Automated disk partitioning on virtual machines with Cobbler

The default Cobbler Snippets just do simple auto partitioning. For a more sophisticated partition layout you need to know what kind of VM you are going to install. KVMs and RHEVs device name is /dev/vda, Xen uses /dev/xvda and ESX /dev/sda. Luckily this can be figured out automatically, those different virtualization vendors are using its own MAC prefixes. So we can add two nice small Cobbler snippets to do the job. In this example, I call them hw-detect and partitioning. ….Read More

RHEV 3.1 – an overview about the new features

Recently Red Hat announced the public availability of RHEV 3.1. Finally, no more Windows needed for the whole software stack 🙂 In 3.0, the new webadmin interface was already inncluded, as a tech preview and had its problems. Now with 3.1 its working great and looks neat. In contrary to 3.0, it is now listening on the standard ports 80 and 443. This will probably help users in organizations with strict proxy policies and setting. So what else is new? ….Read More

Kernel 3.5.3 partially broken for virtualization

Some time ago, Fedora 17 got a Kernel update to 3.5.3-1. Since then, PXE booting virtual machines does not work anymore. It seems that it has not been fixed in the upstream Kernel, but only the 3.5 series of Kernels is affected. A bug has been filed, but no fix is available. The only solution for now is to stick to Kernel 3.4.5-2. I’ve checked the Fedora annouce mailinglist, looks like there have been no grave bugfixes since then. The ….Read More

A review of RHEV

In the past few weeks I had the chance to have a closer look at the current release 2.2. The reason is that I’m working on a project using RHEL6 clients as virtual Desktops. For a proof-of-concept I’ve set up a test environment in the lab. Due to the lack of time I was not able to test every single feature. After reading some docs, it was amazingly easily and quickly installed. Test environment The tests have been made on ….Read More

Spice and RHEV, a RHCE goes MCSE

I’m currently working in a project which includes some virtual Linux desktops. The desktop of choice is RHEL6. How to bring a Linux desktop via WAN to a thin client? VNC -> are you nuts? Remote X11 over SSH -> WAN = no go. NX -> another vendor involved. SPICE -> Spicy! But: Spice over WAN? To be tested… SPICE is the protocol used by RHEV (Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization). Some time ago I had the chance to test this ….Read More

Deploying RHEL as ESX guests – Kickstarting or using ESX templates?

Some time ago I asked my self the question if it is better to kickstart systems or working with ESX templates when deploying RHEL as ESX guests. I also had some discussions with friends working in the same industry. I tried it and came to the following conclusion: Kickstart the systems is the way to go. Pros: Kickstarted Systems are already up-to-date after installation. Proper SSH host keys. Using ESX templates ends up in having identical SSH host keys, from ….Read More

Experiences with RHEL6 Beta 2.1

Like promised I’ll keep you updated on the RHEL6b2.1. The “official name” is not Beta2.1, it is “Beta 2 refresh”. Why not calling it Beta3? Anyway: The good news first: In contrary to the first release of Beta 2, it works fine again! The first release of Beta2 was quite crappy, it was not installable as a KVM guest. This was obviously due to severe bugs in some virtio drivers. So, what are the news? 1. The bugs in the ….Read More

What is possibly going into RHEL6 GA and what is not

As I wrote different times before, RHEL6 is going to have a Kernel based on upstreams 2.6.32 Kernel. Meanwhile Linus Torvalds and his fellows released 2.6.34. Since then – from a System Engineers Point of view – there have some “minor” changes which are affecting the daily work in enterprise environments. I think that Red Hat is aware that RHEL6 is one of its most important releases made so far. RHEL6 Beta-Testers have acknowledged that this is one of the ….Read More