[ale] Getting rid of VMware

[Jim Kinney]

On March 11, 2021 7:09:06 PM EST, DJ-Pfulio via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>How much storage is involved?  If it is less than 500G, replace it 
>with an SSD. ;)  For small storage amounts, I wouldn't worry about
>moving hardware that will be retired shortly.
>
>I'd say that bare metal in 2021 is a mistake about 99.99% of the 
>time.

That 0.01% is my happy spot :-) At some point is must be hardware. As I recall, Tob is in academia. So hardware is used until it breaks beyond repair. 

Why can't I pay for virtual hardware with virtual money? I have a new currency called "sarcasm". 
>
>On 3/11/21 5:37 PM, Tod Fassl via Ale wrote:
>> Soonish, I am going  to have to take an ISCSI array that is currently
>> talking to a VMWare virtual machine running Linux and connect it to a
>> real Linux machine. The problem is that I don't know how the Linux
>> virtual machine talks to the array. It appears as /dev/sdb on the
>> Linux virtual machine and is mounted via /etc/fstab like its just a
>> regular HD on the machine.
>> 
>> 
>> So I figure some explanation of how we got here is in order. My
>> previous boss bought VMWare thinking we could take 4 24-core machines
>> and make one big 96-core virtual machine out of them. He has since
>> retired. Since I was rather skeptical of VMWare from the start, the
>> job of dealing with the cluster was given to a co-worker. He has
>> since moved on. I know just enough about VMWare ESXI to keep the
>> thing working. My new boss wants to get rid of VMWare and re-install
>> everything on the bare metal machines.
>> 
>> 
>> The VMWare host has 4 ethernet cables running to the switch. But
>> there is only 1 virtual network port on the Linux virtual machine.
>> However, lspci shows 32 "lines with VMware PCI Express Root"
>> (whatever that is):
>> 
>> 
>> # lspci 00:07.7 System peripheral: VMware Virtual Machine
>> Communication Interface (rev 10) 00:10.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI
>> Logic / Symbios Logic 53c1030 PCI-X Fusion-MPT Dual Ultra320 SCSI
>> (rev 01) 00:11.0 PCI bridge: VMware PCI bridge (rev 02) 00:15.0 PCI
>> bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01) [...] 00:18.7 PCI
>> bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01) 02:00.0 Ethernet
>> controller: Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller
>> (Copper) (rev 01)
>> 
>> 
>> The open-iscsi package is not installed on the Linux virtual machine.
>> However, the ISCSI array shows up as /dev/sdb:
>> 
>> # lsscsi [2:0:0:0]    disk    VMware   Virtual disk     1.0
>> /dev/sda [2:0:1:0]    disk    EQLOGIC  100E-00          8.1
>> /dev/sdb
>> 
>> 
>> I'd kinda like to get the ISCSI array connected to a new bare metal
>> Linux server w/o losing everybody's files. Do you think I can just
>> follow the various hotos out there on connecting an ISCSI array w/o
>> too much trouble?
>>  
>> 
>> 
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