Author: allen

Use MBR disk in ESXi 5

~ allen ~ 15 Comments

From ESXi 5.0, if you install ESXi to a empty hard disk, the target disk will be prepared with GPT-based partitions. That may cause some boot delay or even boot problem in some desktop motherboards.
Fortunately, you can use MBR mode instead of GPT.

Step:
1 Make a clean hard disk for ESXi. You can use any method to delete all partitions on that disk.
2 Boot with ESXi CD. During initial installation step, press Shift-O (letter, not number zero) when prompted (right down corner).
3 Type a space and “formatwithmbr” (without quotation marks). Press enter.
4 Go on setup. ESXi will make the target disk prepared with MBR-based partitions instead of GPT.

等待維修

~ allen ~ 2 Comments

經過了幾天的掙扎後，今天電腦終於是無法開機了。

經過了2小時的各種折騰後，終於發現是一條內存的問題。

一條帶散熱片的KINGSTON……

於是內存3缺1，又不能3條工作，只能2條先用了。只剩下一半內存(4G)，就沒辦法一邊WoW一邊開VM了呀。

於是漫長的等待——7-15天，開始了。

Normal Steps for Minimal Setup CentOS 6 on ESXi

~ allen ~ Leave a comment

1 Create a new VM as you wish. Install CentOS6 with minimal configuration. After installation, shutdown the VM.

shutdown –h now

2 Add a new E1000 network interface card (eth1 in this article, if not, change all related steps below).

3 Boot and login.

4 Setup a temporary network:

ifconfig eth1 <temporary ip> netmask <netmask> up
route add default gw <gateway>

  • if HTTP proxy is required: edit the yum configuration file.

vi /etc/yum.conf

and add these lines:

# The proxy server – proxy server:port number
proxy=http://mycache.mydomain.com:3128
# The account details for yum connections
proxy_username=yum-user
proxy_password=qwerty

  • if HTTP proxy is NOT required: edit DNS configuration file. See step 13.
  • if Route is required: edit route configuration file. See step 14.

5 Install perl, and update system.

yum install perl
yum update

6 Shutdown.

shutdown –h now

7 Remove the E1000 network interface card, which was inserted in step 2.

8 Boot and login.

9 Insert VMware Tools CD.

10 Install VMware Tools, and reboot. (NOTE: you may need to do this step every time after system update)

cd /
mount /dev/cdrom /media
tar –zvxf /media/VM*
cd vmware-tools-distrib/
./vmware-install.pl

follow the instructions on your screen.

umount /media
reboot

11 Wait for reboot and login.

12 Setup eth0

vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

and add these lines:

ONBOOT=yes

  • if DHCP is enabled:

BOOTPROTO=dhcp

  • if static IP is preferred:

IPADDR=<IP>
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
BOOTPROTO=none

13 Setup DNS.

vi /etc/resolv.conf

and add these lines:

nameserver <1st DNS IP>
nameserver <2nd DNS IP>
domain <domain name> #your domain name, optional

14 Setup route.

vi /etc/sysconfig/network

and add these lines:

NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=<value>
GATEWAY=<Gateway IP>
GATEWAYDEV=eth0

15 Reboot.

reboot

16 Disable SELINUX if you don’t like it.

vi /etc/sysconfig/selinux

find the line start with SELINUX=, and set it to disabled.

SELINUX=disabled