You are using a DELL server with a PERC RAID card and need to migrate the RAID level to a different level.

Install PERCCLI if you haven’t done so already. Install new discs into the physical server if you do you do not have spare discs available.

Show all physical disks:

./perccli64 /c0/eall/sall show

Identify your unused disks.

/perccli64 /c0/v0 start migrate type=r5 option=add drives=31:4  (In this command, I am converting a RAID0 to a RAID5 with a new disk located at: E31:4)

To watch the migrate status, use this command:

./perccli64 /c0/v0 show migrate

Here are the supported RAID migration levels:

Converting SCO machines to another virtualization platform is relatively straightforward if the VM is using IDE. After conversion you will need to play around with the IDE ID number. On Proxmox, it can literally be anything from 0 to 3. Just mix and match until it boots.

If the VM was setup using a VMware SCSI controller (Buslogic primarily), you are in for some fun. With the VM on VMware you’ll need to change the HBA to IDE. There is a fine KB article (https://www.scosales.com/ta/kb/125433.html) that may or may not exist when you read this. Here are the essentials that you will need:

1.   Backup your kernel and resmgr files. These files are necessary to recover your system should the need arise. 
     # cp /stand/resmgr /stand/resmgr.adsl 
     # cp /stand/unix /stand/unix.adsl
2.  Type this command to find the SCSI controller:   resmgr
3.  Remove the SCSI controller:   resmgr -r -k  "key"   (key is the number in the first column next to the SCSI HBA)
4.  Update the resmgr database by telling it which hba to  boot from 
    # resmgr -m ide -i 0 -p BOOTHBA -v 0  
5.  Update the kernel configuration files under /etc/conf/sdevice.d 
    # /etc/conf/bin/idconfupdate -f 
6.  Statically link your new hba driver in the kernel 
    # vi /etc/conf/sdevice.d/ide 
         Add a line "$static" after "$version 2" 
7. Relink the kernel 
    # /etc/conf/bin/idbuild -FB 
            
Reboot

You’re feverishing creating VMs trying to get off of VMware and you cancel various imports. Well, those cancelled imports create disks and then cause warnings like these:

WARNING: You have not turned on protection against thin pools running out of space.
WARNING: Set activation/thin_pool_autoextend_threshold below 100 to trigger automatic extension of thin pools before they get full.
WARNING: Sum of all thin volume sizes (<12.78 TiB) exceeds the size of thin pool and the size of whole volume group (8.73 TiB).

How to fix? List the disks for all VMs by typing: lvs <hit enter>

A list of disks will be produced. For any duplicate disks, strange looking disks, etc. Rescan the storage for that VM and the orphans will be added to the VM and you can then delete them.

Rescan with: qm rescan –vmid <enter VMID from Proxmox>

Click the gear next to current view.

Select “Sort Key” = Name

You need to sniff the packets of a particular VM but can’t get tcpdump or tcpdump-uw to work properly. It’s not tcpdump that you want to use, but pktcap-uw.

pktcap-uw is a marvelous tool for looking at the packets from a VM.

A quick and simple dump is achieved with this command: pktcap-uw –switchport 50331881 -o /tmp/50331881.pcap

–switchport is the virtual port ID of the VM. -o outputs the the dump in a pcap format file that can be viewed in Wireshark.

To find the switchport ID of a VM, type the command: net-stats -l

net-stats -l will output a list of all of your VMs and their port numbers.

storcli /c0/eALL/sALL show all | egrep 'Device attributes|SN = '

You recently updated your vCenter SSL certification. Everything was working great with vSphere replication before you changed the SSL certificate.

You check the /opt/vmware/hms/logs/hms.log and you see errors related to :8123 connections being refused.

Solution: Don’t waste anytime. Just upgrade to 8.3.1

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2093139

This is related to a new SSL thumbprint.

You have tried to “Save and Restart Service”.

You tried rebooting.

None of it works.

Power off the VM. Leave it off and power it back on. You can now “Save and Restart Service”

You have an ancient Windows XP you need to access and keep online.

1. Run Windows Update

2. A working browser is crucial. Firefox ESR 52.9.0 32 bit works great and is available here: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.9.0esr/win32/en-US/

3. Install TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 and update IE8 using the POS files. This website is all you need to accomplish this task:

https://emailarchitect.net/easendmail/sdk/html/object_tls12.htm

4. After you do all of the above update, upgrade RDP. RDP has had a lot of security holes over the years and you will want to update it urgently: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4500331/windows-update-kb4500331

You are browsing a VMware ESXi datastore and attempting to “Add to inventory”, but the VMX is grayed out.

There is a problem in your VMX file. The VMX files are automatically scanned on a directory listing and if there are problems in the file you won’t be given the option to add it to inventory.

This usually occurs when you copy and paste a code snippet from someone using a Mac (ugh).

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