A List of VMware vSphere Books

Automating vSphere with VMware vCenter Orchestrator (VMware Press Technology) by Cody Bunch
Building Blocks: vSphere 6.0 and vCenter 6.0 by Tom Burge  and Calvin Kohler-Katz
Cloud Computing, A Practical Approach by Toby Velte,  Anthony Velte  and Robert Elsenpeter
Critical VMware Mistakes You Should Avoid by Larry Loucks  and Rajen Guendoo
Disaster Recovery using VMware vSphere Replication and vCenter Site Recovery Manager – Second Edition by Abhilash G B
Enterprise Java Applications Architecture on VMware by Emad Benjamin
IBM System Storage N Series With Vmware Vsphere 5 by IBM Redbooks
It Architect: Foundation in the Art of Infrastructure Design: A Practical Guide for It Architects by Vcdx-001,

How Do You Troubleshoot a CentOS Server Not Being Able to Reach the Internet or outside Your Network?

Problem scenario:  From a CentOS server, you try to ping an IP address outside of your network (e.g., 8.8.8.8).  You get “connect: Network is unreachable” as the response.  Your server has an IP address and subnet mask.  What is wrong?

Solution
1.  Ensure that the network has a default gateway.  If the network equipment that connects the server to the network has no gateway to outside the network,

How Do You Configure Two Linux Guest Servers Running on Oracle VirtualBox to Have Network Connectivity with Each Other?

Problem scenario:  On a Windows host you have Oracle VirtualBox.  You want to establish TCP/IP connectivity with the two guest CentOS Linux virtual servers.  When you try to ping one from the other, you get “destination host unreachable.”  The servers have Internet connectivity.  How do you get them to communicate with each other via a networking protocol?

Solution
On each guest server,

How Do You Troubleshoot Not Seeing 64 Bit Options in The “Version” Drop down Menu in Oracle VirtualBox?

Problem scenario:  Using Oracle VirtualBox on a 64 bit version of Windows, you go to create a new virtual machine as a guest server.  You want it to run a 64 bit version of Linux. You start to build the new machine using Oracle VirtualBox. You choose the “Version” and only see 32 bit options.  You have a processor (hardware) that is 64 bit.  The Windows OS is 64 bit. 

How Do You Use an .Ova File with Oracle VirtualBox?

Problem Scenario:  You downloaded an .ova file.  You want to create a virtual server (a clone) with this pre-configured OS.  How do you use Oracle VirtualBox to use this .ova file?

Solution
1.  Open Oracle VirtualBox
2.  Go to File -Import Appliance (or press Ctrl-i)
3.  Select the OVA file
4.  Click “Next”
5.  Now you are ready to start the VM.

How Do You Troubleshoot Installing Oracle VirtualBox Guest Additions on a CentOS Server?

Problem scenario
You are running Oracle VirtualBox on a Windows host.  You have Linux CentOS guest server.  Guest additions fails to install.  You tried to run this script VBoxLinuxAdditions.run.  The run fails with an error saying “
check /var/log/VBoxGuestAdditions.log for details.”

You examined /var/log/VBoxGuestAdditions.log, and it said this:
“vboxadd.sh: failed: Look at /var/log/vboxadd-install.log to find out what went wrong.
vboxadd.sh: failed: Please check that you have gcc,

When Running Oracle VirtualBox on a Windows Host with a Linux Guest, What Does the Linux Guest Think Is the IP Address of the Host?

Problem scenario:  You have Oracle VirtualBox installed on a Windows host.  You have Linux CentOS as a guest VM. You want to test network connectivity (e.g., hostname resolution).  You want to know what IP address the Linux guest could use to interact with the Windows host.

Solution
Install traceroute with this command:

sudo yum -y install traceroute

Then use this command:

traceroute 8.8.8.8

The results of the above traceroute command will show you the packet hop from the Linux guest to the Windows host. 

How Do You Enable Virtualization Technology (VTx) with an HP Probook?

Problem scenario:  You want to use Oracle VirtualBox or some other hosted hypervisor with your HP Probook laptop.  You need “Virtualization Technology (VTx)” enabled.  How do you do this?

Solution

1.  Boot up.  When you see the “HP” splash screen (a blue image with a black background), press F10.

2.  At the prompt, “Log in as a Guest User” choose “Yes.” (This step may be crucial to your success.)

3.

How Do You Troubleshoot Mounting a Vboxsf Folder Share on a Linux Guest Running via Oracle VirtualBox on a Windows Host?

Problem scenario:  You are trying to mount a file share using Oracle VirtualBox.  You have a Windows host and a Linux CentOS guest.  (For complete directions on how to set up a folder share for this scenario, see this link.) 

You are trying to run this command:  “mount -t vboxsf contint /mnt/windows-share”
# where “contint” is the name of the folder share in the Oracle VirtualBox GUI.

How Do You Place a Postgres Database on a Flash Drive on a Windows Host Running Oracle VirtualBox with a Linux Guest VM?

Problem scenario
You have Postgres installed on the Linux guest of Oracle VirtualBox.  You have storage capacity on the Windows host.  You can interactively work with smbclient to share files between the Linux guest and the Windows host.   You want to share files between the two servers without the interactive smb commands.  You want the Postgres database to reside on the Windows host.  This way your Linux guest hard disk does not have to be expanded but can run Postgres commands from your Linux guest.