VMware crashes after updating (upgrading) of host OS (to CentOS 5.4)

If you have in your hostd.log something like this:

Nov 07 21:19:12.648: Worker#23| Caught signal 6 -- tid 31543

this can be related with update(upgrade) of host OS.

After upgrading of a host OS (CentOS 5.3->CentOS 5.4) I got an issue - a guest OS started to crash. Searching around for a possible cause I found bug post in CentOS bug tracker. Seems that issue is related to glibc update (last version is glibc-2.5-42) and a fix is to downgrade to previous version on host OS (glibc-2.5-34).

To be sure that your downgrade of glibc worked - check the size of libc-2.5.so. I got an issue on downgrade (even with --oldpackage rpm was not willing to replace a libc), and that's why I lost some hours trying to figure out what is going on. So, be sure to check the size of the files after downgrade. It can save you some hours :)

Twitter tip

RT @ryancarson: Top tip: You can put a "+" on the end of any http://bit.ly link and see, real time, the pace at which that link is getting shared and clicked

VMware troubles

Well, I'm not a hardware guru, but from my experience I figured out the following:

Dell Servers + QLogic HBA + IBM Storage = troubles

Dell Servers + Emulex HBA + IBM Storage = working ok

Dell Servers + QLogic HBA + EMC Storage = working ok

Other one issue is:

Any server + Any HBA + Any storage - Fiber Channel Switch = troubles (unclean filesystem on Linux guests with EXT3 filesystem)

"Network Connection Closed Unexpectedly" error while using svn+ssh

If you got a "Network Connection Closed Unexpectedly" error while using svn+ssh (here is a nice HOWTO) then you should comment (or remove) "mesg y" in /etc/bashrc or in $HOME/.bashrc

Worked for me as a charm :)

iPhone speaker too low

Well, I got a simple accident - "Mozart Chocolate Liqueur" were split over my iPhone 3G. I quickly clean it out, but... Next day I noticed that my iPhone speaker was too low. I was not able to hear it ringing. After looking around for solution I found a post telling that this can be caused by dust. Seems that this is my case (ok, not dust, but a creamy liqueur...). 

So, I put some music on my iPhone and start carefully cleaning the microphone hole with a needle. After just a few holes I made on the "dust" - I was able to hear that volume had increased. So I finished up cleaning by putting a needle just a little into every tiny hole of the speaker protection and everything worked like a charm. My speaker volume came back to the normal level (or even louder).

Just in case that you have a doubt on which one is speaker and which one is microphone on your iPhone - here is a picture: