Set the Scratch Partition from the vSphere Client

If a scratch partition is not set up, you might want to configure one, especially if low memory is a concern. When a scratch partition is not present, vm-support output is stored in a ramdisk.

Prerequisites

The directory to use for the scratch partition must exist on the host.

Procedure

1	Use the vSphere Client to connect to the host.
2	Select the host in the Inventory.
3	In the Configuration tab, select Software.
4	Select Advanced Settings.
5	Select ScratchConfig. The field ScratchConfig.CurrentScratchLocation shows the current location of the scratch partition.
6	In the field ScratchConfig.ConfiguredScratchLocation, enter a directory path that is unique for this host. Example of directory path is /vmfs/volumes/NFS-SYNOLOGY-SSD/scratch/esx21.home.uw.cz In the example above, I have datastore with name NFS-SYNOLOGY-SSD where I have subdirectory scratch having another subdirectory esx21.home.uw.cz
7	Reboot the host for the changes to take effect. (copy from vSphere documentation)

For automated scratch partition configuration you can use vCLI, PowerCLI. For details see. VMware KB 1033696.

And here is my PowerCLI script inspired by KB above to set scratch location on all ESXi hosts in particular vSphere clusters.

ESXi strange related log entry in /var/log/vmkernel.log

I've just found in /var/log/vmkernel.log lot of following storage errors


2012-12-19T01:34:02.010Z cpu2:4098)NMP: nmp_ThrottleLogForDevice:2318: Cmd 0x93 (0x412401965f00, 5586) to dev "naa.60060e80102d5f500511c97d000000d4" on path "vmhba2:C0:T0:L2" Failed: H:0x0 D:0x2 P:0x0 Valid sense data: 0x5 0x96 0x32. Act:NONE
2012-12-19T01:34:02.010Z cpu2:4098)ScsiDeviceIO: 2322: Cmd(0x412401965f00) 0x93, CmdSN 0xc6fd5 from world 5586 to dev "naa.60060e80102d5f500511c97d000000d4" failed H:0x0 D:0x2 P:0x0 Valid sense data: 0x5 0x96 0x32.

The main part of log entry is "failed H:0x0 D:0x2 P:0x0 Valid sense data: 0x5 0x96 0x32"

If I understand correctly
D: 0x2 = DEVICE CHECK CONDITION
Sense code 0x5 = ILLEGAL REQUEST

What is it? What doe's it mean?

I have ESXi 5.0 build 768111, storage HDS AMS 2300, CISCO UCS blade system, CISCO FC switches.

Update 1:
I've thought more about the root cause ... important detail is that it is happen when storage vMotion or other data migration is happening. So I've a hypotheses that it is related to VAAI. Storage is VAAI enabled and VAAI is supported. However disk block size is different on datastores (we are just in the middle of migration from VMFS-3 to VMFS-5).

So I've to do deeper diagnostic and root cause troubleshooting.

Stay tuned.


Update 2:
Solved, VAAI primitives must be enabled also on HDS Host Masking. For more information check
http://www.hds.com/assets/pdf/optimizing-the-hitachi-ams-2000-family-in-vsphere-4-environments.pdf

Storage Queues and Performance

VMware recently published a paper titled Scalable Storage Performance that delivered a wealth of information on storage with respect to the  ESX Server architecture.  This paper contains details about the storage  queues that are a mystery to many of VMware's customers and partners.   I  wanted to start a wiki article on some aspects of this paper that may  be interesting to storage enthusiasts and performance freaks.

Blog post for more information is at http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-6490

These information are very useful for deep understanding of full storage stack.

Best Practices for Faster vSphere SDK Scripts

Source at http://www.virtuin.com/2012/11/best-practices-for-faster-vsphere-sdk.html 

The VMware vSphere API is one of the more powerful vendor SDKs available in the Virtualization Ecosystem.  As adoption of VMware vSphere has grown over the years, so has the size of Virtual Infrastructure environments.  In many larger enterprises, the increasing number of VirtualMachines and HostSystems is driving the architectural requirement to deploy multiple vCenter Servers.
In response, the necessity for automation tooling has grown just as quickly.  Automation to create daily reports, perform bulk operations, and aggregate data from large, distributed Virtual Infrastructure environments is a common requirement for managing the increasing virtual sprawl.
In a Virtual Infrastructure comprised of thousands of objects, even a simple script to list all VirtualMachines and their associated HostSystem and Datastores can result in very slow runtime execution.  Developing automation with the following, simple best practices can take orders of magnitude off your vSphere API tool's runtime.

 READ FULL ARTICLE

DELL Active System Manager

DELL Active System is managed by DELL Active System Manager. This is DELL converged infrastructure solution (blade server, networking, storage) to achieve "mainframe of 21st century" with leveraging server virtualization (hypervisors) to have enough flexibility to achieve required infrastructure SLAs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU1I93wEHuU

Configuring a Chassis in Dell Active System Manager
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRO0546yJ8U

IBM PureFlex

IBM Pure Flex System is probably another next generation computing system leveraging converged infrastructure concept. IBM Flex System Manager manages Pure Flex System. Who can honestly and precisely compare it with HP Virtual Connect, CISCO UCS, and DELL Active System?

Introduction video is available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDGpzkQm8kU

VAAI - VMware API for Array Integration deep dive

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/VMware-vSphere-Storage-API-Array-Integration.pdf

Correlating vCenter Server and ESXi/ESX host build numbers to update levels

VMware software versions can be found on VMware KB Article 1014508.

Very nice list of VMware ESX server build numbers and versions mappings together with mapping to VMware tools (aka vmtools) versions is at https://packages.vmware.com/tools/versions

Brocade Secure SAN Zoning Best Practices

White Paper
http://www.brocade.com/downloads/documents/white_papers/Zoning_Best_Practices_WP-00.pdf

This paper describes and clarifies Zoning, a security feature in Storage
Area Network (SAN) fabrics. By understanding the terminology and
implementing Zoning best practices, a Brocade®
 SAN fabric can be
easily secured and scaled while maintaining maximum uptime.
The following topics are discussed:
• Zoning defined and LUN security in the fabric
• Identifying hosts and storage members of a zone
• How do SAN switches enforce Zoning?
• Avoiding Zoning terminology confusion
• Approaches to Zoning, how to group hosts and storage in zones
• Brocade Zoning recommendations and summary


What is Zoning?
Zoning is a fabric-based service in Storage Area Networks that groups host and storage nodes
that need to communicate. Zoning creates a situation in which nodes can communicate with
each other only if they are members of the same zone. Nodes can be members of multiple
zones--—allowing for a great deal of flexibility when you implement a SAN using Zoning.
Zoning not only prevents a host from unauthorized access of storage assets, but it also stops
undesired host-to-host communication and fabric-wide Registered State Change Notification
(RSCN) disruptions. RSCNs are managed by the fabric Name Server and notify end devices of
events in the fabric, such as a storage node or a switch going offline. Brocade isolates these
notifications to only the zones that require the update, so nodes that are unaffected by the
fabric change do not receive the RSCN. This is important for non-disruptive fabric operations,
because RSCNs have the potential to disrupt storage traffic. When this disruption was more
common, that is, with older Host Bus Adapter (HBA) drivers, RSCNs gained an undeserved
negative reputation. However, since that time most HBA vendors have addressed the issues.
When nodes are zoned into small, granular groupings, the occurrences of disruptive RSCNs
are virtually eliminated. See a discussion of single HBA zoning in the section of this paper
entitled, “Approaches to Zoning.”

ESX and disk issues

ESX 4 & 5: Resolving SCSI reservation conflicts
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1002293
In this KB article is described the process how to find which ESX host has SCSI reservation on LUN

ESX 5: Vmware vSphere 5 dead LUN and pathing issues and resultant SCSI errors
http://raj2796.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/vmware-vsphere-5-dead-lun-and-pathing-issues-and-resultant-scsi-errors/

All ESX versions: After repeated SAN path failovers, operations that involve VMFS changes might fail for all hosts accessing a particular LUN
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1009899

ESX 4.x: ESX/ESXi hosts in APD may appear Not Responding in vCenter Server
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1030980

ESX 4.1: Virtual machines stop responding when any LUN on the host is in an all-paths-down (APD) condition
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=1016626

ESX 5.1 has significant improvements with APD a PDL
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/Whats-New-VMware-vSphere-51-Storage-Technical-Whitepaper.pdf

vCenter Server 5.1 Required Ports

http://www.vladan.fr/vcenter-server-5-1-required-ports/

ESX Automated Provisioning on CISCO UCS

This is the demo of automation showing how VMware vSphere ESX host can be
 automatically deploy to CISCO UCS Service Profile which is booted from SAN.


If you want to know more don't hesitate to write comment bellow the blog post.

Home wind power station

http://www.taawin.cz/

VAAI Comparison – Block versus NAS

http://cormachogan.com/2012/11/08/vaai-comparison-block-versus-nas/

VMware Support Alert – Implementing CA signed SSL certificates with vSphere 5.1

http://vmwaretips.com/wp/2012/10/31/vmware-support-alert-implementing-ca-signed-ssl-certificates-with-vsphere-5-1/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+VMwareTips+%28VMwareTips%29

How to defend against ARP poisoning/spoofing attack in vSphere infrastructure

There are few vSphere Infrastructure enterprise possibilities how to deal with this type of attack.
I know about two ... Vmware vShield  and CISCO Nexus1000v.

However here I would like to share idea how to do it with open source tools integrated into enterprise infrastructure.

Disclaimer: 
Please be aware that this is not out of box enterprise solution and you have to know what you are doing and you have full responsibility for all impacts.

How we can simulate the attack?
Bellow is tutorial inspired by another tutorial from
http://blog.facilelogin.com/2011/01/arp-poisoning-with-dsniff.html
You can simply change installation procedures based on your OS distribution.

ARP poisoning with dsniff
dsniff is a collection of tools for network auditing and penetration testing. dsniff, filesnarf, mailsnarf, msgsnarf, urlsnarf, and webspy passively monitor a network for interesting data (passwords, e-mail, files, etc.). arpspoof, dnsspoof, and macof facilitate the interception of network traffic normally unavailable to an attacker (e.g, due to layer-2 switching). sshmitm and webmitm implement active monkey-in-the-middle attacks against redirected SSH and HTTPS sessions by exploiting weak bindings in ad-hoc PKI.

To install dsniff on CentOS 6.

yum -y install wget

cd /usr/src
wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-7.noarch.rpm
rpm -ivh epel-release-6-7.noarch.rpm
yum –y install openssl gcc flex bison libpcap-devel libnet

yum install dsniff

Now you need to find out two things,

1. IP address of the target machine - say 192.168.1.4
2. IP address of the Gateway - say 192.168.1.1

Let's start ARP poisoning from the attacker's machine - with arpspoof tool which comes with dsniff.

$ sudo arpspoof -i en1 -t 192.168.1.4 192.168.1.1

This will update target machine's ARP table with attacker's MAC address against the IP address of the gateway.

Now - start a tcpdump on the same interface from your machine - start viewing all the traffic going to and from the target machine.

$ sudo tcpdump -i en1

How we can detect the attack?
We can use aprwatch for example on my favorite OS FreeBSD running in virtual machine,

Installation is simple as
cd /usr/ports/net-mgmt/arpwatch/
make install
...
then you have to add
arpwatch_enable="YES"
in to your /etc/rc.conf
...
 
And last but not least is to enable promiscuous mode on VMware vSwitch portgroup where arpwatch vm is connected to. The best way is to create another portgroup (single port is enough) with the same VLAN ID as protected VLAN and in Security we have to set Promiscuous Mode to Accept. 

... then arpwatch send message to syslog. So you can see something similar in your /var/log/messages
Oct 31 09:08:02 ips arpwatch: flip flop a.b.c.d 0:50:56:8d:2e:bc (54:52:0:fe:47:95)

Arpwatch can also send a e-mail message about incident. The message looks like

hostname:
ip address: 95.80.240.1
ethernet address: 54:52:0:fe:47:95
ethernet vendor:
old ethernet address: 0:50:56:8d:2e:bc
old ethernet vendor: VMWare, Inc.
timestamp: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 8:57:33 +0100
previous timestamp: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 8:57:33 +0100
delta: 0 seconds

How we can protect against the attack?

Well this is another story. It really depends on your environment but in my environment I have vSphere Distributed Switch and all virtual machines have VMtools installed so I trust VMware MAC:IP associations and based on these information (MAC) I can find the attacker port in distributed switch and disable it.

And that's just a small step to do it in automated way by leveraging VMware vCLI (aka VMware Perl SDK).

WARNING!!!

Currently described solution works only on single ESX host and doesn't work among more ESX hosts because of virtual networking principles. VMware virtual switch (or module of distributed switch) is not a switch but port extender. The difference is significant. The ARP poisoning attack is based on permanently unicasting ARP replies to the victim so when Arpwatch server is not on the same ESX as the attacker or the victim then even promiscuous port on distributed switch portgroup will not help us to catch it because arp reply packet is not visible on Arpwatch server.

The solution would be to have arpwatch VM on each ESX host. VMware introduced the concept of ESX agents (aka Agent Virtual Machines) so I believe this is the right use case for ESX agent implementation.
For more information about "Deploying vSphere Solutions, vServices, and ESX Agents" read this document.

I have to test this architecture ... so stay tuned.

Any comments or thoughts are appreciated.

Accessing Microsoft SQL Server from Linux using DBD::Sybase

Citation from: http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=392385
Author:  Lindsay Leeds (2004 Sep 20)

Recently, I made yet another attempt to get Perl to access Microsoft SQL Server using DBD.  Usually, when I want to connect to a Microsoft SQL Server, it is from Perl on Windows.  So I take the easy route and use DBD::ODBC and use an ODBC connection.  This time though, I wanted to connect to Microsoft SQL Server 2000 from a Linux box.  Having no ODBC to fall back on, I looked for native DBD driver of some sort.
It took me several hours of struggling to make it work.  I almost gave up several times, so I am writing outline to help anyone else trying to accomplish this same task.
In the end, we will use the DBD::Sybase perl module from CPAN to access the Microsoft SQL Server.  Before we can do that however, we must first compile the freetds library.

Note: From now on I will refer to Microsoft SQL Server as SQL Server.  Please do not confuse this with a generic sql server.  We can all now pause to gripe about the lack of imagination in product naming at Microsoft.
Compiling Freetds
Download and compile freetds from http://www.freetds.org/.

once you unzip and untar it, enter the directory and run:

./configure --prefix=/usr/local/freetds --with-tdsver=7.0
make
make install

Configuring Freetds
Now we have the freetds compiled, but we still have configure it.  This is the part that threw me off and is so different from other DBD drivers.  The DBD::Sybase driver will ultimately be affected by the contents of the /usr/local/freetds/etc/freetds.conf file.  If that file is not configured correctly, your DBD::Sybase connection will fail.
Okay, now that we have established there is a  relationship between the freetds.conf file and the DBD::Sybase module, let's edit the freetds.conf file.
The strategic modifications I made to the freetds.conf file were:
1) uncomment the following lines and modify if necessary:

try server login = yes
try domain login = no

Note: this forces the module to attempt a database login instead of a domain login.  I could not get domain login to work, though I will admit I did not try very hard.
2) uncomment the following line and modify if necessary:

tds version = 7.0

This supposedly sets the default tds version to establish a connection with.  I have only SQL Server 2000 servers, and they won't talk at any lower version.  So I set it to 7.0.  If for some reason you had older SQL Servers, you might leave it at the default 4.2.
3) create a server entry for my server sql1:

[sql1]
        host = sql1
        port = 1433
        tds version = 8.0
    


[download]

Note: My server here is sql1.  Ping sql1 worked, so I am sure I can resolve it using DNS.  You can also specifcy an ip address instead of the host name.  The sql1 in the brackets is just a descriptor.  It could be 'superduperserver' and it would still work as long as my 'host =' is set correctly.  I tried 'tds version 7.0' for my SQL Sever 2000 and it worked.  Version 5.0 though resulted in an error.  You might want to verify your SQL Server is listening on port 1433 with a 'netstat -a -n' run from the command line on the SQL Server.
At this point you can verify your configuration.

/usr/local/freetds/bin/tsql -S sql1 -U sqluser

You will then be prompted for a password and if everything is well, you will see a '1)' waiting for you to enter a command.  If you can't get the 1) using tsql, I doubt your DBD::Sybase perl code is going to work.  Please note that sqluser is not an Active Directory/Windows Domain user, but an SQL Server user.
Compiling DBD::Sybase
Now that we have the freetds library prerequisite for DBD::Sybase installed and configured, we can compile the DBD::Sybase perl module.  Obtain it from www.cpan.org if you haven't already.
once you have untarred it and are in the directory, run:

export SYBASE=/usr/local/freetds
perl Makefile.PL
make
make install

Note: The export line is to let the compilation process know where to find the freetds libraries.

Using DBD::Sybase
You are now ready to test your DBD::Sybase module.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use DBI;

$dsn = 'DBI:Sybase:server=sql1';

my $dbh = DBI->connect($dsn, "sqluser", 'password');
die "unable to connect to server $DBI::errstr" unless $dbh;

$dbh->do("use mydatabase");

$query = "SELECT * FROM MYTABLE";
$sth = $dbh->prepare ($query) or die "prepare failed\n";
$sth->execute( ) or die "unable to execute query $query   error $DBI::errstr";

$rows = $sth->rows ;
print "$row rows returned by query\n";

while ( @first = $sth->fetchrow_array ) {
   foreach $field (@first) {
      print "field: $field\n";
   }
}

Good luck!

Adding ESXi 5.1 to "5.1 vCenter Appliance" fail

Finally I found time to install vSphere 5.1 in my home lab. I have 5.0 environment running so I've bought another old DELL PE 2950 on czech "ebay like" system Aukro (www.aukro.cz) for just 6.500 CZK (approx. 330 USD) to leave my current lab untouched and try 5.1.

So, I upgraded BIOS and DRAC to latest firmwares and installed DELL version of ESXi 5.1 (embedded) on my DELL PE 2950. Then I installed vCenter appliance (OVF) on top of this new ESX.

I was able to add my old ESX5.0 to this new vCenter but not the new one.

WHAT'S WRONG???

Troubleshooting process ...

In vCenter event log I can see message: "A general system error occurred: Timed waiting for vpxa to start".

In /var/log/vpxa.log ...

2012-10-07T08:33:29.941Z [FFFE1B90 error 'SoapAdapter'] Unsupported namespace "urn:vpxa3" in content of SOAP body
-->
--> while parsing SOAP body
--> at line 9, column 0
-->
--> while parsing SOAP envelope
--> at line 2, column 0
-->
--> while parsing HTTP request before method was determined
--> at line 1, column 0

So, what  versions am I running?


ESXi 5.1.0 (799733)
vCenter Appliance 5.0.0 (755629)


Oooops ... I believed I installed vCenter 5.1 because in my local install archive it is stored as
VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-5.1.0.5100-799730_OVF10


So the cause is clear ... bad installation image management cost me one hour of troubleshooting :-(

NAKIVO - another virtual infrastructure backup software

NAKIVO (http://nakivo.com) is another virtual infrastructure backup software. It can be installed on Windows or Linux (Ubuntu) server. Linux installation is something which interest me. I have to test it and compare it against Veeam Backup and Replication. 

New Nexus 1000v (2.1) will be also available as free edition

Source

Nexus 1000v version 2.1 will have (2.1 is currently beta) two editions. Essential edition is free of charge so VMware Enterprise Plus customers can leverage CISCO virtual networking. Advanced edition is paid version but with significantly enhanced features. The most interesting thing is that VSG (Virtual Security Gateway) is also included in Nexus 1000v advanced edition.

Enabling Nested ESXi in vSphere 5.1

Nice article how to check physical ESX host capability to virtualize ESX (aka nested ESX).

esxcli for vSphere 5

Excellent introduction into esxcli.

Automating ESXi 5 Kickstart Tips & Tricks

Here is the link to excellent blog post.

iReasoning MIB browser - Free MIB Browser

iReasoning MIB browser is a powerful and easy-to-use tool powered by iReasoning SNMP API . MIB browser is an indispensable tool for engineers to manage SNMP enabled network devices and applications. It allows users to load standard, proprietary MIBs, and even some mal-formed MIBs. It also allows them to issue SNMP requests to retrieve agent's data, or make changes to the agent. A built-in trap receiver can receive SNMP traps and handle trap storm.

Major features:

    Intuitive GUI
    Complete SNMPv1, v2c and v3 (USM and VACM) support
    Complete SNMPv3 USM support, including HMAC-MD5, HMAC-SHA, CBC-DES, CFB128-AES-128, CFB128-AES-192, CFB128-AES-256 (128-bit, 192-bit and 256-bit AES) algorithms
    Robust and powerful SMIv1/SMIv2 MIB parser
    IPv6 support
    Trap Receiver
    Trap Sender
    Log window to display application log and SNMP packets exchanged between browser and agents
    Port view (bandwidth utilization, error percentages) for network interface cards
    Switch port mapper for mapping switch ports
    Table view for MIB tables
    SNMPv3 USM user management (usmUserTable in SNMP-USER-BASED-SM-MIB)
    Device snapshot
    Cisco device snapshot
    Performance graph tool for monitoring of numerical OID values
    Ping and traceroute tools
    SNMP Agents Comparison
    Network discovery tool
    Runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other UNIX platforms

http://ireasoning.com/mibbrowser.shtml

Note: another free MIB browsers is getif, mibble

Spaning Tree Protocol

It is always good to go back to the basics.

Spanning Tree Protocol (STP, RSTP, MSTP) is the protocol often overlooked in modern data center networks but it still has critical impact for operation excellence.

So here are few interesting links explains the basics:
Understanding STP and RSTP Convergence
How Are Evaluated Forward Delay and Max Age Timers in STP?

Upgrading an ESX/ESXi 4.x host with the Cisco Nexus 1000V to ESXi 5.0 using Update Manager

Upgrading an ESX 4.x host that is presently a member of the Cisco Nexus 1000V DVS should be performed using VMware Update Manager.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2021363

DELL vSphere Hypervisor 5.1

ESXi 5.1 Recovery Image Build# 799733 (A00) This ISO image should be used only to recover/reinstall the ESXi image to SD Card/USB Key on Dell Platforms.

http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/en/en/rc1077983/DriverDetails/Product/poweredge-r620?driverId=XWYR5&osCode=XI51&fileId=3005015335

Top 10 What’s New Cool Features in Hyper-V 3

From a virtualization perspective, here’s the Top 10 What’s New Cool Features in Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V—or just Hyper-V 3 for short.

1.    VMs with up to 32 vCPUs
2.    VMs with up to 512GB vRAM
3.    VHDX (=VMDK) up to 16TB
4.    Multiple concurrent Live Migrations & Live Storage Migrations
5.    Hyper-V Replicas (This + SC Orchestrator = SRM Replacement)
6.    Extensible Virtual Switch (There’s a 1000v for Hyper-V)
7.    63-Node Clusters
8.    Built-In NIC Teaming/Trunking & QoS
9.    VM Affinity Rules
10.    No dedicated Live Migration Network needed
11.    Hyper-V Client (This is Hyper-V inside Win8 for client-side virtualization!)

1

Not able to install SqlServer 2008 says Restart computer failed?

Not able to install SqlServer 2008 says Restart computer failed?

I've found answer at 
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqlsetupandupgrade/thread/ca182f5d-114a-4516-99d4-0854ad176fbf/
 
setup.exe /SkipRules=RebootRequiredCheck /ACTION=install

SNMP Trap Receiver on FreeBSD

Net-SNMP is the package for all SNMP operations. It can also acts as SNMP Trap Receiver.

First of all, it's good idea to read the section about traps in Net-SNMP Tutorial.
http://www.net-snmp.org/tutorial/tutorial-5/commands/snmptrap.html

Step by step blog post about Sending and Receiving SNMP Traps in FreeBSD can be also found in
http://taosecurity.blogspot.cz/2006/08/sending-and-receiving-snmp-traps.html

Test trap can be send by following command:
snmptrap -v 1 -c public localhost '' localhost 6 1 ''

The daemon for snmp trap receiver is snmptrapd which uses configuration file snmptrapd.conf

Here is example of snmptrapd.conf file:

 ###########################################################################
#
# snmptrapd.conf
############################################################################
# SECTION: Output formatting for traps received.
#
#   Output from snmptrapd is formatted according to the
#   rules defined by the formatting configuration directives.

# format1: How SNMPv1 traps are formatted.
#   See the snmptrapd.conf manual page for format string details.
#   arguments: formatstring

format1 '%y-%m-%l ?%h:%j:%k ?%b ?%P ?%N ?%W ?%v\n'

# format2: How SNMPv2 and SNMPv3 traps are formatted.
#   See the snmptrapd.conf manual page for format string details.
#   arguments: formatstring

format2 '%y-%m-%l ?%h:%j:%k ?%b ?%P ?%N ?%W ?%v\n'

logOption f /var/log/snmptraps.log
ignoreauthfailure yes
disableAuthorization yes

SAN Switch cheat sheet

B-Series
B-Series (Brocade) switches uses both web and CLI, the table below displays some but not all the CLI commands.

help	prints available commands
switchdisabled	disable the switch
switchenable	enable the switch
licensehelp	license commands
diaghelp	diagnostic commands
configure	change switch parameters (BB credits, etc)
diagshow	POST results since last boot
routehelp	routing commands
switchshow	display switch show (normally first command to run to obtain switch configuration)
supportshow	full detailed switch info
portshow #	display port info
nsshow	namesever contents
nsallshow	NS for full fabric
fabricshow	Fabric information
version	firmware code revision
reboot	full reboot with POST
fastboot	reboot without POST

B-Series (Brocade) zoning commands are detailed in the below table

zonecreate (zone)	create a zone
zoneshow	shows defined and effective zones and configurations
zoneadd	adds a member to a zone
zoneremove	removes a member from a zone
zonedelete	delete a zone
cfgcreate (zoneset)	create a zoneset configuration
cfgadd	adds a zone to a zone configuration
cfgshow	display the zoning information
cfgenable	enable a zone set
cfgsave	saves defined config to all switches in fabric across reboots
cfgremove	removes a zone from a zone configuration
cfgdelete	deletes a zone from a zone configuration
cfgclear	clears all zoning information (must disable the effective config first)
cfgdisable	disables the effective zone set

B-series creating a zone commands

Creating zone by WWN	zonecreate "zone1", "20:00:00:e0:69:40:07:08 ; 50:06:04:82:b8:90:c1:8d"
Create a zone configuration	cfgcreate "test_cfg", "zone1 ; zone2"
saving the zone configuration	cfgsave (this will save across reboots)
enable the zone configuration	cfgenable "test_cfg"
saving the zone configuration	cfgsave
view zoning information	zoneshow or cfgshow

MDS-Series
B-Series (Cisco) switches uses both web and CLI, the table below displays some but not all the CLI commands, the ones highlighted will be the ones used most often.
EXEC mode commands:

attach	connect to a specific linecard
bios	BIOS related commands
callhome	callhome commands
clear	reset functions
clock	manage the system clock
config	enter configuration mode
debug	debug functions
discover	discover information
exit	exit ffrom the submode
fcping	Ping a N_Port
fctrace	trace a route for a N_Port
load	load system image
no	disable debugging functions
reload	reboot the switch
setup	run the basic setup command facility
show	display running system information
system	system management commands
test	test command
write	write the current configuration
zone	zoning server commands

CONFIG mode commands:

aaa	config aaa
boot	configure boot variables
callhome	enter the callhome configuration mode
clock	configure time and date
fcalias	fcalias configuration commands
fcanalyzer	configure fabric analyzer
fcc	configure FCC congestion control
fcdomain	enter the fcdomain configuration mode
fcdroplatency	configure switch or network latency
fcflow	configure fcflow
fcinterop	interop commands
fcns	Name server configuration
fcroute	configure FC routes
fcs	Configure fabric config server
fctimer	configure fibre channel timers
fspf	configure fspf
interface	select an interface to configure
ip	configure IP features
no	Negate a command or set its default
ntp	NTP configuration
power	configure power supply
poweroff	power off module in switch
qos	Configure priority of FC control frames
radius-server	configure radius related parameters
role	configure roles
snmp-server	configure snmp
span	enter SPAN configuration mode
ssh	configure ssh parameters
switchname	configure systems network name
system	system config command
trunk	configure switch wide trunk protocol
username	configure username information
vsan	enter the vsan configuration mode
zone	zoning configuration commands
zoneset	zoneset configuration commands

There are several commands that allow you to navigate through the switch "cd", "copy", "dir", "find", "mkdir", "move", "rmdir" and "tail".
MDS-series creating a zone

create a zone and place it in the vsan	# zone name testzone1 vsan 4
add a member (port wwn example)	# member pwwn 10:00:00:00:c9:21:40:b8 (port on the host)
add a member (fabric port wwn example)	# member fwwn 10:01:10:01:10:ab:cd:ef (port on the switch)
add a member (FCID example - hard zoning)	# member fcid 0x7f0000 (24 bit address)
add a member (FC alias example)	# member fcalias payroll

MDS-series common commands

display logged in WWN, display vsan information	# show flogi database
display the specific vsan logins	# show fcns database vsan 4
activatng a zoneset	# zoneset activate name zone1 vsan 4
delete a zoneset	# clear zone dataabse vsan 4
configure the default zone	# zone default-zone permit vsan 4
display zones and zonsets	# show zoneset active # show zoneset # show zoneset active vsan 4
copy active zone set to the full zone set	# zone copy active-zoneset full-zoneset vsan 4
distribute the full zoning database to others switches	# zoneset distribute full vsan 4

 
M-Series
M-Series (Mcdata) switches uses both web and CLI, the table below displays some but not all the CLI commands.

commadelim	Toggle comma-demlimited display mode
config	configure settings
login	login into CLI with different access rights
maint	maintenance settings
perf	Performance statistics
reserved	reserved for future development
show	display attributes
features	configure feature settings
ip	configure IP settings
logout	logout of the CLI
port	configure port data
security	configure security settings
snmp	configure snmp
switch	configure switch data
system	configure system data
zoning	confgiure zoning settings

There are several commands that allow you to navigate through the switch "..", "ctrl-U" and "root" .
M-Series (Mcdata) zoning commands are detailed in the below table

showactive	show actively running zoneSet
clearzone	clear WWN's in a zone
deletezone	remove zone from running config
activezoneset	activation of changes
addzone	add a new zone to the working area
addwwnmem	add a WWN to a zone
showpending	show pending zones
renamezone	rename a zone
deletewwn	delete a WWN from a zone
renamezoneset	rename a zone set

Zoning limits

• 64 zone sets (max)
• 2000 zones (max)
• 1024 zones per zone set (max)
• deafult should all ways be disabled (causes all port to see each other creating ghosts in a FA's login table)

Reset the password on a Dell EqualLogic Storage Array

This is just copy from original article at:
http://www.vmguru.nl/wordpress/2010/03/resetting-the-grpadmin-password-on-a-dell-equallogic-san/

If you really don’t know the password set on the grpadmin but still have physical access to it you can start a recovery procedure to reset the grpadmin account back to the default password: grpadmin.
Important: Because you must power-cycle one group member as part of the password reset procedure, volumes with data stored on that member will be unavailable and active iSCSI connections to those volumes will be lost until the member is restarted. You may want to warn users of any impending offline volumes and iSCSI disconnections before resetting the password.
To temporarily reset the grpadmin account password to the default factory-set password, follow these steps:
1.) On one group member, connect the appropriate serial cable to serial port 0 (the correct cable will be different on different models of the PS Array) on the active control module. The active control module is indicated by the green control module status LED labeled ACT. The status LEDs are located on the controllers sometimes on the left side or next to the serial port on other controllers.
2.) Turn off power to the member (if you have dual power supplies, turn off both power supplies). Volumes with data located on the member will be offline and iSCSI connections to those volumes will be lost until the member is restarted.

3.) If the member has two control modules, after it is shut down, remove the controller that your serial cable is not connected to. This is to ensure that, while you are setting password-recovery mode on one controller, the other controller doesn’t run past us and start the array up.  Controllers just have to be removed a little so they don’t make contact any more to be disabled. (2 cm out is far enough)
4.) Turn on power to the member by turning on all the power supplies.
5.) While the member is restarting, press Ctrl/p when the following message appears on the console: Press Ctrl/p to enter setup mode. This will halt the boot process and allow you to enter commands to the boot monitor.
6.) At the CFE> prompt, enter the following commands, which are case-sensitive and must be typed exactly as shown:
CFE> setenv RESETPASSWORD 1
CFE> reload
7.) When the member restarts, the PeerStorage login prompt appears. After a short pause, the following message should appear: WARNING:Password recovery mode… Temporarily resetting grpadmin password.
If you get the previous message, log in the the group using the grpadmin account and its factory-set password, grpadmin:
Login: grpadmin
Password: grpadmin
At this point, you are logged in to the group with read-write permission and can perform any group administration task. At this point, you should set the grpadmin account password to a known value. Use the procedure described in the Modifying Accounts section in the Group Administration manual or use the following command:
> account select grpadmin passwd
Enter New Password: xxxxxxx
Retype password: xxxxxxx
Note: Unless you set the grpadmin account password within five minutes after the password recovery mode message appears, the grpadmin password will revert back to the value it had prior to the password reset procedure (that is, you will no longer be able to log in with the factory-set password).
However, as long as you remain logged in to the grpadmin account, you can set the password to a known value. If the password recovery mode message does not appear, the password reset procedure did not succeed (for example, because you did not enter the CFE commands exactly as shown). In this case, allow the member to completely start up, and then retry the password reset procedure, shutting down the member and following the steps above.
8.) If the member has two control modules, after logging in to the group and setting the grpadmin password, reinsert the second controller,  this restarts the secondary control module and allows it to be used. Within one minute, you should see a console message, indicating that the secondary control module is operational.

FTDI - Virtual COM port for Mac OS X

FTDI - specialists in converting peripherals to Universal Serial Bus (USB).
http://www.ftdichip.com

Virtual COM port (VCP) drivers cause the USB device to appear as an additional COM port available to the PC.  Application software can access the USB device in the same way as it would access a standard COM port. 

http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

Wind Power

WIND TURBINES
http://p.floris.sweb.cz/index.html

PowerConnect 8024-k : link is up even the switch is power cycled or reloaded

“The below is from the release notes for 4.2.2.3 (listed under the 4.2.1.3 section):

Internal ports are up during most of the switch POST Internal ports were up while switch is booting, this was causing traffic loss in network.

Corrected the initialization of the internal ports. CPLD Code Update is required.

1. Update the CPLD using the command 'dev cpldUpdate'

Console#dev cpldUpdate

2. Power cycle the switch. (Power Cycle from CMC WebUI. Do not run “reload” from the console prompt)