Well I knew it would happen; I would get so busy and not post on this blog of mine. I actually have like 3 posts I need to make but just have not made them yet. Meh..
In any case I wanted to write a small blip about the changes to Google Reader. ( Google blog post ) When I first head about the plan to better integrate Google Plus and Google Reade, I was a bit worried. You see, I still did not have a Google plus account This was not by choice, but because I was a Google Apps user (with my logiclodge.com name). Google did not allow Apps accounts to sign up. Well last week Google (finally) made Google Plus available to Apps accounts like mine. Now that I could finally use Google Plus, I had no qualms about more integration between Reader and Plus, provided it was done right. The merge of Google Reader and Google Plus seemed inevitable and kinda obvious IMHO. There was a fair bit of overlap of features, and some things would just make sense together. Unfortunately, it does not appear it was done right at all, and much of Google Reader's functionality seems to be lost.
Here is one example that greatly effects me personally. I have a friend that is subscribed to hundreds of feeds and shares out the best of them. This is perfect for me who seems to always be busy, and I enjoy the articles he shares. This friend also shares out A LOT of other information publicly on his Google Plus ("I just stopped into Starbucks and the wait time was awful" kind of stuff). Even if he makes a nice 'Google Reader' circle like they suggest and is nice enough to add me, I still get all of his other public crap cluttering up the valid articles I want to read. Add the fact that the whole article is no longer shared, just a snip-it and the title which is horrible. It is now a complete pain going through whatever he shares. I love integration but I don't understand how this is even usable in its current state...
~David
2011-06-06
The Rebirth of a Server, ESXi Edition
(This is written from the perspective of a couple of weeks ago; I have just been too lazy to finish it. >_< )
Alright, now as I said before, I suspect this blog will usually be used for documenting some of my many projects. (When and if I actually find the time of course >_>) The first such project is building a VMware ESXi infrastructure.
Now before I begin, I need to provide some background info. I had a server running VMware Server on Ubuntu with several virtual machines. For a long time, I have wanted to convert this system to an ESX/ESXi infrastructure, and also to provide the necessary hardware (a large raided storage space) to use as a backup server. Unfortunately it was forcibly moved to the top of my priorities when both the main hard drive and the power supply failed within a week. No I did not have adequate backups, lets move on.
The core salvageable parts of the server are below:
After considering my options (and available cash) and doing a good deal of research, I decided to go with a three step plan to get the base infrastructure I want up and running.
This post will cover step number 1.
I decided I wanted to attempt to install ESXi onto a USB flash drive and use a new internal hard drive as my datastore. I would also need to get a network card as the onboard Ethernet on that Gigabyte Motherboard is not compatible with ESXi, and ESXi would apparently refuse to install. I splurged a little bit (compared to everything else) on the network card and got a dual gigabit adapter with the assumption that I could just move this to the new server in step 3 when the time came. I also bought another stick of ram and of course a cheep (but still good) replacement power supply. Below is the hardware:
I assembled the hardware, downloaded ESXi from the VMware site ( http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor/overview.html ), burned it to a CD, and boot up the system from the CD. The installation took a bit, but went very smooth. I was able to select the USB drive, and everything completed successfully.
On reboot, I configured the bios to boot from my flash drive, and waited anxiously. Here I met my first, and really only, problem. "PANIC: Failed to find USB boot partition" As you can imagine, I was quite lost as to what was going on. Apparently that Gigabyte motherboard has more issues than just the Ethernet compatibility issue. I got conflicting reports on what was actually happening, but it looks like it has something to do with the Gigabyte motherboard not properly emulating the USB as a hard drive. In any case, I found the fix thanks to this blog post: http://doomdogus.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/booting-esxi-from-usb-on-gigabyte-motherboards/ The first comment by "Zoltan Csizmadia" shows the steps in a strait forward fashion:
After this, I was able to boot properly into ESXi and was good to go. My server has been reborn. Step 1 complete!
~David
Alright, now as I said before, I suspect this blog will usually be used for documenting some of my many projects. (When and if I actually find the time of course >_>) The first such project is building a VMware ESXi infrastructure.
Now before I begin, I need to provide some background info. I had a server running VMware Server on Ubuntu with several virtual machines. For a long time, I have wanted to convert this system to an ESX/ESXi infrastructure, and also to provide the necessary hardware (a large raided storage space) to use as a backup server. Unfortunately it was forcibly moved to the top of my priorities when both the main hard drive and the power supply failed within a week. No I did not have adequate backups, lets move on.
The core salvageable parts of the server are below:
- Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q6600 ( http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=29765 )
- Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L Motherboard ( http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2693#ov )
- Corsair 2GB PC6400 800MHz DDR2 memory stick
- The case
- The cooling system
After considering my options (and available cash) and doing a good deal of research, I decided to go with a three step plan to get the base infrastructure I want up and running.
- Get a server up as quickly and cheaply as possible running ESXi using the salvageable parts listed above.
- Build an external storage array that the ESXi server can connect to via SAN or NAS. It should include at least four or five 2TB hard drives in RAID5.
- Build a new server to replace the server in step 1 using the latest and greatest hardware. (I am thinking at least 16GB of ram, if not 32GB)
This post will cover step number 1.
I decided I wanted to attempt to install ESXi onto a USB flash drive and use a new internal hard drive as my datastore. I would also need to get a network card as the onboard Ethernet on that Gigabyte Motherboard is not compatible with ESXi, and ESXi would apparently refuse to install. I splurged a little bit (compared to everything else) on the network card and got a dual gigabit adapter with the assumption that I could just move this to the new server in step 3 when the time came. I also bought another stick of ram and of course a cheep (but still good) replacement power supply. Below is the hardware:
- LaCie 130981 MosKeyto 4GB USB Flash Drive ( $17.99 - link )
- Hitachi 7200RPM SATA 500GB Hard Drive ( $39.99 - link )
- Intel PRO/1000 PT PCI Express x4 Dual Port Network adapter ( $167.99 - link )
- Corsair XMS2 PC6400 800MHz 2GB DDR2 Desktop Memory ( $34.99 - link )
- Diablotek PSDA600 600W ATX Power Supply ( $34.99 - link )
I assembled the hardware, downloaded ESXi from the VMware site ( http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor/overview.html ), burned it to a CD, and boot up the system from the CD. The installation took a bit, but went very smooth. I was able to select the USB drive, and everything completed successfully.
On reboot, I configured the bios to boot from my flash drive, and waited anxiously. Here I met my first, and really only, problem. "PANIC: Failed to find USB boot partition" As you can imagine, I was quite lost as to what was going on. Apparently that Gigabyte motherboard has more issues than just the Ethernet compatibility issue. I got conflicting reports on what was actually happening, but it looks like it has something to do with the Gigabyte motherboard not properly emulating the USB as a hard drive. In any case, I found the fix thanks to this blog post: http://doomdogus.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/booting-esxi-from-usb-on-gigabyte-motherboards/ The first comment by "Zoltan Csizmadia" shows the steps in a strait forward fashion:
[First boot from a linux live CD like Ubuntu]
fdisk /dev/sd*
choose x => extra functionality (experts only)
choose f => fix partition order
chhose w => write table to disk and exit
After this, I was able to boot properly into ESXi and was good to go. My server has been reborn. Step 1 complete!
~David
2011-05-13
Hello World
Hello to any and all future readers who have stumbled across this blog. This is the beginning. Yes I know the title of this post might be a little overused, but I’m a software developer, and this is as much a test post as it is an introduction so deal with it! (If you do not get the significance of the title, Google it.) So who am I? Name’s David, and yes I am a bit of a geek, but proud of it! I do like anime, Star Trek (and many other things Sci-Fi), and slinging code together on a computer. I also like hanging out with friends at a party or catching a movie. I can spend a Friday night chillin at a nightclub, discussing quantum physics/government politics/the answer to life, the universe, and everything until 6am, or just by playing a good fun game of StarCraft II with some online friends. ^_^
This site (LogicLodge.com) is at the moment mostly used as the address to my backend server for software projects of mine, but perhaps one day it will have a nice front-facing website. This blog is really the first public content on it. To be honest, I never saw myself actually having a blog. I don’t really like to write; I have always had a problem with getting my thoughts out correctly. I changed my mind while working on one of my many projects, getting myself an ESXi server up and running. Since the server I am building is not exactly up to the officially supported specs of VMware, I relied greatly on other people blogging about their similar experiences. I figure I owe it to the online community to share back my thoughts and experiences with this project, and perhaps someone one day someone might find it useful in their own endeavors. I need to document it anyway for my own reference.
So here we are. Now I have no idea how much ‘blogging’ I am actually going to do, and indeed it will probably be pretty rare, so frequent updates or any kind of consistency should not be expected at all. You have been warned! Well time to get to it!... I guess… >_<
~David
Note: Wow what a great day to start blogging… Blogger has been down the whole day! Guess I will post this tomorrow… How troublesome...
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