Turn a raspberry pi into a thin client?

Posted on October 1, 2014 by techguyjames — 1 Comment

I came across a pretty cool idea for the Raspberry PI today that could greatly help those deploying view in an environment where budget is a big deal.  Imagine, you have View desktops running from a PC (probably the old one that was sitting there when you converted over to view) and the PC dies… maybe it was a power supply, but the PC is out of warranty… whatever.

Imagine being able to replace that PC with only $35-$75.  That’s amazing!  Well it may be possible to turn a raspberry pi into a thin client to run View.  Unfortunately, I can’t find enough detail to know if this works… but I thought I’d put it out there.  I’ll probably run some test in the future to see if this is possible and if it works with Horizon View 5.5 (which we are running).

Anyways, here is the link to the details:

Raspberry Pi View Client

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Posted in Raspberry Pi, VMware View

Python on Raspberry Pi

Posted on September 30, 2014 by techguyjames — Leave a comment

RaspberryPi_Python[1]So begins my journey into Raspberry Pi for use as a learning tool for code development (both web and otherwise).  The first thing that I tasked myself with was to get python and flask working.  Since I am still new to this, and not currently a python developer, this seemed like a task to me.  I had already played around with setting up Mono+nginx+FastCGI and had quite a bit of difficulty… so I was expecting to spend some time on this. So what is flask…? well, I don’t know yet.  From what I understand, it is a framework to set python up to host a website… but let’s check google:

Wikipedia describes Flask as: flask is a lightweight web application framework written in Python and based on the WSGI toolkit and Jinja2 template engine. It is BSD licensed.

Awesome! So flask is a framework that makes creating websites in python easier. What is pip you may ask?  Let’s check out google again:

Google describes pip as: pip is a package management system used to install and manage software packages written in Python. Many packages can be found in the Python Package Index (PyPI).

Cool, so pip makes it easier for us to get the wheel, instead of re-inventing it. Again, Awesome!  So, how do we do all this? well that seems simple enough.  The first step is to install Python PIP.

Open a terminal to your raspberry pi and type:
sudo apt-get install python-pip
when asked, confirm (yes) the installation to continue.

Now that you have PIP installed, you can go ahead and install the Flask Framework:

sudo pip install flask

That’s it!  Really? YES!  Super easy.

For more info, including how to test this, I found a great blog on the subject: http://mattrichardson.com/Raspberry-Pi-Flask/

ENJOY!

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Posted in Python, Raspberry Pi

Southern California VMUG (Where the socal vm experts gather)

Posted on September 24, 2014 by techguyjames — Leave a comment

Tomorrow I’m headed to the SoCal VMUG Convention at the Merriot in Anahiem.  As I try to make further attempts at blogging, I hope to incorporate the things I do and learn in the process.  I would have to say the number one place to get some free VM knowledge is the VMware User Groups and the VMUG Convention for your local area.  If you haven’t signed up, I suggest you do. The convention is basically a day long free VMworld recap with open breakout sessions.  Many of the best vendors from VMworld show up to these events… and they give away swag (fun!)  Anyways, tomorrows event features a keynote from Scott Lowe… awesome.  Every excited to see what VMware has in-store for this event.

Check out http://www.vmug.com/ for more details on VMware User Groups: Forums and Conventions.

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Posted in Events, VMUG

vSphere 5 AutoLab

Posted on March 2, 2014 by techguyjames — Leave a comment
I’d like to take sometime to talk about AutoLab.  Without AutoLab, the effort put into building an ESXi lab could take days.  Since the trial license is only 60 days… a new rebuild is always lurking around the corner.  How about the initial builds of the domain and virtual center… do you already know all that?  How about NAS setup and NFS exports… can you set them up?  Even if the answers are yes, it still is annoying.  I find the simplicity of restarting, and finding things back the way I want them, very convenient. And for that I couldn’t do it without LabGuides’ AutoLab.  Not only are their books amazingly in-depth, but their lab shell is amazing.  Below I’ll take excerpts from their release post to explain a bit about AutoLab… which, again, is amazing.

AutoLab 1.1a works for vSphere 4.1, 5.0, & 5.1
5.5 is coming soon

What is the AutoLab?

The AutoLab is a quick easy way to build a vSphere environment for testing and learning using a single desktop or laptop PC and VMware Workstation, Fusion or ESXi. The whole lab runs in VMs on that one PC, even ESXi runs in a VM and can then run it’s own VMs.

What’s in the AutoLab?

The Autolab download contains a set of shell VMs and a lot of automation.  Once built the lab contains two ESXi servers, a Windows Domain controller, a Windows Virtual Centre, a FreeNAS storage appliance and a FreeSCO Router to link it to the outside world.

Inside the AutoLab

The download has been kept very small for easy download and distribution, it contains only free, open source, software. You will also need the installers for vSphere and Windows, you should use evaluation licenses for both vSphere (built in) and Windows.

What can I do with the AutoLab?

  • Run VMs on the lab ESXi servers, using iSCSI shared storage
  • Build an HA and DRS cluster
  • Work with vSphere Networking
  • Practice the upgrade from vSphere 4.1 to vSphere 5.0
  • Use PowerShell and the VCLI to manage the lab
  • Rebuild the whole lab quickly and with minimal effort
  • Choose how much automation you want in the lab build
  • Take the lab with you on your laptop

Will my laptop/PC be able to run the AutoLab?

If your laptop has 8GB of RAM and a recent CPU you should be able to run the lab. Here is my three year old laptop that is upgraded to 8GB of RAM running the whole lab including VMs running on the ESXi servers inside the lab.

RunningLab

Where can I get the AutoLab?

http://www.labguides.com/autolab/

The Installation Instructions are in a pdf and you should take a look at those to get a better idea of what is involved.  Then there are two different downloads, both contain the same VMs but with slightly different configuration and different packaging. The download for VMware Workstation should also work with Player and Fusion.  The other contains a vApp for deployment onto ESXi 5.0. Download one  and get started by following the guide.

I hope that the AutoLab will save you a lot of time and frustration in building vSphere labs.  I will be posting on ProfessionalVMware the details of the automation that is in the AutoLab so you can reuse or modify the work.

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Posted in AutoLab, LabGuides, My Home Lab, VMware, Workstation

My virtual lab…

Posted on March 2, 2014 by techguyjames — Leave a comment

Hello! Well, if you are reading this you are likely interested in virtual environments… or virtual labs… for studying and the like.  It is critical that every IT person have the ability to learn new things and expand their horizons.  Most of us non-virtual folk setup physical boxes, but this can be time consuming, expensive, and can be very difficult to manage.  Well folks, I bring you VMware Workstation.

Here is what My lab looks like:
image

I just started building it again.  I previously had a 4.1 lab built in here… but I am about to go take VCP-510, so I rebuilt it.  I am using VMware Workstation 9 to do all the fancy work.

My system is a custom built box. The major details are AMD FX-8120 Eight-Core Processor at 3.10 Ghz, 16Gb of Consair DDR3 Memory, Gigabyte Motherboard, and a 72Gb SSD for the Virtual Machines.  I also have a number of large SATA drives connected to the box.  I use this box for two purposes… my own enjoyment and personal use aswell as a lab box.  I connect remotely, currently, through TeamViewer… which is a great product for anyone seeking to have a easy connection through their firewall with minimal effort.  It is also great for us techies that have everyone and their great aunt sally calling them because their computer says it is out of memory.  It’s great fun! TeamViewer is free for personal use.  It will nag you a bit, but it’s fully free and it isn’t too annoying.



So the basic lab for an ESXi environment consists of:
  • a Router for your route out and to connect different segments if you create them)
  • A NAS (freenas works quite nice for this)
  • A Domain Controller (nothing happens without this)
  • A vCenter Server (Appliance or Windows)
  • 2 ESXi Installations
  • A nested Virtual Machine to play with

In future articles I’ll go over a very easy way to set all this up so it can be refreshed while you go have lunch.  A lazy admin is a good admin… and I am lazy as they come, so I guess I’m alright.  Smile

Any admin can be well on their way to learning a new OS or building a nested ESXi installation with VMware Workstation.

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Posted in My Home Lab, VMware, Workstation

In a world of virtualization…

Posted on March 2, 2014 by techguyjames — Leave a comment

In a world of virtualization, even life and relationships have become virtual. Actually what exist is nothing but mere reflection of an existence?

-Prabhat Shukla

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Starting this out…

Posted on March 2, 2014 by techguyjames — Leave a comment

How ironic that I’d start a virtual site, from a undisclosed location (so virtually) with virtually nothing to start the site with.  I guess I could give a background of myself.  Currently I am a virtual engineer for a fairly small shop with large ambitions… hence, high end hardware.  I am working with 4 UCS chassis with a total of 10xB200M3s and 8xB250M2s… I also have 4 R910s and a 5 EqualLogics, clustered, that I run VDI from.  I manage around 180 virtual servers and 250 vdi desktops.  We use unidesk for our VDI environment… which adds a great deal of flexibility with only minor quirkiness.  Overall, the gain far out ways the small issues here and there.

I currently work in vSphere 5.5/View 5.2.  I will be using this site as a posting of stuff I learn.  I find it hard to gather material and like all good admins I am constantly studying.  Just like all good admins I am very lazy and have no time.  I could give a background of my family life but I won’t bore you with that.  Just know I have kids and a wife and a mortgage… nuff said.

My lab consists of a PC running workstation 8.  Lots of memory and running the VMs from an SSD.  I’ll go into more details of my setup and things I am doing in later posts.

Pic of TechGuyJames

For more background or to link to me… check out my linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/techguyjames

I’d love to connect… understand what you are doing and how we can learn from each other.  Keep strong on the knowledge hunt!
–James

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Posted in About Me, Welcome