I’ve been reading a ton about high availability servers. A ton. And since we’ve been using the vmware free servers since 1.0, I guess it’s about time to get caught up on them again.<\/p>\n
VMWare server 1.* was great – it’s free, ran reasonably well, and is free. The problem, however, was no native 64bit support, horrible RAM management, and no USB 2.0 support.<\/p>\n
Welcome to VMWare server 2.*. Runs fairly well, is still free, and has 64bit support. No other options\/features though.<\/p>\n
So then I wanted to dabble in with HA – I need ESX right? ESX server costs money. My budget is pretty low at the moment so not-free is out of the question.<\/p>\n
ESXi is free, however, so we’ll use that. Unfortunately you need to have at least 3 full-time servers for this to work (1 as a server manager, 2 as the mirrored servers)<\/p>\n
First, download ESXi 3.5.*.
\nThen, burn the image to a CD
\nLoad said CD into a server
\nInstall on said server
\nRepeat on at least one other server<\/p>\n
You should now have two fully functioning ESXi servers.<\/p>\n
On your third server, install some version of Windows. I know, I know, windows blows. But in this case it’s not bad. Hard to break windows if you only use it for 1 single purpose. I ended up installing a VL version of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise R2 SP2.<\/p>\n
Then, here’s where it gets a little expensive, you need to acquire a copy of VMWare Infrastructure. And by little expensive I really mean you should buy some lube to prepare for the… nevermind.<\/p>\n
Without Infrastructure you cannot HA your vmware machines.<\/p>\n
Install Infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Tricky part: DNS settings. If you have only a few virtual hosts, you may as well hand edit your DNS hosts settings. If you have several hundred, a DNS server is more handy.<\/p>\n
Power on one of your VMWare ESXi servers – then press alt + F1
\nNow type in “unsupported” without the quotes
\nThen type in your root password when prompted<\/p>\n
Test the settings by pinging the host: Now, do the same thing on the other host: Ping test once again and it should work just fine.<\/p>\n Then, and only then, do we start to work on the infrastructure side of things.<\/p>\n Create a new datacenter I’ve been reading a ton about high availability servers. A ton. And since we’ve been using the vmware free servers since 1.0, I guess it’s about time to get caught up on them again. VMWare server 1.* was great – it’s free, ran reasonably well, and is free. The problem, however, was no native 64bit … Continue reading VMWare HA ESXi<\/span> vi \/etc\/hosts<\/code>
\nShift + I<\/code>
\nScroll down to the last line, hit enter to start a new line, and then type in your OTHER server’s IP information:
\n192.168.2.101 host2.localdomain host2<\/code>
\n:wq!<\/code><\/p>\n
\nping host2<\/code>
\nIf you get a response that’s a good thing. No response is a bad thing.<\/p>\n
\nPress alt + F1
\nNow type in “unsupported” without the quotes
\nThen type in your root password when prompted<\/p>\nvi \/etc\/hosts<\/code>
\nShift + I<\/code>
\nScroll down to the last line, hit enter to start a new line, and then type in your OTHER server’s IP information:
\n192.168.2.100 host1.localdomain host1<\/code>
\n:wq!<\/code><\/p>\n
\nRight-Click and create new cluster. I’m choosing HA.
\nRight-Click and add a host. Type in the IP of the first host and root\/password.
\nRight-Click and add the second host using the same method.
\nInfrastructure should automatically add them to the HA area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"