ESXi Stuff

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WIP...

Installation

Setup

  • Laying out the Datastores
  • An "Admin" Datastore

Maintenance

ESXi from the Command Line

Basic Concepts

  • ESXi appears to be based on BusyBox
    • So... If you're bashing your head against a wall trying to figure out how do do something low-level, check out the documentation for BusyBox.
    • Basically tho... Most of the functionality is very close to typical Linux, so the man pages on a Linux machine will get you very close.

Usability Fixes

ESXi has a NON-EDITABLE shell profile at /etc/profile.

Luckily, there's an override file at /etc/profile.local

After any changes you make to this file,

  • source /etc/profile.local

enables your changes.

To make the changes persist over a restart of the server:

  • /sbin/auto-backup.sh

To tell ESXi to save the changes.

The Shell Prompt

The shell prompt (when you're in a directory on a mounted volume) is fugly & useless.

  • vi /etc/profile.local
PS1="[\u@\h \e[1;33m\W]\e[m\$ "

(My current preference...)

PATH

By default, the execution PATH is /bin:/usr/bin . This is fine if you don't want to add executables elsewhere.

I tend to put various utility scripts & such in sub-folders of /vmfs/volumes/Admin/Utilities

This can also be fixed in /etc/profile.local

  • vi /etc/profile.local
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/vmfs/volumes/Admin/Utilities/Scripts:/vmfs/volumes/Admin/Utilities/ghettoVCB
export PATH

Caveat

Remote execution through SSH does not read the /etc/profile.local file.

One solution is to put your custom executables in the /bin folder. BUT, this is not maintainable. It can break on reboot and will DEFINITELY break on upgrades.

A better solution is to put a symbolic link there.

eg.:

  • ln -s /vmfs/volumes/Admin/Utilities/Scripts/MyCustomCode.sh /bin

Older Notes (Mostly still on the TinkerNet Wiki)

Why virtualize your server infrastructure (Morton Hjorth)

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