Guide to Vmware

Guide to VMware

Boot Environment

/etc/lilo.conf LILO is the boot loader (LILO=Linux Loader) used for ESX server(remember the service console is based on a modified version of RedHat Linux 7.2). Lilo.conf is the text file to describe the OS to boot. Thistext file is compiled into a binary file that is actually used by LILO. If you are troubleshooting the APPEND line, then use vmkpcidivy tool.You should not have to revert to manually editing this file. If you everdo edit this file, then you need to compile it with lilo –c to write thebinary file.Append=The pci device mask specified in the append line of lilo.conf is actuallyan include, not a mask out. The important thing to remember is theappend line defines the hardware visible to the service console. Don’treplace LILO with another boot loader, e.g. GRUB. ESX managesallocation of PCI devices between service console and VM kernel withthe expectation of LILO.You can also view PCI device allocation using the MUI, found underStartup OptionsAlternatively, you can use the legacy web interface using the URLhttp://esxserver/pcidivy Boot OrderLILO loads the service console kernel, e.g. /boot/initrd-2.4.9-vmnix2.img This kernel obeys what is stored in the file /etc/inittab /etc/inittabThis file is read by the init process and specifies the run level to beused by the service console. The line that states the run level will looksomething like this.

id:3:initdefault:

The init process then works through the start up scripts in theappropriate diectory. For run level 3, this directory would be

/etc/rc.d/rc3.d

The file also starts up the virtual terminals on the ESX server mingettytty2 through mingetty tty5. The mingetty process is minimum getty. /etc/rc.d/rc.localA text file used most commonly when we need to share the serviceconsole NIC with the VM kernel. This may be required in say a bladeserver which has only 2 NICs, and we need to dedicate 1 NIC toVmotion.

insmod vmxnet_console devName=vmnic0 ifup eth0

/etc/rc.d/rc2.d Contains start-up scripts for run level 2 /etc/rc.d/rc3.dContains start-up scripts (logical links) for run level 3. Run level 3 isused most of the time as it is command line full multi-user mode. Theones we are interested in are shown below:

S00vmkstartS12syslogS55sshdS56xinetdS90vmwareS91httpd.vmware

chkconfig --listThis service console tool displays a table showing which daemons areenabled for the run levels for the vmnix operating system.

ntpd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:off 6:offsyslog 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:off 6:offsnmpd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off

If we wanted to change a service so that it is enabled for a particularrun level, then we can use chkconfig –level.

chkconfig --level 1 ntpd on

The above command would turn on ntpd for run level 1, this would notaffect the run levels that ntpd was already set for. So in this example,the ntpd run levels would be

ntpd 0:off 1:on 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:off 6:off

service --status-allThis lists all the service daemons and their status. We can find runningservices by looking for the running status

service –-status-all |grep running

would produce an output similar to the following:

crond (pid 1423) is runninghttpd (pid 1486 1482 1479) is runningsyslogd (pid 1136) is running

sshd (pid 1208) is running

To avoid unnecessarily rebooting an ESX server after making certainconfiguration changes, we can frequently just restart the appropriatedaemon. For example we could restart the Apache web server for theMUI with the command:

service httpd.vmware restart

and we can also check a named service running status with

service httpd.vmware status

S12syslogdThe centralised logging system. When ESX is running, both the serviceconsole and VMkernel log messages through it. /etc/sshSecure shell settingsQuick way to restart the ssh daemon. Use full path to do this. /etc/init.d/sshd restart /etc/ssh/ssh_configText file with the configuration of SSH client. /etc/ssh/sshd_configText file with the configuration file for SSH daemon. An importantsetting in this file is PermitRootLogin=Yes/No. You can quickly checkthis with a grep on the file.

grep permit /etc/ssh/sshd_config

~/.ssh/known_hostsA text file that stores the RSA keys for known hosts. If we rebuild ahost and then reconnect to it over SSH we may be prevented if theknown_hosts file has cached the old key. I think SCP (secure copy)uses RSA keys as well as SSH sessions. Note this file is maintained ona per-user basis. /etc/xinetd.confThe config file for Xinetd, the network services daemon? The daemonitself is stored in /usr/sbin/xinetd This launches the daemons that arebound to it on demand vmware-authdThis is the authentication daemon. This daemon authenticates users of the management interface (MUI) and remote consoles using theusername/password database defined in /etc/passwd. This servicebinds via the xinetd daemon and so the configuration file that specifiesthe listening port is in

/etc/xinetd.d/vmware-authd

This text file contains the settings for the VMware remote accessauthentication daemon. This file specifies the TCP:902 port used by