Re: [Devil-Linux-discuss] VMware questions

[Bruce S. <bw...@ar...>]

> > That surprised me because I had heard (can't remember where) that ESX
> > was more efficient because it eliminated the OS layer.  They must have
> > been talking about 3i, because Linux is still there in 3.5.
> 
> Eh. Naming is weird here. All three edition are at version 3.5.0 now.
> "Classic", 3i embedded, and 3i installable.
> The last one being 3i, which you can install into HD.
> enbedded will basically be a flash memory edition directly from server 
> vendor.

I guess I'm running 3i "installable" since I installed it on a rackmount
server.  :-)

> > I only have one server to install this on, so I need to connect one NIC
> > on this server to our internal network and another NIC to our DMZ.  I
> > will only allow management from the internal network, and the guest OS's
> > will only have access to one NIC or the other - never both.  
> 
> Except when you deploy DL firewall ;-)
> We've been running DL firewall with 4 NICs since 1.2 RC something.
> Works perfect.

Yeah, I may replace my DL running on metal with a VM.

> >> For daily tasks, you get, with the full ESX, WebUI, which includes VM 
> >> console, too.  It reduces Windows requirement. At least somewhat.
> > 
> > Except 3i doesn't support a WebUI, except for browsing the VM
> > filesystem.  Please correct me if I'm wrong!  I'd love to be wrong!  :-)
> 
> You are not wrong, but check this:
> 
> http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/Import_RCLI_Appliance.html
> 
> You are supposed to import a Debian based VM and execute it.
> It work with any ESX 3.5 edition.
> 
> In that VM (RCLI, remote CLI) you can do management scripting etc.

Sweet!  Thanks, I'll try that.

> There are even things you can only do with this appliance/VM, like 
> storage Vmotion. So even Virtual Center Windows guys/gals need this.
> 
> >> In my mind VMware made a mistake by going to .net-only management for 
> >> ESX3. Sad mistake.
> > 
> > They have a PERL API and a few PERL program to do some limited things.
> 
> Oh no. You can do anything with those APIs. They have at least Java and 
> I think C#, too, as languages.
> 
> For high end, look for VI Perl Toolkit. With that you can even do full 
> site disaster recovery programming. Been there...

Is it possible to take a snapshot of a running guest OS and copy/export
the disk image to another server for backup?

 - BS