How to Reclaim Older Hardware for NS7.x Testing and Implementation Using ESX3i

I decided to try to reclaim some older server boxes to be able to test NS7 and show that you can still use those older servers and you won't have to run off and buy a new box just for NS7.1. Below this is a new work setup for this article.

PURPOSE:

The idea of this article is to demonstrate how to setup esx3i on older hardware specifically the poweredge 1420 sc, setup a NFS connection to house the virtual machines, install client management suite (CMS) to a virtual machine and test the functionality of CMS 7.1.

Install ESX3i on Poweredge sc1420

On the poweredge sc1420 I would get an error about checkCPUID during the install of vmware esx. I found some articles on why it is causing this. There is an incompatible or missing option in the bios of the sc1420, and updating the bios does not fix this issue.

WHAT IS NEEDED FOR THIS ARTICLE:

1. Server to install ESX3i (using sc1420 for this article)
2. Usb jumpdrive (to install freenas os to)
3. 2nd server for the NFS services (running 2 500 GB drives raiding for stripping)

STEPS TO INSTALL ESX3i

1. Once the server box you are installing to boots off the cd hit the "TAB" key. You will see some kernel options on the bottom of the screen. It will look something like this:
   

   vmkernel.gz --- binmod.tgz --- ienviron.tgz --- cim.tgz --- oem.tgz --- license.tgz --- install.tgz
   

   After the vmkernel.gz add the following command (I believe it is case sensitive) "nocheckCPUIDLimit" (without quotes) so it should look like this:

   vmkernel.gz nocheckCPUIDLimit --- binmod.tgz --- ienviron.tgz --- cim.tgz --- oem.tgz --- license.tgz --- install.tgz
   

The install will now finish on this model of poweredge.

Once the server reboots you have to disable the checkCPUIDLimit again. During the boot screen hit "shift+ o" (the letter o) and enter the command "nocheckCPUIDLimit". It should look like the following screen capture.

This will allow for a one time boot into the esx OS. We now need to make it permanent.

1. On a remote machine put in the url <http://ip address of new esx server>and click on the link to install the VI client for esx.
2. Log into your server using your credentials (default is root and password is blank)
3. Highlight your esx hostname (default is localhost.localdomain), click the configuration tab, click advanced, and uncheck the checkCPUIDlimit. (see screen shot)

Once this is unchecked the CPU error will permanently stay away.

STEPS TO INSTALL FREENAS

The first step is to install freenas to a usb jump drive. The purpose of this is so the hard drives on the NFS server are not being used by the OS.

1. To install freenas to a usb drive you will need a linux box to do so.
   
   1. Insert your usb jump drive ( I am using a 1GB for this. Freenas os is about 70mb depending on the version you download see http://freenas.org/doku.php)
   2. To install freenas to usb you need to figure what device it was mapped to. You can run fdisk -l to find the device path (ex. /dev/sdc)
   3. Create a new file system on the thumb drive
      Mkfs.vfat -l /dev/sdc
   4. Create a fat 16 partition on the usb drive (use a program like gparted or you can do it by command line)
      • i. fdisk /dev/sdc
      • ii. n (new partition)
      • iii. p (primary partition)
      • iv. 1 (unique)
      • v. t(change the file system)
      • vi. 6 (fat16)
      • vii. w(write to disk)
   5. After you have the new partition it will be labeled as /dev/sdc1. Run the command to create the filesystem "mkfs.vfat -F 16 /dev/sdc1" (without quotes)
   6. Sync the disk by running the following command "sync" (without quotes)
   7. Unplug and replug the thumb drive
   8. Install freenas to the usb drive
      gunzip -c FreeNAS-i386-embedded-o.<version>.img | sudo dd of=/dev/sdc (you will not want to use "/dev/sdc1")
   9. Sync the installation by running "sync" again
   10. Unmount the disk "umount /dev/sdc1" (without quotes)
   11. Finally test

I found it easier using the gparted utility in linux. If you are not comfortable using fdisk by command line I would suggest installing gparted. To install that on an ubuntu or debain os run the following command.

sudo apt-get install gparted

SETUP FREENAS TO HOST NFS datastore for ESX

1. First setup your drives for software raid. Go to the freenas webGUI at http://192.168.1.250 (this is the default ip for freenas, you can change it once you log in)username=admin, password=freenas.
2. Click on disks >management. You should see your two disks there but you still have to manually add them
3. If they are already listed click (+) next to the drive and change the "Preformatted file system" to software RAID. If they are not listed and the new drives and put the file system as software raid. Click apply when you are done.
4. Next is to go to disks, then software raid. Click on the type of raid you want, for this article we will be using raid 1. (See screenshot below) and add the two disks to this raid.

   

1. Next we will format the drive. Go to Disk >Format. On the disk field click the raid 1 we created earlier. In the filesystem field choose UFS(GPT and soft...) (this is a Unix file system that works with freenas and for the purpose of this article) and then click format disk button.
2. Finally the last step is to create a mount point. Go to Disks >Mount Point. The type should be disk, the disk should be the software raid we created and then give a mount point name. (remember what this name is when enabling NFS services) click save, then apply changes.

TURNING ON NFS services

We are still in the WebGUI of the freenas server.

1. Click on services and then got to NFS
2. Click on the shares tab and click the (+) to add a share
3. In the path field put the mountpoint path from when we created the mount point earlier. (in my setup it was called "/mnt/data"
4. In the Map all users to root set that to YES
5. Authorized network put in your network address ( it should look like a CIDR notation 192.168.1.0/24)
6. The rest of the options can be left as default.
7. Click save, and apply settings

Adding the NFS share as storage on the ESX host

1. On the esx server go to configuration, click storage, click the add storage link.
2. In the server field put the ipaddress of the freenas server (default is 192.168.1.250)
3. In the folder field put the NFS share we created on the freenas server. (on my setup it was /mnt/data)
4. Leave the mount NFS read only unchecked
5. Give the datasore a name. this can be anything
6. Finally click next and finish. (see screenshot below)

Creating your Virtual Machines

You can create your CMS 7.1 servers as you normally would and use the NFS datastore to house the virtual machine files.

With this setup I was able to take on older server and install CMS 7.1 and Deployment server 6.9 sp3/sp4 plus some Linux clients to do testing in both environments. With proper snapshots I was also able to revert back to pre install of CMS/DS 7.1 if I made any mistakes.

NOTES:
The performance of the CMS server will be a little slower but since this is meant for testing and learning about CMS7.x platform, it is to be expected. This does allow for the stripping raid to occur on the NFS server where the esx3i did not like my raid controller so I had to install with the raid disabled and IDE enabled.