OK, this isn’t world-shattering news or a discovery of paramount importance, but I do find this a bit odd given that with the Linux-based Service Console most everything should be entirely case-sensitive. However, I found that with esxcfg-advcfg only part of the command needs to be properly capitalized.

Consider these examples. If I wanted to increase the maximum number of NFS datastores on VMware ESX, I would use this command:

esxcfg-advcfg -s 32 /NFS/MaxVolumes

This command will also work (note the capitalization, or lack thereof):

esxcfg-advcfg -s 32 /NFS/maxvolumes

But this command won’t work; it will report that it can’t find the parameter:

esxcfg-advcfg -s 32 /nfs/maxvolumes

I noticed the same behavior with a couple of other settings, so I’m reasonably confident that it’s not just this one setting. It appears that esxcfg-advcfg only cares if the first portion of the path is properly capitalized, and the rest of the parameter is case insensitive.

Interesting, no?

• ESX Firewall Oddity
• Identifying ESX Server NICs in Blades
• ESX iSCSI Basic Configuration from the CLI
• Quick Note on ESX and ESXi Storage Multipathing
• Important Note Regarding VMware over NFS

Thanks to this post by Cody Bunch and this Twitter response by Hal Rottenberg, I cobbled together this PowerShell command:

get-datacenter "Name" | get-vm | get-networkadapter | where-object { $_.networkname -like "OldPortGroup" } | set-networkadapter -networkname "NewPortGroup" -Confirm:$false

It worked like a champ! Obviously, you could limit the scope of this command by filtering the VMs that are returned with a wildcard pattern on the Get-VM command.

Thanks to Cody and Hal for their assistance!

• Semi-Automatic Security Groups
• VMware ESX Networking Articles
• ESX Server and the Native VLAN
• Enumerating Universal Group Membership
• Listing Groups in Active Directory

My primary goals for this “home network rebuild” were the following:

1. Rebuild the home server with a newer version of Linux, and possibly switch to a different distribution.
2. Continue to provide DNS, DHCP, HTTP, and HTTP proxying/content filtering services to the home network.
3. Continue to provide file sharing services via Server Message Block/Common Internet File System (SMB/CIFS) for Windows-based systems on the home network.
4. Continue to have a shared music library available via Digital Audio Access Protocol (DAAP, aka iTunes) available to all systems on the home network.
5. Provide file sharing services to Macs on the network via AppleTalk Filing Protocol (AFP) over TCP.

Ideally, I also wanted to enable Time Machine backups from my Mac laptop to the home server.

After doing a fair amount of research, I settled on the use of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (”Hardy Heron”) for the server build. I didn’t go with Ubuntu 8.10 (”Intrepid Ibex”) simply because a) I already had 8.04.1 downloaded and burned to a CD; and b) Hardy Heron is an LTS release, so I should have better support over the long term.

I won’t bore readers with the details of the rebuild, but it took about a day or two to get a larger hard drive installed, Ubuntu installed and configured, and services running like DHCP (including some static reservations for certain computers, like my laptop and my iPhone), DNS (using MaraDNS, much easier to figure out than BIND), Apache, and Squid with SquidGuard. At this point, I’d completed tasks #1 and #2.

On to task #3. This was pretty simple and straightforward and easily accomplished via Samba, with nothing really unique to document here. The one interesting thing that I did find was a way to map the long usernames that Mac OS X uses (like “Bob Jones”) to a short username (like “bjones”). I used this command in the /etc/samba/smb.conf file:

username map = /etc/samba/usermap.conf

In this file, I simply placed lines that mapped the long usernames to the short usernames. Since Mac OS X defaults to the long username when connecting to the server, this allows me to simply type in a password and connect. I searched for hours trying to find a way to have Mac OS X supply my current password to the Samba server so that I wouldn’t get prompted, but could not find any information. If anyone knows the trick, I’d love to hear about it. After configuring a few shares, setting Linux permissions and the umask, and then testing from both my Mac laptop and a Windows laptop, task #3 was finished.

Task #4, providing an iTunes-compatible music server, was also really straightforward and easy. For this, I again selected Firefly Media Server, formerly mt-daapd, which I’d used before with great success. Again, nothing unusual or unique to document here, except for the potential interaction with Avahi (more on that later).

The final task was installing Netatalk to provide AFP over TCP file sharing services for Macs on the network. Fortunately for me, one of the sites I’d been using to help in my project pointed me to this blog post, which had a prebuilt package for Netatalk that included the necessary SSL support that Mac OS X requires. That saved me the trouble of compiling Netatalk from source. Following the steps in the Kremalicious article as well as information from this guide, I configured Netatalk to present a volume to use for Time Machine backups. It was at this point that I noticed a strange interaction with Avahi.

Avahi is a multicast DNS (what Apple calls Bonjour) server for Linux. It’s responsible for advertising services to multicast DNS-enabled systems, such as other Linux systems running Avahi or Macs. I’d installed Avahi earlier and used some service definitions from this article and this blog post to advertise Samba and HTTP. In addition, after installing Firefly, I’d noticed that Firefly starting advertising its presence automatically through Avahi with no service definition required.

Upon installing Netatalk, I also noticed that Netatalk started advertising automatically via Avahi as well, but using the IP address of the server. In order to be able to control how Netatalk advertises via Avahi, I had to change this line in /etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf:

enable-dbus=no

The suggestion for this change came from this thread on the Ubuntu Forums. Upon making the change and restarting Avahi, the odd Netatalk entry went away, but so did Firefly! To advertise both Netatalk and Firefly, I added a couple of files to /etc/avahi/services:

afpd.service:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone='no'?><!--*-nxml-*-->
<!DOCTYPE service-group SYSTEM “avahi-service.dtd”>
<service-group>
<name replace-wildcards=”yes”>Intrepid Time Machine</name>
<service>
<type>_afpovertcp._tcp</type>
<port>548</port>
</service>
<service>
<type>_device-info._tcp</type>
<port>0</port>
<txt-record>model=AirPort</txt-record>
</service>
</service-group>

daapd.service:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone='no'?><!--*-nxml-*-->
<!DOCTYPE service-group SYSTEM “avahi-service.dtd”>
<service-group>
<name replace-wildcards=”yes”>Home Music Server</name>
<service>
<type>_daap._tcp</type>
<port>3689</port>
</service>
</service-group>

After placing these two files into /etc/avahi/services, the new services starting advertising immediately. By the way, you’ll note the extra “device-info” entry in afpd.service; that sets the icon that will be used by Macs when they discover this service. I made mine look like a Time Capsule by using the setting listed above.

During this work with Avahi, I uncovered a couple of interesting things:

• I found that restarting the Avahi daemon is actually more problematic than just leaving it alone; in order to make it start advertising services again after a restart, you’ll have to open one of the files in /etc/avahi/services and then close it again. No changes are necessary to the file, but opening it will kickstart Avahi into service advertisement.
• Advertising SMB/CIFS and AFP together with the same name caused my Mac to ignore the SMB/CIFS services and only use AFP. I had to separate SMB/CIFS and AFP into different entries. Since I was using AFP really only for Time Machine backups and SMB/CIFS for everything else, it wasn’t really a big deal.
• Advertising SMB/CIFS and RFB (Screen Sharing, as outlined here) works fine together.

At this point, task #5 was pretty much complete. I had originally envisioned providing file sharing services to the same locations via both AFP and SMB/CIFS, but in the end—partially because of the odd issue with AFP and SMB/CIFS being advertised together as described above—settled for using AFP only for Time Machine and SMB/CIFS for everything else.

Along the way, I also configured screen sharing as outlined here, and it seems to work just fine. I have to leave an account logged in to the Ubuntu server, but I can just lock the screen when I’m not logged in remotely.

The last step was to enable Time Machine backups to the Ubuntu server via AFP. First, the hack to enable non-Time Capsule network backups (this should be all on one line):

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

I was then able to select the Ubuntu-hosted AFP volume for Time Machine backups. Attempting to run a Time Machine, backup, however, reported an error about being “unable to create the disk image”. Fortunately, a number of different articles pointed to the use of hdiutil to create the disk image, and that seemed to fix the problem. Time Machine is now backing up to the AFP volume, although I suspect I still have a few issues to work through (for example, it looks as though I have to keep the Time Machine AFP volume mounted in order for automatic backups to run).

So, when everything is said and done, I was able to achieve all my stated goals. The only outstanding issue that I haven’t yet figured out yet centers on automatic logins; for both AFP and SMB/CIFS, I get prompted for a password when connecting, even though I keep my password synchronized (manually) between my Mac and the Ubuntu server. Any tips on how to resolve that would certainly be appreciated.

Along the way, I found the following sites to be quite helpful. I’m sure there are others that I used along the way, and I apologize if I’ve failed to extend credit where credit is due.

Limit size of Time Machine backups on Time Capsule
Set up Time Machine on a NAS in three easy steps
Make Ubuntu a Perfect Mac File Server and Time Machine Volume
Five Guides on How to Integrate Ubuntu into a Mac OS X Network
Time Machine Wireless Backups without Time Capsule

• Greater AD Integration via NFS and Automounts
• OpenVPN and mt-daapd
• Hanging Around #vmware
• Mac OS X and .local Domains
• Ubuntu 5.10

One Year Ago on blog.scottlowe.org

LACP with Cisco Switches and NetApp VIFs
Hyper-V Architectural Issue
Latest VDI Article Published

Two Years Ago on blog.scottlowe.org

Bookmark Spam?
Personal Computing as a Collection of VMs?
Application Agnosticism

Three Years Ago on blog.scottlowe.org

Mac OS X and .local Domains
WMF Flaw Exploit Grows Worse
Complete Linux-AD Authentication Details

• Comment Spam
• Bookmark Spam?
• VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1
• Personal Computing as a Collection of VMs?
• Comments Available Again

To further cement the success the site has seen, today Virtualization.info listed this site as one of the top virtualization blogs of 2008. I’m honored that Alessandro Perilli, the primary author at Virtualization.info, would include me in this list with recognized industry experts such as Massimo Re Ferrè, Chad Sakac, and Christofer Hoff. Thanks, Alessandro!

You know, though, even more important than the subscription numbers or the industry accolades is the fact that I’m able to help people. A friend of mine who is an SE for VMware—he also runs his own site here—posted an entry on Twitter yesterday that really brought it home. People out there are finding the information on my site to be useful and it’s helping them solve their problems. To me, that is a greater measure of success than any other metric.

• A Quick Follow Up on Catbird
• Other VMworld 2008 Resources
• Going to Sweden
• Virtualization Interview Posted
• I’m Honored, Too

One of the various things this server does is run mt-daapd (now called Firefly Media Server, I believe)—basically it’s an iTunes server. I dump copies of the MP3’s generated when I rip a CD onto a mount point on this server, and anyone in the house with iTunes can connect and listen to them. They can’t copy them or sync them to their iPod, but they can listen to them. Since the kids and I share some similar tastes in Christian contemporary music, it works out well.

After being rather impressed with the Viscosity OpenVPN client and OpenVPN in general, I also setup OpenVPN on this Linux home server for those instances when I need to connect to my home network for some reason. I’ve only needed to use it a couple of times, but it’s worked great thus far.

While setting up some older laptops for the kids (one of their Christmas presents this year), I ran into an instance where iTunes for Windows wouldn’t connect to the shared music library on my Linux server. The problem seemed sporadic, and seemed to be somewhat limited to the Windows laptops I was setting up; I was still able to connect from my MacBook Pro. About the same time, one of my younger kids came up and told me that the Mac mini downstairs wouldn’t connect to the shared music library, either. Hmmm, something was going on.

Restarting the mt-daapd daemon didn’t change anything, nor did disabling the Windows Firewall on the laptops. Turning off the firewall on the Linux server didn’t change anything, either. I started to dig in a bit deeper then, and after a short while realized that Bonjour—which is used by iTunes to discover shared music libraries on other systems—was somehow picking up the wrong IP address. But where was this address coming from?

It didn’t take long after that to figure out that mDNSResponder on the Linux server was broadcasting the IP address of the server’s tun0 interface, which is used by OpenVPN. Because of various routing issues and limitations, this range of addresses isn’t reachable by the home LAN; hence, failures to connect to the mt-daapd server.

The fix, in my case at least, was to modify the /etc/init.d/mDNSResponder script to add the “-i eth0″ parameter to the command that started mDNSResponder. This forced mDNSResponder to broadcast only the IP address of eth0, the server’s primary Ethernet interface. Two changes needed to be made to the file:

1. First, the “-i eth0″ needs to be added to the line that defines the variable $OTHER_MDNSRD_OPTS.
2. Second, double quotes have to be added around the command that actually launces mDNSResponder using the runuser command. Otherwise, the parameter to mDNSResponder is interpreted as a parameter to runuser and causes an error.

Once I made these changes and restarted both mDNSResponder and mt-daapd, all the systems were able to connect to the shared music library without any further issues. Problem solved!

• Viscosity, a Mac OpenVPN Client
• Ubuntu and Mac OS X Integration
• Weblog Moved to a New Host
• Krystal Meyers
• Linux on Laptops

¹In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ²(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³And everyone went to his own town to register.
⁴So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. ⁵He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
⁸And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. ¹¹Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. ¹²This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
¹³Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ¹⁴“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”
(Luke 2:1-14 NIV)

I’d like to take this moment to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, and may the true reason behind this celebration live eternally in your hearts.

• Merry Christmas!
• Another Take on Life(song)
• Shaohannah’s Hope
• Fireproof
• A Short Break

After a little bit of digging around, I turned up this VMware Communities thread, in which several other users also indicate they are seeing the same kinds of problems. The thread closes out by referencing this post by Duncan Epping regarding the VM failure monitoring bug. Clearly, though, this bug should not be affecting users who do not have VM failure monitoring enabled. I also found this blog post about another user having the issue, although it sounds like his problem was solved by disabling VM failure monitoring.

Further research turned up this KB article on a post-Update 3 patch that may address some of the random reboot issues. Judging from the KB article, it looks like the random reboots may be caused due to an unexpected interaction between VMotion and an option to automatically upgrade VMware Tools. This is just speculation, of course, but the symptoms seem to fit.

Have any other users out there experienced this problem? If so, what was the fix, if any? It sounds like there may be more to this issue than perhaps I first suspected.

• VMware HA Problem with Update 3
• Apparent Date/Time Issue With Update 2
• CPU Spike with DRS and VMotion
• Quick Note on ESX and ESXi Storage Multipathing
• VMware HA in Action

Since that time, I’ve been taking a closer look at the integration points between iCal, Google Calendar via CalDAV, and the iPhone. What I’ve found indicates that this may not be the optimal solution for me—but it may be just fine for you. Note that this has not deterred me from moving forward with greater use of Google Calendar, it has just shifted my strategy away from the built-in CalDAV support.

Some of the key limitations that I’ve encountered:

• The “one-calendar-per-account” limitation is probably already well-known and isn’t a significant limitation, but one to consider nevertheless. This will mean more space required for your calendar list in the event you want to use multiple calendars via CalDAV. For those that aren’t familiar with what I’m talking about, the basic gist of the idea is that when using CalDAV with Google Calendar, each CalDAV account is only allowed to have a single calendar. So, to use multiple calendars, you’ll need multiple CalDAV accounts. These can all be the same Google account, but in iCal they’ll need to be configured as separate CalDAV accounts.
• The big limitation, for me at least, is that CalDAV calendars synced to the iPhone are, in fact, read-only. That’s right—you won’t be able to make any changes to such calendars from the iPhone itself. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the calendars did actually sync to the iPhone, and then unpleasantly surprised to find they were now read-only. For me and how I work, I need the ability to make changes to my calendar from my iPhone. If that’s not a big deal for you, then continuing down the CalDAV route may be OK. Unfortunately, it’s not for me.
• You can’t move events between CalDAV-enabled calendars. You actually have to re-create the event on the other calendar, then delete it from the first.

I’m still moving ahead with a greater usage of Google Calendar, but as a result of finding these limitations, I’m now taking a closer look at some of the third-party utilities to provide two-way sync between iCal and Google Calendar. BusySync is the leading candidate right now, although I’m also looking at Calgoo Connect and Spanning Sync. If any readers are using any of these products right now, I’d certainly welcome any feedback on how well they work.

• Manually Configuring iCal for Google Calendar and CalDAV
• Google Apps Doesn’t Play Nice with MailTags
• Any iPhone App Recommendations?
• More on my VMworld 2008 Schedule
• OmniFocus for iPhone First Impressions

Anyone can go and download a copy from the Veeam website. That’s assuming, of course, that you can actually download the software, as I’ve been trying to do all morning. I’m sure that once the initial excitement and the mad rush of downloads subsides, it will be much easier and much faster, but for those of you who just absolutely positively have to have it right now, good luck!

• New Tool from Veeam?
• Assorted VMware Tools
• I’m Glad I’m Not The Only One
• VMware ESX 3.5 Update 3 is Available
• VIMA Rolls Out