Converts a .vdi file to a .vmdk file for use in a vmware virtual machine. The benefit: using this method actually works. There are others out there that claim to give you a working .vmdk by simply using the qemu-img command alone. Doing that only results in pain for you because the .vmdk file will be created with no errors, but it won't boot either. Be advised that these conversions are very disk-intensive by nature; you are probably dealing with disk images several gigabytes in size. Once finished, the process of using the new .vmdk file is left as an exercise to the reader. Show Sample Output

To monitor .vmdk files during snapshot deletion (commit) on ESX only (ESXi doesn't have the watch command): 1. Navigate to the VM directory containing .vmdk files. # watch "ls -tough --full-time *.vmdk" where: -t sorts by modification time -o do not list group information (to narrow the output) -u sorts by access time -g only here for the purpose to easily remember the created mnemonic word 'tough' -h prints sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G) --full-time sets the time style to full-iso and does not list user information (to narrow the output) optionally useful parameters to the watch command: -d highlight changes between updates -n seconds to wait between updates (default is 2) -t turn off printing the header

Command used to know if we are working on a virtual or physical machine. This command will use the dmidecode utility to retrieve hardware information of your computer via the BIOS. Run this command as root or with sudo. Show Sample Output

Create a serial console with "socket (named pipe)" of "/tmp/socket", "from:server, to:virtual machine" in vmware player, etc.. gui. Run the above command after you have booted the guest OS (which should also be configured for serial console).

Replace VM directory and file prefix with new prefix Once the the file names are updated the config files will need to be updated using command similar to the following: sed -i -- 's/original_/new_/g' *.vmx sed -i -- 's/original_/new_/g' *.vmxf sed -i -- 's/original_/new_/g' *.file.vmdk sed -i -- 's/original_/new_/g' *_file_1.vmdk

This will allow you to get the root certificate of a virtual vCenter appliance. Useful for when you need to make api calls, say with python, and you need to verify the ssl's certificate for the endpoint. Tested on vCenter 6.5.

So your boss wants to know how much memory has been assigned to each virtual machine running on your server... here's how to nab that information from the command line while logged in to that server Show Sample Output

This command will shutdown all VMs on an VMWare ESX host. First it tries to gracefully shutdown the VM. If that fails it will hard shutdown and the power off.

This is based on the Windows Version of VirtualBox. From the /? ... VBoxManage clonehd | [--format VDI|VMDK|VHD|RAW|] [--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX] [--type normal|writethrough|immutable|shareable] [--remember] [--existing] From the online help.. http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.html#id2676537 VBoxManage clonehd This command duplicates a registered virtual hard disk image to a new image file with a new unique identifier (UUID). The new image can be transferred to another host system or imported into VirtualBox again using the Virtual Media Manager; see the section called ?The Virtual Media Manager? and the section called ?Cloning disk images?. The syntax is as follows: VBoxManage clonehd | [--format VDI|VMDK|VHD|RAW|] [--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX] [--type normal|writethrough|immutable] [--remember] where the parameters mean: format Allow to choose a file format for the output file different from the file format of the input file. variant Allow to choose a file format variant for the output file. It is a comma-separated list of variant flags. Not all combinations are supported, and specifying inconsistent flags will result in an error message. type Only honored if --remember is also specified. Defines what kind of hard disk type this image should be. remember Keep the destination image registered after it was successfully written. Show Sample Output