My notes, things I have learned, and documentation I have created.

Despite having ssh enable on both ESXi 5.0 servers, I found that I could copy to the server from a desktop client or non-ESXi server without issue. However, when I wanted to copy between ESXi servers it did not work. It would just timeout:

ssh: connect to host la-host04 port 22: Connection timed out

I have discovered that the issue is the Security Profile on each of the ESXi servers. Through the vSphere client, you need to click on the ESXi server, then click on the Configuration tab. From here, select Security Profile, and click on the Firewall Properties …

Then, you just need to check off the SSH Client under Secure Shell. This will open up ssh communication between ESXi servers. You can restrict the settings by accessing the Firewall Settings for any of the services.

UPDATE 1:
To enable from the command line using esxcli:
To list your current configuration:
# esxcli network firewall ruleset list

To enable sshClient to enable copying using ssh:
# esxcli network firewall ruleset set –ruleset-id sshClient –enabled yes

To refresh the configuration:
# esxcli network firewall refresh

UPDATE 2:
For ESXi 5.1 Update 1:
# esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r sshClient

I needed to create an ISO image from a CDR in MacOS Lion. Here is how I was able to do it:

Insert the CD.

Open the Disk Utility.

Click on the mounted CD in the Disk Utility.

Click New Image.

Select “DVD/CD master” for the Image Format.

Encryption: none.

Click Save.

This will create MacOS compatible .cdr image. To convert this image, so that it is Windows/Linux compatible:

Open Terminal and navigate to where you create your .cdr image.

Enter the following command:

hdiutil makehybrid -iso -joliet -o filename.iso filename.cdr

Finally, I have discovered a very simple utility from Microsoft to create a bootable USB flash drive to install Windows. I used this to create a Windows 2008R2 installable flash drive, and it works great. However, this utility only seems to work for certain versions of Windows, and only Windows.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

This one presented quite a challenge for me. It seems that the magical solution is using the right versions. There are a number of ways (supposedly) to install ruby on rails. I started out trying to use ruby packages included in CentOS. I quickly realized that was not going to work. It kept running all kinds of issues with libraries missing or incorrect versions. So then, I opted to just build from source. Well, this got me much closer but I ended up having an openssl issue that I thought I resolved, but the gem command was having all kinds of issues. Something clearly was not right. So, I then went back to using RVM, which I had tried earlier. This time I started completely over with a new HPCloud CentOS 5.6 image. The following is what worked for me.

As I mentioned above, I started with a clean HPCloud CEntOS 5.6 image ( ami-000004d2 – local (CentOS 5.6 Server 64-bit) ).

# yum groupinstall “Development Libraries” “Development Tools”

The next step, of course, turned my 5.6 instance into a 5.7 instance:
# yum update
# shutdown -r now

Add the EPEL repository:

# cd /usr/local/src
# wget http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
# rpm -ivh epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
# yum install git

Remove certificate requirement for curl, when installing rvm:
# echo insecure >> ~/.curlrc

# bash -s stable < <(curl -s https://raw.github.com/wayneeseguin/rvm/master/binscripts/rvm-installer) # vigr ... rvm:x:500:root Update environment variables: # source /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh Install other dependencies for ruby determined by running rvm requirements:
# yum install -y gcc-c++ patch readline readline-devel zlib zlib-devel libyaml-devel libffi-devel openssl-devel make bzip2 autoconf automake libtool bison iconv-devel

# rvm install 1.9.2
# rvm use 1.9.2

Note: You can use the following command to make this version the system default:
# rvm use 1.9.2 –default

To verify that all is right at this point:
# type rvm | head -1
rvm is a function is the expected output.

# cd $(rvm gemdir)

The following will install the gem command:
# rvm rubygems current

This will allow you to install rails:
# gem install rails

This has allowed me (rails is not needed for this) to install hpcloud command to manage my Storage Object.

# wget http://build.hpcloud.com/sites/default/files/downloads/hpfog.tar
# tar -xvf hpfog.tar
# wget http://build.hpcloud.com/sites/default/files/downloads/hpcloud.tar
# tar -xvf hpcloud.tar
# gem install hpfog-x.x.x.gem
# gem install hpcloud-x.x.x.gem

# hpcloud
Tasks:
hpcloud account:setup # set up or modify your credentials
hpcloud acl