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VMWare clarification on the license issue
I just received an email from VMWare:
Hi Steve --
Thanks for pointing out the Auditing term in the ESXi license.
We usually sell our enterprise products with "Support and Subscription" (SnS). This entitles you to both support and product updates for a period of time.
As the license is written, if there is no fee involved for the product (which there isn't in the free ESXi) or if you haven't purchased support (i.e., there is no SnS), then the auditing provision doesn't apply.
I realize it looks crazy and I've forwarded your thoughts internally here at VMware. I hope we can come up with something a bit more human-readable, especially for the free version.
Your readers might also be interested in our new PowerShell toolkit
http://blogs.vmware.com/vipowershell/
and some of our resources on running Microsoft apps on VMware.
http://www.vmware.com/technology/virtual-infrastructure-apps/microsoft.html
Don't hestitate to drop me a line if I can be of assistance!
Regards,
John Troyer
Vmware Communities
http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/
Very refreshing to hear this. After looking through the license again I see what he means. Hopefully the free license will be updated to be more clear about it.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Thursday, July 31, 2008
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VMWare's Insane License
After I got done posting this morning about how much I loved the free VMWare ESXi, I received a few emails pointing me to the license restrictions that you agree to when installing it. Here is the fun part:
3.9 Audit Rights. You will maintain accurate records as to your use of the Software as authorized by this Agreement, for at least two (2) years from the last day on which support and subscription services ("Services") expired for the applicable Software. VMware, or persons designated by VMware, will, at any time during the period when you are obliged to maintain such records, be entitled to inspect such records and your computing devices, in order to verify that the Software is used by you in accordance with the terms of this Agreement and that you have paid the applicable license fees and Services fees for the Software; provided that VMware may conduct no more than one (1) audit in any twelve (12) month period. You shall promptly pay to VMware any underpayments revealed by any such audit. Any such audit will be performed at VMware’s expense during normal business hours, provided that you shall promptly reimburse VMware for the cost of such audit and any applicable fees if such audit reveals an underpayment by you of more than five percent (5%) of the amounts payable by you to VMware for the period audited.
So essentially by downloading and installing this software you now agree to allow VMWare into your company and start poking around to see if you have stolen anything.
I don't think so.
I thought Microsoft has had some really crazy restrictions - but this tops them all. I will need to think carefully about using their software. I hope someone at VMWare gets a clue and removes this restriction.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, July 30, 2008
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VMWare ESXi Free Edition - Get it!
Like I said in my last post I was going to give ESXi a spin. VMWare just made it free. It is their response to Hyper-V from Microsoft. I have already setup a Hyper-V 2008 box here...it took me forever to get the thing to work under Server Core 2008. Even with all that work I am now willing to blow it away and start all over again with ESXi. The features it has are just too compelling to ignore. To top it all off the thing is free.
Firstly. It has no host operating system. It has a 32MB footprint. This alone beats the pants off of Hyper-V. Secondly VMWare does not restrict you with their tools. You can install VMWare tools on any hosted operating system you can think of...Microsoft requires that you have the latest service packs. This can be a real pain when you are trying to use those machines for testing. Want to see how an application behaves under XP with no service packs? Well under Hyper-V you need to suffer with sluggish mouse and Video - since the tools will refuse to install.
Management. Yes Management. ESXi uses the Virtual Infrastructure client to manage it. This will work over any TCP connection. With Hyper-V you need to use RPC. This makes it much more difficult to manage a machine that is far away over the internet.
In addition, there are lots of settings and status information that Hyper-V is not even close to. For example...the performance graphs
With a quick glance you can see what your resource utilization is at:
And other features they both have...Support for multiple processors:
A big issue for me is multiple snapshots. This feature was always disabled on free editions in the past. Not so anymore:
There is a ton I have not covered here, but I would give it a try if you are starting to experiment with Virtualization.
I have already started setting up a few new machines on it and I am very impressed. I am much happier now too since I don't have to worry about another windows box running as the host...that would be just another machine to patch, and scan.
To get your free copy, simply visit the download site:
https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/login.php?eval=esxi&t=1
Make sure you use a good email address...since you do need to use the serial number they send you, otherwise it will expire in 60 days.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, July 30, 2008
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Quick Note - VMWare ESXi now free
It is getting late, but I thought I would post this quick one for you...VMWare is now giving away ESXi for free.
If you never have used it before, it is a version of VMWare that runs as its own operating system...and under 32MB of ram! (This is really simplistic by I think you know what I mean)
I can tell already that this is the shot fired back at Microsoft for their release of Hyper-V
Here is the press release:
http://vmware.com/company/news/releases/esxi_pricing.html]
I will try it out and let you know how it works out.
Here is the download link for those who do not want to read through the wordy press release :)
https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/login.php?eval=esxi&t=1
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Tuesday, July 29, 2008
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How to elevate your scripts in Vista
Now that Vista is starting to permeate the enterprise...I have started to get quite a few questions like this:
Steve, we just replaced 10 machines, and they all are running Vista. We have a 'one time' script that we need to roll out that requires administrative access. Every time we run it, it fails, and the users *are* administrators of their own machines. Know any way around this?
Yes. The reason why the script is failing is because Vista executes it with limited access - even if they are an administrator.
To get Vista to run a program as an administrator, you need the program to be elevated to full access. Vista will only show the elevation (UAC) prompt if the application requests it, or if it is detected that the program is actually an installer.
If you have not had the pleasure of using Vista yet (I am joking), it looks like this:
To force Vista to request administrative access, you need to have two scripts. The first script will force the prompt, and if accepted it will call the second script (The one you wanted to run) with the elevated administrative rights.
With some creativity we can distill it down to one script. This is accomplished by having the script call itself.
I have put something together that does just that... Just add this code to the start of your script, and it will force a UAC prompt.
'This flag is used to determine if we are being called the first time
'or if we are being called the second time with elevated access
Dim bFoundUAC
'The sSA object will allow us to execute applications
Set sSA = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
'Set our flag to the default
bFoundUAC = FALSE
'See if we are inside the second calling of the script
if (WScript.Arguments.Count=1) then
if (WScript.Arguments(WScript.Arguments.Count-1)="UAC_PROMPT") then
bFoundUAC = TRUE
end if
end if
'If we are not called the second time, then call the script with elevated access
if (bFoundUAC=FALSE) then
'Build our script command line
sCommandLine = Chr(34) & WScript.ScriptFullName & Chr(34)
'Build our arguments
for iCount=0 to WScript.Arguments.Count-1
sArguments=sArguments & " " & Chr(34) & WScript.Arguments(iCount) & Chr(34)
Next
'Add our trigger to the end
sArguments=sArguments & " UAC_PROMPT"
sArguments=sCommandLine & sArguments
sSA.ShellExecute "wscript.exe", sArguments, "", "runas", 1
'Since we are re-launching the script we exit now
WScript.Quit
end if
'Your usual script code would be placed here
One thing to note is this script works by adding an argument to the end of all the arguments you originally passed it. This is how it knows that it has been elevated. Otherwise it would keep running itself in an infinite loop. In most cases this will not be a problem, but it is something to check if you do use arguments in your script.
Bonus: This script will also prompt for elevation when your XP users are not administrators:
Actually...I think it will prompt for elevation no matter what.
Finally, this method is much better than the previous article on the subject - since you don't need anything extra to elevate your script.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Monday, July 28, 2008
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Windows Vista not optimized for solid-state drives
SanDisk said on Monday that Windows Vista is not optimized for flash drives - delaying delivery of optimized drives until next year.
Specifically the CEO said at a second quarter earnings conference "As soon as you get into Vista applications in notebook and desktop, you start running into very demanding applications because Vista is not optimized for flash memory solid-state disk,"
Hmm. I would have to agree totally. I think almost every one of my Vista machines is constantly accessing the hard drive. This is is a big problem when switching to solid state devices, since you want to minimize the number of writes to the hardware - otherwise their failure rate will increase significantly.
This might explain Microsoft's statement earlier this year that Windows XP will still be shipped on ultra-portable OEM machines - the same hardware that would use flash for hard drives.
Frankly, I think it will be quite some time before Vista is ready for flash drive applications. It simply requires too much time with the hard drive. Working around this, or having Microsoft make changes is going to prove extremely difficult.
Maybe they will have it ready by the time they release Windows 7.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Thursday, July 24, 2008
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Make sure you patch your DNS Servers
There has been a story starting to brew about a serious DNS security flaw. The details of the flaw have finally been leaked here:
Information Week Article
This is one of those problems that is easy to ignore, but could become a huge nightmare if left unchecked.
Essentially the flaw allows an attacker to redirect clients to a different IP address for a particular domain.
For example, when you go a website (Lets take www.chase.com as an example) the domain name is translated into an IP address. In this case that IP address is run by Chase and responds to your request. When someone exploits the flaw they could redirect www.chase.com to go to their server, and present a fake login.
This is a simple example, and the possibilities are much worse than that. Imagine an attacker redirecting *all* of your traffic through their server. They could then use this opportunity to push spyware to you with every page you visit.
Many of you may not have a choice, since your DNS may be run by your ISP, but if you are running Windows based DNS servers, I suggest installing the patch as soon as possible:
Microsoft DNS Patch
I wish I could say the patch works flawlessly, but some clients of ours have reported that it has caused issues with Active Directory. Still...most of these problems are far and few between and are usually due to an odd configuration...such as having a domain controller with 127.0.0.1 as its primary IP address.
So with that in mind I would make sure you deploy the patch after hours and do lots of testing.
One more thing - you can test your DNS server for the flaw by visiting http://www.doxpara.com/ on the right there is a button that says "Check My DNS" It will tell you if your DNS server is vulnerable to the flaw.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, July 23, 2008
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Performance Tuning for Windows 2008 Server
Like me, I know many of you are probably starting to take a look at Windows 2008 for your environment...so this might be of use to you.
I came across a detailed performance tuning guide that Microsoft released back in June. What does it cover? Here is a list of the performance tuning sections within the document (Almost 80 pages):
-Performance Tuning for Server Hardware
-Performance Tuning for Networking Subsystem
-Performance Tuning for Storage Subsystem
-Performance Tuning for Web Servers
-Performance Tuning for File Servers
-Performance Tuning for Active Directory Servers
-Performance Tuning for Terminal Server
-Performance Tuning for Terminal Server Gateway
-Performance Tuning for Virtualization Servers
-Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (NetBench)
-Performance Tuning for Network Workload (NTttcp)
-Performance Tuning for Terminal Server Knowledge Worker Workload
-Performance Tuning for SAP Sales and Distribution Two-Tier Workload
If you have deployed, or planing on deploying Windows 2008 any time soon it is worth a look.
Here is the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/Perf_tun_srv.mspx
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Tuesday, July 22, 2008
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Find out when the last reboot occurred (Updated)
I have been playing around with the SystemInfo command in windows, and I wanted a concise way to see what the uptime of my system was.
It is actually very simple. Get a command line, and type:
It will go through some calculations, and finally come back:
This is a very simple way to see if that server, or workstation was really rebooted.
Note: It seems that I have been caught using Windows XP again. Can't help it...so much faster than my Vista box. The above command will not work for 2008, or Vista. This is because Microsoft has changed the output of SystemInfo. To get very similar info for those two operating systems you can use: "systeminfo | find "System Boot Time"
Update #2: On Windows 2003 it is different too: "systeminfo | find "System Up Time"
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Monday, July 21, 2008
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Microsoft Hyper-V (I'm Impressed!)
I have been toying around with different configurations here using the free VMWare server package. I decided I would take another look at the Microsoft VM solution (Now known as Hyper-V)
In the past I have been underwhelmed by the truly abysmal state of Microsoft's Virtual Machine server software. Last time I tried it out I believe it was called Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. I had so much trouble getting it to work I vowed to never allow it on my system again - in fact Virutal Server caused so much trouble I had to reformat and reload the host PC that I had installed it on.
Come back to today...three years later. I was installing a fresh copy of Windows 2008 as a new domain controller. I saw the option to install Hyper-V, or not to install it. I figured I would give it a spin (And work on my new DC later)
I ran automatic update right after my fresh copy of Windows 2008 was installed. This brought me from a pre-release version of Hyper-V to the final version. Once my updates were complete I opened up the server manager and drilled down to the Hyper-V section
Clearly, there were tons of options. This is when I started to realize that Microsoft may finally have something that will give VMWare a run for its money. I hate to say it, because I really like VMWare.
Two things that I wanted together - multiple snapshots, and the ability to manage virtual machines remotely. It has both, and it does them quite well.
As you can see in this screenshot you can have different snapshot paths. This is a great feature when you need to test against multiple service pack levels. So now I can test on many configurations without much effort - or expense.
In addition, I can remotely manage my virtual machines.
Yes VMWare has both of these features, but to get remote management and multiple snapshots in one package you need to purchase the expensive ESX server.
I have not checked yet, but I bet I can get a Hyper-V client of some kind to work on a Vista machine. This would be perfect for connecting to it from our underpowered laptops.
If I wanted the same functionality in VMWare I would need to run ESX (Which is expensive) or run all of the VMs on my local machine - something I don't have the horsepower to do. So with Windows 2008 and Hyper-V I can get what I want without purchasing anything extra. We can put a quad core system with tons of memory and hard drive space, stick it in the server room and be able to manage it remotely.
I have used VMWare's Virtual Infrastructure with ESX and surprisingly in this case the management interface that Microsoft has developed is a lot snappier, and downright easier to use. There are still many features lacking in Hyper-V, but I believe the price factor will decimate VMWare if they are not careful.
If you have a copy of 2008 Server, I would definitely suggest giving Hyper-V a spin. It may be a lot better than you expect.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Thursday, July 17, 2008
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Vista/2008 Remote Control Beta
Well, we were able to release a beta last Friday, and the response so far has been great. If you are not on the list yet, we have a private blog and website you can be a part of if you send an email to support@intelliadmin.com with 'Beta' in the subject line. We are shooting to get 5000 more testers, and we are almost half way there.
Here is a screen shot of our agent settings app...just to get you interested:
Please send your version of windows, 64bit or 32bit, and what type of client you are using to connect...also when you login to the beta site be sure to read the entire blog...that will get you up to speed.
The beta supports Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, and 2008
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Tuesday, July 15, 2008
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