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2020

Quick Tip: Reset Tanzu SupervisorControlPlaneVM Alarms

When you are working with the Kubernetes Integration in vSphere 7.0, you might come into the situation where the SupervisorControlPlaneVM has an active alarm. Those Virtual Machines are deployed and controlled by the WCP Agent and even as an Administrator, you are not allowed to touch those objects.
You can't power then off, reboot, or migrate them using vMotion. The problem is that you can't even clear alarms. One alarm I recently had was the "vSphere HA virtual machine failover failed" alarm, which you usually see when the ESXi hostd crashed, but the Virtual Machines are still running.Read More »Quick Tip: Reset Tanzu SupervisorControlPlaneVM Alarms

Thermal Throttling on Raspberry Pi 4 running ESXi-Arm

Cooling the Raspberry Pi 4 is highly recommended, not only when running the ESXi-Arm Fling. The Raspberry Pi 4 has an internal temperature sensor, which is used to ensure that temperature does not exceed 85°C. When the temperature is at about 82°C, the system automatically reduces the clock speed to prevent the system from overheating. This mechanism is also referred to as "Thermal Throttling".

Technically, it is not required to install heatsinks or small fans to prevent it from overheating. But if you want to have the system to run at full performance, you definitely want to install heatsinks and a fan. Of course, running the system as cool as possible will also increase its overall lifespan.

That's the theory - But is Thermal Throttling working with the ESXi-Arm? And how can you identify that the clock speed has been reduced? Let's find out...

Read More »Thermal Throttling on Raspberry Pi 4 running ESXi-Arm

Get Raspberry Pi CPU Temperature on ESXi-Arm

Having proper cooling is very important when you run the ESXi-Arm Fling on a Raspberry Pi. With the Fling itself, it is not possible to get the actual CPU temperature.

Luckily, a few days ago a repository created by Tom Hebel (@tom_hebel) popped up on GitHub that contains a native driver for the Raspberry Pi 4's GPIO interface. This driver allows you to poll the CPU temperature. This article explains how to install the driver.

Read More »Get Raspberry Pi CPU Temperature on ESXi-Arm

Power over Ethernet HAT Options for ESXi-Arm on Raspberry Pi

Power over Ethernet is a nifty solution to run your Raspberry Pi without an additional power supply. You can fully run ESXi-Arm on a Raspberry Pi with a single RJ45 network cable.

If you want to build a cluster of Pies or just want to have a clean setup, get a PoE HAT. This article explains the options that you have to add PoE support for your Raspberry Pi for the following use cases:

  • Standalone ESXi with 2.5" or M.2 SSD
  • ESXi Cluster using iSCSI Storage
  • vSAN Witness

Read More »Power over Ethernet HAT Options for ESXi-Arm on Raspberry Pi

VMware Tools for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS arm64 on ESXi-Arm

VMware Tools is a set of utilities and drivers that improve the performance and management of your Virtual Machines. They are essential when running VMs on ESXi. With the recently released ESXi Arm Edition Fling, you want to make sure that you have them installed.

Ubuntu is a Linux distribution based on Debian. It is officially released in three editions: Desktop, Server, and Core. Ubuntu is released every six months, with long-term support (LTS) releases every two years. As of 22 October 2020, the most recent long-term support release is 20.04 ("Focal Fossa"), which is supported until 2025 under public support

Unfortunately, a compiled version of open-vm-tools for arm64 is not available for many common Guest Operating Systems, so you have to compile them from VMwares Repository at GitHub.

This article explains how to compile open-vm-tools for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS arm64.

Read More »VMware Tools for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS arm64 on ESXi-Arm

VMware Tools for openSUSE aarch64 on ESXi-Arm

VMware Tools is a set of utilities and drivers that improve the performance and management of your Virtual Machines. They are essential when running VMs on ESXi. With the recently released ESXi Arm Edition Fling, you want to make sure that you have them installed.

openSUSE is a Linux distribution sponsored by SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH and other companies. openSUSE offers Leap, a distribution built on a more tested base shared with SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE), effectively making Leap a non-commercial version of its enterprise-grade operating system. Users that prefer more up-to-date free software can use its rolling release distribution Tumbleweed.

Unfortunately, a compiled version of open-vm-tools for aarch64 is not available for many common Guest Operating Systems, so you have to compile them from VMwares Repository at GitHub.

This article explains how to compile open-vm-tools for openSUSE Tumbleweed aarch64.

Read More »VMware Tools for openSUSE aarch64 on ESXi-Arm

VMware Tools for Debian 10 arm64 on ESXi-Arm

VMware Tools is a set of utilities and drivers that improve the performance and management of your Virtual Machines. They are essential when running VMs on ESXi. With the recently released ESXi Arm Edition Fling, you want to make sure that you have them installed.

Debian is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project. It is one of the oldest and the most popular edition for personal computers and servers. Debian is also the basis for many other distributions.

Unfortunately, a compiled version of open-vm-tools for arm64 is not available for many common Guest Operating Systems, so you have to compile them from VMwares Repository at GitHub.

This article explains how to compile open-vm-tools for Debian 10 arm64.

Read More »VMware Tools for Debian 10 arm64 on ESXi-Arm

VMware Tools for Alpine 3 aarch64 on ESXi-Arm

VMware Tools is a set of utilities and drivers that improve the performance and management of your Virtual Machines. They are essential when running VMs on ESXi. With the recently released ESXi Arm Edition Fling, you want to make sure that you have them installed.

Alpine Linux is a security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution based on musl libc and busybox.

This article explains how to install open-vm-tools on Alpine Linux 3.

Read More »VMware Tools for Alpine 3 aarch64 on ESXi-Arm