Basically setting up a brand new Windows 2003 machine is pretty simple but setup a new Virtual Machine took me 2 days. The most important is my VM template is go missing. The quick solution is search for VM template and register (add to inventory) again.

SSH into my ESX server using putty and search for VM template file with extension “.vmtx”.

[root@malaysiavmesx01 vmfs]# find /vmfs -name *.vmtx
/vmfs/volumes/465eeddb-89b75750-a52d-011aa0289d15/W2K3STD/W2K3STD.vmtx
/vmfs/volumes/465eeda7-2a63d436-724b-011aa0289d15/RHEL5/RHEL5.vmtx

How to register a VM template using CLI:
[root@malaysiavmesx01 vmfs]# /usr/bin/vmware-cmd -s register

In my case, I will register my VM template as example below:
[root@malaysiavmesx01 vmfs]# /usr/bin/vmware-cmd -s register /vmfs/volumes/465eeddb-89b75750-a52d-011aa0289d15/W2K3STD/W2K3STD.vmtx
[root@malaysiavmesx01 vmfs]# /usr/bin/vmware-cmd -s register /vmfs/volumes/465eeda7-2a63d436-724b-011aa0289d15/RHEL5/RHEL5.vmtx

Probably you can check previous article “How to re-register a VM once it had been removed from ESX” posted by Craig for register a VM template using Virtual Center and browse through the data store.

The lesson tell me I MUST backup SQL database and VM template keep in the database.

I did a quick test and I would like to share my personal review about Citrix XenServer 5.0:

Personally I think network speed is fast compare to VMware ESX. I have a physical 1Gbps NIC network speed and I can get 2Gbps network speed after install XenTools on Windows 2008 server but require 2 times reboot(SuSE Linux require 1 reboot). Anyway VM guest shutdown and reboot process is faster than VMware ESX.

I was try to install SuSE Linux 10 using 4 ISO CD (both NFS or CIFS), the Citrix XenServer always give me an error “The VM rejected the attempt to detach the device xxxxx refusing to close” when switch ISO CD1 to ISO CD2. You have to extract 4 ISO CD into one single location to make it work or copy ISO to local storage(provider you have enough local disk space).

The enterprise product should not have similar issue and this is not make sense at all.

Anyway, you can try alternative way using “Install URL” instead of using ISO Image once you have extract ISO CD into single folder on your web server.

Install URL: http://xx.xx.xx.xx/inst/10/32/SP2/ALL
Advanced Boot OS Parameters:
console=ttyS0 xencons=ttyS hostip=xx.xx.xx.xx/24 gateway=xx.xx.xx.xx dnsserver=xx.xx.xx.xx

Please make sure your have correct IP, gateway and DNS setup properly else you will getting error during installation.

Add and remove any disk/storage on Window 2008 or SuSE Linux 10 no downtime or reboot required. The VM guest OS will detect automatically.

Convert to template and VM clone features which are another features behind VMware ESX.

Once you have converted to template, you won’t have another way to reverse back as VM guest machine. It’s one way operation which you will received a warning before convert to template as show below.

Right click VM guest, and click Copy VM will do VM cloning but require downtime. The Copy VM feature is disable during VM guest is power on.

Overall, I would said VMware ESX still my first choice.