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Archive for category Linux

Serious VMware Bug: Ouch

Aug 12

Posted by admin in Apple, Linux, Microsoft | No Comments

So it appears that there is a bug in VMware’s licensing code (see below for updates) that will effectively not allow systems running ESX 3.5U2 in Enterprise configuration to run.  System’s that are already running should not be affected.

Matthew Marlowe has posted a blog entry indicating the following work around:

  1. Find the host where a VM is located by getting the list: 
    vmware-cmd -l
  2. Issue the commands: 
    service ntpd stop

date -s 08/01/2008

vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/vm path/vmname.vmx start

service ntpd start

Updates from VMware can be found on this page (UPDATE: Due to timeouts, use this static page).  Apparently a fix is minimum 36 hours away…

More than just a bit scary if you ask me…

UPDATE:

Just received an e-mail from VMware.

Problem:

An issue has been discovered by many VMware customers and partners with ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 where Virtual Machines fail to power on or VMotion successfully. This problem began to occur on August 12, 2008 for customers that had upgraded to ESX 3.5 Update 2. The problem is caused by a build timeout that was mistakenly left enabled for the release build.

Affected products:

  1. VMware ESX 3.5 Update 2 & ESXi 3.5 Update 2
  2. Reports of problems with ESX 3.5 U1 with the following 3.5 Update 2 patch applied.
    1. ESX350-200806201-UG
  3. No other VMware products are affected.

Resolution:

VMware Engineering has isolated the root cause and is working to produce an express patch for impacted customers today. The target timeframe is 6pm, August 12, 2008 PST.

UPDATE:

The express patch can be found here.

UPDATE:

This message is to inform you that we are experiencing a delay in releasing the new version of ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2. Our testing of this release is taking longer than anticipated. We are now targeting to release the update between 2:00 AM PDT (0700 UTC) August 14 and 8:00 AM (1500 UTC) August 14 PDT.

UPDATE:

We have re-issued the entire ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 release (ISOs, upgrade tar and zip files, and patch bundles). They are available for download at http://www.vmware.com/download/.

Please note this update is only relevant to customers who did not install the impacted release of ESX 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103908) or ESXi 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103909). If you have installed either of these please visit http://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/esxexpresspatches.html and install the express patch.

BIND Still Vulnerable

Aug 10

Posted by admin in Apple, Linux, Microsoft, Security, Terminal Server | No Comments

Looks like Russian Hacker Evgeniy Polyakov has successfully poisoned the latest version of BIND which was supposed to have been patched in that massive, coordinated release.  The release was supposed to randomize the ports to make it much more difficult to poison.  Using Evgeniy Polyakov’s exploit code and some common hardware, it took 10 hours.  Yikes.

The New York Times article by John Markoff has more details.

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When Big News Goes Down

Jul 16

Posted by admin in Apple, Citrix, Linux, Microsoft, Performance, Terminal Server | No Comments

Following up on our previous post, pingdom has a blog post on downtime for the major news sites.  They cover all the big boys.  ABC News, Christian Science Monitor, International Herald Tribune and Times Online had the most downtime since Jan 1 with up to a whopping 23h 31m.  On the flip-side The Washington Post, CNN and the New York Times were all under 40m and Forbes came in with zero downtime.

You can checkout the pingdom blog post for an interesting analysis.

When Big Sites Go Down

Jul 15

Posted by admin in Apple, Citrix, Linux, Microsoft, Terminal Server | 1 Comment

Data Center Knowledge picked up on a New York Times article about Internet downtime and the reality of trying to provide 24/7/365 uptime for the worlds most popular, and most relied upon, websites and services.

They run through a recent list of outages affecting The Planet, HostDime, ICE, Netflix, YouTube, T-Mobile, Yahoo Stores, Rackspace, Alabanza, ValueWeb, and 365 Main that took sites down anywhere from several hours to several days.

An interesting read to say the least.

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New Remote Desktop Wiki

May 4

Posted by admin in Apple, Citrix, Linux, Microsoft, Performance, Security, Terminal Server | No Comments

Most of the information that is being collected for remotedesktop.com is more efficiently presented as a Wiki rather than a blog.

You can visit our new Wiki at:

http://wiki.remotedesktop.com/

Patriot Act Considerations

Mar 24

Posted by admin in Apple, Citrix, Linux, Microsoft, Security, Terminal Server | No Comments

The Globe and Mail is carrying a very interesting story on the dilemma the U.S. Patriot Act is causing customers of hosted solutions.  The article outlines privacy issues whenever a U.S. based corporation maintains customer data and that data, through the U.S. Patriot Act, becomes available to the U.S. authorities.

This applies to remote desktops and the file servers or SANs that serve them.

As a Canadian-based managed solutions provider, we have already been asked by our U.S. Customers to maintain separate servers in our Canadian datacenters to appease Canadian customers who refuse to have their data travel to the U.S. and be at risk of being divulged through the Patriot Act.  This is not a question of preference or unlawful activity, the U.S. Patriot Act is at odds with Canada’s privacy laws which require organizations to protect private information, and requires that they inform individuals when their data has been shared.

The article truly outlines a very current dilemma for providers of remote desktops and Terminal Services.

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