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Error Installing a Botched Installation of VMware Tools

A previous installation of VMware Tools has been detected.
The previous installation was made by the tar installer (version 4).

Keeping the tar4 installer database format.

You have a version of VMware Tools installed. Continuing this install will
first uninstall the currently installed version. Do you wish to continue?
(yes/no) [yes]

If you select yes, the following error message appears:
Error: Unable to find the binary installation directory (answer BINDIR)
in the installer database file “/etc/vmware-tools/locations”.
Uninstall failed. Please correct the failure and re run the install.

Execution aborted.

To solve this issue, remove the /etc/vmware-tools/locations file and reinstall VMware Tools.

Removing Syslogd Installing Rsyslog and Configure to Splunk

yum shell
remove sysklogd
install rsyslog
run
exit

vi /etc/rsyslog.conf
paste in the below:
# ### begin forwarding rule ###
# The statement between the begin … end define a SINGLE forwarding
# rule. They belong together, do NOT split them. If you create multiple
# forwarding rules, duplicate the whole block!
# Remote Logging (we use TCP for reliable delivery)
#
# An on-disk queue is created for this action. If the remote host is
# down, messages are spooled to disk and sent when it is up again.
$WorkDirectory /var/lib/rsyslog # where to place spool files
$ActionQueueFileName fwdRule1 # unique name prefix for spool files
$ActionQueueMaxDiskSpace 1g # 1gb space limit (use as much as possible)
$ActionQueueSaveOnShutdown on # save messages to disk on shutdown
$ActionQueueType LinkedList # run asynchronously
$ActionResumeRetryCount -1 # infinite retries if host is down
# remote host is: name/ip:port, e.g. 192.168.0.1:514, port optional
*.* @@your splunk server:514
# ### end of the forwarding rule ###

chkconfig rsyslog on
service rsyslog restart

VMware Weird Latency Dell R815 Broadcomm Nic

So we were having this weird latency issue with our new R815’s and the Broadcomm nics utilizing iSCSI on a segregated lan.

Turns out we needed the BCM-NetXtremeII-5.0-offline_bundle-940344.zip driver imported into update manager, a reboot later, we were all happy!

Cron Jobs on VMware Hosts

This explains how to add a cron job to VMware in such a way that it will still be there after reboots.

Having enabled ssh access to your ESX/ESXi server, ssh in as root.

First, add the cron job to the root crontab:

1. Edit /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root
2. Add the line (all on one line)
5 0 * * * /full/path/to/script arguments/with/full/path > /full/path/to/logfile 2>&1
3. When you quit, use Esc, :wq! to override the read only attribute.

For details of the meaning of “5 0 * * *” (5 minutes past midnight every day) read the man page for crontab(5) on any Unix/Linux server, or else on the web.

Now, add a command to /etc/rc.local to re-generate the cron job when ESX/ESXi reboots

1. Edit /etc/rc.local, using a command such as “vi /etc/rc.local”.
2. At the end of the file, add 3 lines (using “G” then “O” in vi). The first kills crond, the second adds the new cron job to the root crontab file, ad the third restarts crond:
/bin/kill $(cat /var/run/crond.pid)
/bin/echo ’5 0 * * * /full/path/to/script arguments/with/full/path > /full/path/to/logfile 2>&1′ >> /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root
/bin/busybox crond
3. Save and exit the editor (Press the “Esc” key then “:wq” then press “Return” in vi)
4. Run the command “auto-backup.sh” so that the change to /etc/rc.local survives a reboot.

Every time you change the cron job, remember to update /etc/rc.local as well and run the “auto-backup.sh” command to backup the new /etc/rc.local file.

Multi Processor VMware

If you change from a multi-processor system to a uni-processor system you need to manually change the HAL on the Windows server after the conversion.

To do this go into Device Manager after the machine first boots and discovers it’s new hardware and then click on Computer then right-click on the processor and select Update Driver. Then select Install from specific location and then Don’t search I will choose the driver to install. Then select show All compatible hardware and select the appropriate processor.

For example, if you went from a dual cpu to a single cpu then select ACPI uni-processor PC instead of ACPI multi-processor PC. You will need to reboot once you change this. To verify what HAL you are using you right-click your hal.dll in c:\windows\system32 and select the Version tab and select Internal Name and it should say halmacpi.dll for multi-processor acpi and halacpi.dll for uni-processor acpi.

Next clean up all the non-present hardware after the P2V conversion. To do this go to a CMD prompt and type SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1 and then DEVMGMT.MSC and then select Show Hidden Devices. Delete any old grayed out hardware. Next remove any vendor specific applications/drivers. For example on a HP server you should go to Add/Remove programs and remove any HP management agents, survey utility, array config utility, version control agent, etc.

Also check your NIC and make sure there are no vendor specific drivers there (ie. teaming). Check the Services to see if all there is anything vendor specific related there and disable any services that are.

Setup mySQL for WordPress

Install MySQL and Apache

yum install mysql
yum install mysql-server
chkconfig mysqld on
service mysqld start
sudo yum install php-gd
yum install httpd
chkconfig httpd on
service httpd start

Create Database:

mysql

Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or g.
Your MySQL connection id is 5340 to server version: 3.23.54

Type ‘help;’ or ‘h’ for help. Type ‘c’ to clear the buffer.

mysql> CREATE DATABASE databasename;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON databasename.* TO “username”@”hostname”
-> IDENTIFIED BY “password”;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> EXIT
Bye
$

Mounting Samba Shares

Some Vista and Windows 7 shares and many Samba Linux shares require credentials in the form of username/password pairs before access is granted. These credentials are set on the server. In Windows Vista and Windows 7 they are the login username and password of the owner on the server and in Linux they are any member of the Samba User Database on the server who is “allowed” by the file that defines the share.

You use the option string username=server_user,password=secret instead of the guest option used above to generate the mount as follows:

mount -t cifs -o username=server_user,password=secret //192.168.44.100/share /path_to/mount

Cloning WordPress Installations

I don’t know about you, but after beating my head against the wall a few days trying to figure out how to import/export data through my development environment to production, using vmware clones, and other various methods, I found this tool that makes my job much easier. Please check out the link and see what you think!

http://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/