Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Access to VMware ESX 5.5 (both gui and VM guest console)

Hi, When I am talking about Packer, I am talking about Hashicorp's Packer that builds the image. When working with VMWare, it has two options, either to start from an ISO image or a VMX file. The thing I like about Packer on ESX is it gets you past the boring part of logging onto the console, pressing escape at the right time etc. You then get a predictable image every time that can be used in other places later on. This saves you time as it means that you don't need to provision a new machine and wait for that to complete etc. How many times have you tried to provision a new machine and have some part of it fail as it couldn't access a network file, or something went wrong with deployment etc.? I realise that in most enterprises this type of technology is seen as very new and certainly in the place where I work the team I am in are the only ones using this type of workflow, the rest of the teams are still using older ways to get machines up which are not as usable. I think that in time we will see a lot more of this automation which is good news for us.

From an AWS point of view you need to think about servers very differently, the servers I spin up in AWS last only for a few weeks, and in AWS terminology for a lot of places that is a long time. I am different in that I am working with a Windows stack, although I do use some Redhat in some places.

The AWS console is not too bad, but the real power comes from automating the provisioning of the network and the systems. I typically make heavy use of the AWS PowerShell, and Hashicorp Terraform to build the infrastructure. I am building the infrastructure from the networks, each subnet, connectivity between the subnets, firewalls, network appliances etc., all controlled via Terraform. In terms of the machines itself I have set things up so I never really need to log into a machine, the machines have health checks to identify whether specific services and files are in place, and if these fail the machines are killed. I know a machine is up properly because at the end of the Chef run the system calls out to a deployment server and so I can see the machine requesting application code and the code going on the server. All very accessible and no interacting with a server rack or network cable! I realise a lot of enterprises are a long way from this, where I work we have an enormous amount of ground to make up in getting other parts of the business on-board with the new technology, and it changes fundamentally the way in which a team works. For example I am having to do a lot of architecture work, as well as work on lower levels of the network stack, for example creating and testing the firewall rules, whereas before I was only working on the server side. I don't know how long I will be able to continue this, as there are lots of changes being proposed, so for now I am trying to learn as much as I can until I have to move. Hope this helps, Andrew. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Hutchings Sent: 01 April 2017 22:56 To: 'Blind sysadmins list' Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Access to vmware ESX 5.5 (both gui and VM guest console) Hi Andrew, We do use packer along with kickstart files that are stored on a network server; virtual machines are then instructed to boot from PXE to kick (install os), and then we have a postinstall script executed after the os is installed, which installs puppet and configures iptables, ssh etc after which point I have ssh access and can connect to the machines. However, there are two issues. 1. If the machine fails halfway through kickstart and I need to get onto the machine to see what the problem is, I am unable to, as ssh is not yet setup. 2. When powering the virtual machine one, I am unable to get into the menu that allows one to select "network boot" or "pxe" - this is a vmware option as aposed to a option in the guest itself, and is done by pressing f12 just as the VM is powering on. I tried to see if powershell or ruby vmware cli tools could automate pressing f12 at the appropriate time, but alas, it cannot. I have been thinking of looking into AWS and maybe moving more towards that sideo f things, since that is the future of virtual machine deployment anyway, and seems, on the face of it, to be more accessible. Incidentally, does AWS work well with screen readers? As a note, we use Redhat enterprise Linux 6 at the particular company I am working in at the moment; this does not allow initiating an install via ssh, whereas some distributions of Linux do, such as debian. If I was able to initiate the install via ssh I could monitor the kickstart via that. Thanks, Ryan -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Hodgson Sent: 01 April 2017 21:35 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Access to vmware ESX 5.5 (both gui and VM guest console) Hi, There is no real way of accessing ESX consoles with speech since they use a graphical representation of the screen. I believe the way forward for us is to use automation as much as possible to get us a working system without having to resort to console access. I realise this is quite a different story in most companies, for example the work I am doing for the people I work for I am in the automation team, which is working in AWS, and completely separate from the rest of the business using ESX with a very different workflow. I am typically using Packer to create images in code, then those are deployed to VMs and I can then use those going forward with SSH or something else. I would recommend looking at Packer with ESX if you can to see if that will help you with your workflow. Andrew. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Hutchings Sent: 01 April 2017 15:46 To: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Access to vmware ESX 5.5 (both gui and VM guest console) Hi all, I recently joined the list, as I came across it while researching the above subject. I am a Linux system administrator in the UK, and contract out my services to various companies. A few places I have worked in predominantly use virtual machines for their servers, via vmware ESX 5.5. I have found access to both the GUI of vmware ESX (which is done via a web interface which uses inaccessible flash) and Virtual machine consoles themselves, to be nearly impossible to use with a screen reader (have tried both JAWS and NVDA). Supposedly, vmware ESX 6.0 has improved the accessibility of its web interface, but I haven't come across a company who uses ESX 6.0 yet, and the ones that I have worked for that use 5.5 have been reluctant to upgrade because of the perceived risk, virtual machine migration and so on. I have tried using the virtual console on Linux machines and network serial port access on vmware ESX (which I had to get sighted colleagues to setup), but this caused issues for sighted people who then wanted to use machines via the main vmware guest console. This meant that I had to enable serial port access when initially setting up a machine (via kickstart), and then disable the serial port once I had done the setup, both these tasks requiring sighted assistance. Have any of you had experience with using Vmware guest consoles / the vmware ESX 5.5 GUI with a screen reader? I have used vmware workstation and vmware player at home several times to run my own virtual machines, but I was able to access most machines via ssh and telnet. At the compaies I have worked at, ssh/telnet access is blocked for initial kicking of a machine, and is only available once machine configuration is complete. I have also explored using powershell and ruby esx interfaces to ESX via the command line, but these do not allow booting a machine via PXE for example, which is required for initial machine setup using kick start over a network. Many thanks for any advice, Ryan Hutchings _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins