -vfx /tmp/vmtools/VMwareTools*.tar.gz

4. Run install script

cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl

Note: You can also use the “open-vm-tools” instead of installing the VMware Tools.

aptitude install open-vm-tools

You need to add “contrib” to your sources.list !

1. Firewall Settings

Open “/etc/sysconfig/iptables” with “vi” editor and add the following line to allow SNMP connections:

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport 161 -j ACCEPT

Restart iptables service:

service iptables restart

2. Configurate SNMPD

Edit “/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf” and insert the following lines:

[...]
com2sec MY-TRUST-NET 192.168.0.0/24      public
[...]

[...]
group   notConfigGroup v1            MY-TRUST-NET
[...]

Note: Replace “192.168.0.0/24″ with your Subnet.

Now start the SNMP-Deamon with:

service snmpd start

To start SNMP automatic on system startup execute the following command:

chkconfig snmpd on

Note: This settings are not persistant. If you upgrade your XenServer you have to make this settings again.

3. Links

* http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX122337
* HP SNMP Agents for Citrix XenServer

Note: Click to enlarge a picture.

1. Create a new virtual machine

Select template “Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 (64-bit)” and choose name and description for your virtual machine (or 32-Bit if necessary). Select “Install from URL” and insert the URL http://archive.ubuntu.net/ubuntu

Specify the number of vCPUs and the memory for your virtual machine and create the virtual disks.

I choose a 8 GB Disk for the system and 1 GB for the swap disk.
By using 2 different disks i can delete the swap partition if i don’t need it or can replace disks with bigger ones.

At least add network interfaces to your VM. This depends on your XenServer network setup. Choose a bonding or single interface here for example and finish the virtual machine wizzard.

XenServer now builds your virtual machine and start it.

If the virtual machine is ready open the console to the virtual machine and start the installation of Ubuntu:

Choose your country and keyboard layout and configurate the network interface.
If you don’t have a DHCP Server in your network you choose “manual” and configurate the network by hand.

Enter the hostname and domain name. In this example, my system is called xen.local, so I enter xen and local:

Choose a mirror of the Ubuntu archive.
Please check if the installer detected your time zone correctly. If so, select Yes, otherwise No:

Partitioning

Now you have to partition your hard disks.
First select “manual” and select the first virtual disk “xvda”. Create a new empty partition table and select the free disk space to create a new partition.
Use this partition as “Ext4 journaling file system” and as “/” mount point.

Now repeat all with “xvdb” but now create a “swap area”.

The partitioning is totally up to you – if you know what you’re doing, you can also set up different partitions.
At least “Finish partitioning” and select “Yes” when you are asked “Write the changes to disks”. Now the new partitions are being created and formatted.

Afterwards the base system is being installed:

Create a user, for example the user “sebastian” with the user name “sebastian”:

Note: I don’t need an encrypted private directory, so I choose No here.

Next the package manager apt gets configured. Leave the HTTP proxy line empty unless you’re using a proxy server to connect to the Internet.
I select “No automatic updates”. Of course, it’s up to you what you select here. But on a server i usually want to install the updates by myself.
Make your choce about automatic updates. Now the installer installs the system and download some essential packets. Make a small software selecten. I choose “Basic Ubuntu server” and “OpenSSH server” to get a small virtual machine.

Now the GRUB boot loader gets installed. Select “Yes” when you are asked “Install the GRUB boot loader to the master boot record?”.

The base system installation is now finished. Hit “Continue” to reboot the system.

2. Install XEN Tools

In XenCenter, attach “xs-tools.iso” to the DVD drive of the VM.
Mount “xs-tools.iso”, install the correct XenServer Tools package (replace amd64 with i386 if necessary) and unmount “xs-tools.iso”.

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
dpkg -i /mnt/Linux/xe-guest-utilities_5.6.100-647_amd64.deb
umount /mnt/

At least reboot the VM. Make sure the services run at boot time. If not try this:

update-rc.d -f xe-linux-distribution remove
update-rc.d xe-linux-distribution defaults

Reboot the VM for the last time.

3. Convert to template

Install all software on your virtual machine you need on all virtual machines and make all settings you need.

After you have made all your changes and settings shut down the virtual machine.

“Right click” on the virtual machine in your inventory and select “Convert to Template”

Now you can create new virtual machines with a basic setup for your environment.

Select “New VM from template” and choose your custom template.

Change DNS-Server

First use

xe pif-list

to get the UUID of your PIF. You get an output like this:

uuid ( RO)                  : PIF-UUID
                device ( RO): eth0
    currently-attached ( RO): true
                  VLAN ( RO): -1
          network-uuid ( RO): NETWORK-UUID

You can view the current configuration of the interface with “xe pif-param-list uuid=PIF-UUID”.

To change the configration use the following command:

xe pif-reconfigure-ip uuid=PIF-UUID mode=static IP=IP-ADDRESS netmask=SUBNETMASK gateway=GATEWAY DNS=DNS-SERVER

Note: Use “DNS=DNS-SERVER-1,DNS-SERVER-2″ to specify more DNS-Servers.

Check your configuration with “xe pif-param-list uuid=PIF-UUID”.

Links:

http://forums.citrix.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1531853

1. Update your Lenny installation

Make sure that your current Lenny is up-2-date.

aptitude update
aptitude upgrade

2. Change sources to Squeeze

Open “/etc/apt/sources.list” and replace “Lenny” with “Squeeze” here is an example:

# Debian Squeeze
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main
deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main  

# Debian Squeeze Security
deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main

3. Upgrade your system

aptitude update
aptitude install apt dpkg aptitude
aptitude full-upgrade

4. Upgrade Grub

Debian Squeeze use Grub2 you have to run “upgrade-from-grub-legacy” to upgrade from Grub to Grub2.

upgrade-from-grub-legacy
rm -f /boot/grub/menu.lst*

If you don’t do that, you get the following error in your XenServer.

Error: Starting VM 'YOUR_VM' - Using  to parse /boot/grub/menu.lst - Traceback (most recent call last): - File "/usr/bin/pygrub", line 746, in ? - raise RuntimeError, "Unable to find partition containing kernel" - RuntimeError: Unable to find partition containing kernel

1. Add new software repository

Edit the file ”/etc/apt/sources.list” with your favorite editor and add the following line depending on your Ubuntu version:

Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian maverick contrib

Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx LTS)

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian lucid contrib

Ubuntu 9.10 (Jaunty Jackalope)

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian karmic contrib

2. Add the GPG-Key

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

3. Install VirtualBox

aptitude update
aptitude install virtualbox-4.0 dkms

Links

* http://www.virtualbox.org
* http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox

Download

Download VMWare Open Virtualization Format Tool here:

http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vsphere/automationtools/ovf

You can download this tool for Windows (64-Bit or 32-Bit), Linux (64-Bit or 32-Bit) and Mac OSX.

Install

chmod +x VMware-ovftool-2.0.1-260188-lin.x86_64.sh
./VMware-ovftool-2.0.1-260188-lin.x86_64.sh

Convert OVF to VMX

/opt/vmware/ovftool/ovftool /path/to/vm.ovf /path/to/vm.vmx

Convert VMX to OVF

/opt/vmware/ovftool/ovftool /path/to/vm.vmx /path/to/vm.ovf

More inforamtions and examples

See more examples in the documentation:

OVF Tool Userguide

Add the new physical device “/dev/sdb” as second local storage to an existing Citrix XENServer installation:

(Note: I use XENServer 5.6)

xe sr-create content-type="local SR" host-uuid=(uuid of your xenserver host) type=(ext or lvm) device-config:device=/dev/sdb shared=false name-label="Second local storage"

The command returns the UUID of your new storage repository (SR).

Example:

xe sr-create content-type="local SR" host-uuid=d06d7c86-08af-4f87-9188-bd287daac20b type=lvm device-config:device=/dev/sdb shared=false name-label="Second local storage"
6b9fe5d2-bf6c-d776-dfb0-743f5b1f397c

If you want to set the new SR to the new default SR:

xe pool-param-set default-SR=[YOUR NEW SR UUID]  uuid=(uuid of your xenserver host)

Notes: You can use “pvdisplay” to lists all physical volumes.

[root@xen2 ~]# pvdisplay
  --- Physical volume ---
  PV Name               /dev/sdb
  VG Name               VG_XenStorage-6b9fe5d2-bf6c-d776-dfb0-743f5b1f397c
  PV Size               596.17 GB / not usable 7.79 MB
  Allocatable           yes
  PE Size (KByte)       4096
  Total PE              152617
  Free PE               150561
  Allocated PE          2056
  PV UUID               jKstcw-WSWy-EOWn-NUlq-fdM6-SwEC-eHwJSL

  --- Physical volume ---
  PV Name               /dev/sda3
  VG Name               VG_XenStorage-714f456f-7b1e-da9d-9022-153ebaec6cdc
  PV Size               588.17 GB / not usable 6.31 MB
  Allocatable           yes
  PE Size (KByte)       4096
  Total PE              150568
  Free PE               145772
  Allocated PE          4796
  PV UUID               U0Docl-IzMr-L7s0-nGCA-hTyQ-sHdk-2lVtJ2

RemoteDisplay.vnc.enabled = "TRUE"
RemoteDisplay.vnc.port = "5900"
RemoteDisplay.vnc.password = "YOUR_PASSWORD"

Note: Use a different port for each virtual machine.

Links:

* http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&externalId=1246

Proxysvc SSL Handshake on client connection failed: SSL Exception

Open about:config in Firefox and change

security.enable.ssl2 from false into true

In some cases you have to kill the vmware-hostd process and restart the management deamon:

/etc/init.d/vmware-mgmt restart

Links

* http://planetvm.net/blog/?p=1087
* http://communities.vmware.com/thread/240209?tstart=0