Peter Luk's Blog

A cat lover's weblog

Direct Access Remote Console of VM in ESX/Vmware Server

C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\VMware Remote Console Plug-in\vmware-vmrc.exe

Take a look at the directory where your VM is running in the ESX/Vmware Server:

e.g. [Storage1] winxp/winxp.vmx

Run CMD, go to your PC directory above and then run:

vmware-vmrc -h X.X.X.X -m “[Storage1] winxp/winxp.vmx”

vmware-vmrc -h X.X.X.X -M mod_number

nautilus samba NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE

Samba client cannot authenticate, possible bad password error: You may run into odd errors authenticating if Samba and the server (Windows or Samba) do not agree on whether to use LANMAN, NTLM, or NTLMv2. If this happens, you may receive a NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE with Samba, and the server will have a Bad Password error (0xC000006A in the Windows Security log). By default (December 2006 on a Gentoo machine), Samba has NTLM and LANMAN authentication enabled, but NTLMv2 is disabled. If the server is set to allow only NTLMv2, then you will fail. This setting is the infamous lmcompatibilitylevel key in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa. When set to 5, the server will only accept NTLMv2 responses (client requests, server challenges, client responds). To allow Samba to send an NTLMv2 response, edit smb.conf’s global section and add

client ntlmv2 auth = yes

This will also disable NTLM and LANMAN auth, so if you have trouble accessing older machines’ shares, then you may have issues. I recommend disabling LANMAN auth as well. It is known to be very weak. To do so:

client lanman auth = no

Ubuntu – a first try

Have installed Ubuntu desktop 9.10 on an old Dell Precision 450 which I plan to use it to replace my old Fedora 8 Linux desktop. I have been a fan of RedHatLinux/CentOS/Fedora for a long time so haven’t tried Ubuntu since they are just different in installation method and management interface. All they just give me a standard Gnome desktop and Linux. So why I need to re-learn the management interface of another distribution?? But I have found that Fedora is increasing difficult to master due to the bleeding edge packages it installed so I would like to give Ubuntu a try. The best way is to configure it as my Linux desktop. The first thing I need is a command references between RedHat world and Ubuntu world. :

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwitchingToUbuntu/FromLinux/RedHatEnterpriseLinuxAndFedora

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/ubuntu-networking-configuration-using-command-line.html

scheduler on Windows mobile

Installed CT scheduler on my Windows Mobile Omnia II I8000 recently. Find it useful to help me to sync the weather and stock data using my wifi automatically daily in my office (I don’t have data plan but I have full wifi access in my office). This makes me feeling that my wm phone functions more like a computer than a phone (I seldom receive phone calls)

format > 32GB FAT32 partition under Windows

Windows format tools can only format < 32GB FAT32 partition. FAT32 support max size of 8TB. To format > 32GB FAT32 partition, use fat32format tools. fat32format

esxtop in esxi 4

I found esxtop in esxi 4 is an extremely useful tool to gather system statistics from the esxi server. One piece of data you can use esxtop is to get is the picture of the network load balance between the two NIC vmnic0 and vmnic1. I have configured the esxi server to use the NIC teaming based on “route based on the originating virtual port id” and it is important to see the distribution of the virtual machine’s uplinks on the two physical NIC. The esxtop provided a clear statistics on it (“Press N” after running esxtop”)