the birdhouse in my soul

(An update of an older post: now with vSphere 4.1 info. Further updated in 2011 with vSphere 5 info.) Your Linux runs on a VMware VM, but which ESX version is it ? You can see for yourself (as already explained in an earlier post on this blog). Run "dmidecode" and look at lines 10, 11 and 12. The list has been updated with current info: ESX 2.5 - BIOS Release Date: 04/21/2004 - Address 0xE8480 - Size 97152 bytes ESX 3.0 - BIOS Release Date: 04/17/2006 - Address 0xE7C70 - Size 99216 bytes ESX 3.5 - BIOS Release Date: 01/30/2008 - Address 0xE7910 - Size 100080 bytes ESX 4 - BIOS Release Date: 08/15/2008 - Address 0xEA6C0 - Size 88384 bytes ESX 4U1 - BIOS Release Date: 09/22/2009 - Address 0xEA550 - Size 88752 bytes ESX 4.1 - BIOS Release Date: 10/13/2009 - Address 0xEA2E0 - Size 89376 bytes ESX 5 - BIOS Release Date: 01/07/2011 - Address 0xE72C0 - Size 101696 bytes

I've been into virtualization for a long, long time, so I was familiar with the USB-over-IP concept. It has always been the preferred way to bring USB into a virtual machine, because it doesn't limit the flexibility of virtualization: live migration (vMotion), failover (HA), fault tolerance, ... can all handle USB-over-IP. But I was still surprised to find a cheap USB-over-IP device in a local computer store: the Belkin Network USB Hub , NUH for short. 100 USD list price, became EUR 90 retail price here in Belgium. Not the greatest deal around, but no reason to feel grumpy. Now let's see what this baby can do: the test setup consists of the Belkin NUH and two clients: a Windows Vista 32-bit laptop connected over WiFI and a Windows 2008 R2 64-bit VM on VMware vSphere connected over wired GigE. Then I gathered a diverse set of USB devices: USB memory sticks, USB hard drives, a USB smartcard reader, and a USB CD/DVD writer. The NUH gets a DHCP address by default (can be change...

Good news for those of us with QNAP units in our environments. On the VMworld partner exhibition floor, my sources confirmed that VLAN tagging support has been implemented, and will be released in firmware 3.4. QNAP has release 3.3.3 recently, and it's unknown when 3.4 will be released.

My original home lab, three years old now, included two PC's running virtualization software, with Intel core 2 quad CPU's and 8 GB RAM each. While browsing for a replacement, I found Didier's Shuttle SX58J3 review . I researched some alternatives, but decided to go for the SX58J3 as well, fitted with 12 GB RAM and i7-970 CPUs, hexacores with hyperthreading. shallow: depth is critical in my telco rack. reduced height: I might get 4 shuttles in the same space as 2 minitowers earlier. They're actually slightly wider, but not by much. 12 GB per server is 50% more than the old lab (16 GB is supported but slower) the Intel core i7-970 CPU gives 100% more MHz than the old Q6600. They are much more expensive, truth be told. But being Westmere generation, they support vSphere4.1 features like DirectPath I/O and Fault Tolerance. I can re-use the PCIe dual gigabit adapters I had in the old lab. One real problem so far: in BIOS v100, I couldn't change any setting without rende...

Bluetooth carkits come in three main categories: those with bluetooth HSP , those with bluetooth HFP , and ones that do bluetooth SAP . Some implement multiple of these profiles and allow you to choose. HSP (head set profile) is the simplest profile: your carkit is basically a speaker-microphone combo, and will play the received audio and send your voice to the telephone. The telephone connects to the cellular network and handles the call. HSP is commonly used in bluetooth earpieces. HFP (hands free profile) is the most common protocol in carkits with a display: your phone still handles the call, and the carkit provides the two-way audio function just like HSP. But the carkit also has basic control over the phone: it can access the received/dialled/missed call lists. It can also instruct the phone to dial a number, to accept or to reject an incoming call. Most carkits also access the phonebook. SAP (SIM access profile, also known as rSAP or SIM) is the most complex of the three: this c...

That's an easy question, and the answer isn't too difficult either: Query the MAC address of the local network card. If it starts with "00:50:56", that indicates that it's a VMware VM. List devices on the PCI bus. If there's devices with vendor ID 15ad, you can be sure that this is a VMware VM. Look at the BIOS information (DMI). If you see Manufacturer "VMware, Inc", and the serial number starts with "VMware", and the Product Name is "VMware Virtual Platform", that's again very clear. In a typical VMware VM, you should find the VMware Tools running: the vmmemctl driver, maybe the vmxnet network card driver maybe, the vmware-guestd or VMwareUser or VMwareTray processes, ... And here's a practical list of tools you'd use to run these checks: use "/sbin/ifconfig eth0" on Linux, "ipconfig /all" on Windows. You can do this as a normal user. use "/sbin/lspci" on Linux. Also possible as a norma...

My 2008 Volkswagen Touran came with Parking Distance Control, beeping to indicate the remaining distance to objects when the car is in reverse gear. The control unit that I had was of an old type, and I had the impression it wasn't functioning 100%. So I got a new module from Kufatec , to replace the old one. Kufatec explains that you need to run a wire from the back of the vehicle to the front, but as it turns out this is not necessary when the old module is already at address 10 on the CANBUS network. If the old module is at address 76, then you do need the new wiring. I already ran the wire to the front of the vehicle and connected it before realizing that I didn't need it. Result: countless electronics error messages in the on-board diagnostics. It could have been a simple drop-in replacement, if the documentation would have explained this correctly. Clearing all the error messages took quire some time, but was succesful in the end. The new module works well now, and as a...