ESX Commands – esxcfg-module

After the last two entries being somewhat boring and not useful at least in my opinion. I am glad this command has a little more to it.

[root@esx1 root]# esxcfg-module -h
Usage: esxcfg-module
-g–get-options Get the options for a given module and whether it is loaded on boot.
-s–set-options Set the options for a given module. WARNING this may be overwritten by per device options.
-e–enable Enable a given module, indicating it should be loaded on boot.
-d–disable Disable a given module, indicating it should not be loaded on boot.
-q–query Query enabled modules options.
-l–list List all modules and whether they are enabled.
-h–help Show this message.
[root@esx1 root]# esxcfg-module -l
Device Driver Modules
Module Enabled Loaded
vmklinux true true
cciss true true
tg3 true true
qla4022 true true
e1000 true true
qla2300_707_vmwtrue truel
vmdriver true true
vmfs3 true true
etherswitch true true
shaper true true
tcpip true true
cosShadow true true
migration true true
nfsclient true true
deltadisk true true
vmfs2 true true
iscsi_mod true true
[root@esx1 root]#

So a common use I have seen with this command is to turn off unused modules. Go ahead and free up some resources turn off vmfs2! You don’t use it.
Another use is to change HBA options.

/usr/sbin/esxcfg-module -s ql2xmaxqdepth=64 qla2300_707_vmw
Remember to follow it with:
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-boot -b

Check out VCDX Master Ninja/Jedi Duncan Epping using this command combo in a scripted install.

Free Stuff from the Ghost of VMworld’s Past

Why haven’t you looked into all of these free VMworld Sessions?
So greatly collected all in one place at the best one stop shop for all VMware related material on the web Eric Siebert’s vSphere-land.

This will be great distraction from me renewing my CCNA and getting MCITP in Exchange 2007. My best excuse for not studying is there is so many interesting topics out there!

ESX Commands – esxcfg-linuxnet

The guide from VMware.com says

esxcfg-linuxnet
Converts vswif to eth when booting ESX Server into service-console-only mode rather than into ESX mode. This command is used for the bootstrap process and is intended for VMware Technical Support use only. You should not issue this command unless instructed to do so by a VMware Technical Support representative.
There is no VI Client equivalent for this command.

Wow I should have saved all these for one post called stuff you don’t use unless someone smart tells you to.

Don’t worry though I checked ahead esxcfg-module has more too it. I actually slightly looked at it when I covered esxcfg-boot.

ESX Commands – esxcfg-init

Wow, this was a good one eh?
check out the help.

[root@esx1 root]# esxcfg-init -h
Usage: esxcfg-init
This program is used to initialize device names and advanced configuration options for the VMkernel on system boot.It is NOT intended for use outside of initialization scripts.
[root@esx1 root]#

I decided to google the command to see if anyone had insight. Not much more than what I give here. The help command then nothing. So for real I might get 2 blog posts in one day since this is so short.

vSphere-land’s Top 20 and Looking for Performance

(This post should have gone out last week. Ooops!)
Check out the top 20!

I would like to be on this list someday. I couldn’t find one of these blogs that I would slide out to let me in. I know these people put a ton of time into creating their content. So congratulations to the top 20.

From 2vcps:
More short VCDX notes coming with concern to command line tips for ESX 3.5. I am also working on some Exchange 2007 on VMware posts. Eventually some upgrading to vSphere 4 posts will be on the way.

What I have been looking for is VMFS vs RDM vs Guest iSCSI performance stats. I found some good information on VMFS and RDM. Since using iSCSI inside of the guest is not supported I am not finding any stats on the performance. To the naked eye running Exchange it seems to be working fine. I would like to see some numbers though.

Just wondering if I can find some statistics or opinions to help form a standard operating procedure for deployments.

Thin Disk on vSphere My First Glance

So today I got around to putting ESXi 4 on my spare box at home. I first deployed a new virtual server and decided to use the thin provisioning built into the new version. After getting everything all setup. I was suprised to still see this.

I was like DANG! that is some awesome thin provisioning. I was more thinking something had to be wrong. A 42 GB drive with Windows 2008 only using 2.28KB that is sweet! I thought for sure since I had not seen this screen on the information of the VM it had already refreshed. It was too good to be true though I clicked the Refresh Storage and it ended up like this. Which made alot more sense for a fresh and patched Windows install. So far this leads to my first question, why the manual refresh? Should this refresh automatically when the screen redraws?

ESX Commands – esxcfg-info

This is a great command to give you a whole bunch of information. Sort of like trying to drink from a fire hose. Go ahead and type esxcfg-info as root from your console. Wasn’t that fun?
You can follow this article and redirect the output to a file to make it a little easier. If there is a specific area that you need information about you can check the help and use a handy switch t print just the info you need. Which in all honesty may still be more than you can handle.

[root@esxlab1 root]# esxcfg-info -h
Usage: esxcfg-info mode
-a, –all Print all information
-w, –hardware Print hardware information
-r, –resource Print resource information
-s, –storage Print storage information
-n, –network Print network information
-y, –system Print system information
-o, –advopt Print advanced options
-u, –hwuuid Print hardware uuid
-b, –bootuuid Print boot partition uuid
-e, –boottype Print boot type
-c, –cmdline Print vmkernel command line
-F, –format Print the information in the given format
Valid values are “xml” and “perl”
-h, –help Print this message.

A sample from doing esxcfg-info -r (this is just a snippet of output)

==+Host Memory Stats :
|—-Managed…………………………………………..707.97 MB
|—-Kernel……………………………………………94.43 MB
|—-Free……………………………………………..612.89 MB
|—-Minimum Free………………………………………42.47 MB
|—-Excess……………………………………………570.43 MB
|—-Reserved………………………………………….47.95 MB
|—-Available…………………………………………565.60 MB
|—-State…………………………………………….High
|—-Total Swap Read……………………………………0 KB
|—-Total Swap Written…………………………………0 KB
|—-Total Overhead…………………………………….0 KB
|—-Total Size………………………………………..1.59 MB
|—-Total COW…………………………………………1.28 MB
|—-Total Zero………………………………………..0 KB
|—-Total Shared………………………………………0 KB
|—-Total Balloon……………………………………..0 KB
|—-Total Swapped……………………………………..0 KB
|—-Total Touched……………………………………..1.59 MB
|—-Total Allocated……………………………………5.48 MB
|—-Total Target………………………………………5.48 MB
|—-Total Swap Target………………………………….0 KB
|—-Total Balloon Target……………………………….0 KB

Catching Up on the Last Two Weeks

On the big VMware Announcement this week:

I am excited for the release of vSphere. Hopefully soon (very very soon) I will get some more knowledge on the topic so I can then relay my knowledge to the all of you. Although, I really won’t be able to say anything new from what is already being written until I can play with the software for a while.

I need a Notepad by the Shower

I am working on another blog post and the other day in the shower I had a perfect point to make in the post. Well you can tell from the subheading the idea is gone. I hope if I force myself to work on it the idea will spring back to my mind.

I have a job!
Some may know via twitter and facebook, but I will rejoin the ranks of the employed next week.

I am excited to be going to a great place where I will learn a ton about Virtualization and Storage in the Datacenter.

So if you are in the Atlanta area make sure you find me. The family and I hope to be there by the end of May.

I love Maps

When I was a kid I just looked at the map and the globe. It was fun for me to see where places are and what cities and roads go through those places.

So that is why I love google analytics so much. I get some sweet maps.
I don’t get near the number of hits of some (which is just fine with me.) Here is my World and US maps for March 2009.