🛠 VmWare & Hardware version debug

Jenkins runs a powershell script and it creates a VM. Normally it works, but this morning I got this:

 

Virtual Machine [xxx] does not exist
Importing new Virtual Machine
New-VM : 4/4/2025 9:55:27 AM New-VM  An invalid argument "configSpec.guestId" was specified. 
At C:\...\powershell\commonScripts\Initialize-VM.ps1:247 char:14
+ ...    $newVM = New-VM -Name $VMName -ContentLibraryItem $templateObj -Da ...
+                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [New-VM], ViError
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ViCore_VMServiceImpl_DeployFromLibraryItem_ViNetException,VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Cm    dlets.Commands.NewVM

The first idea was that something has been changed in the powershell wrapper. But with the terraform I got more a less the same error. It was complaning about unsupported guest ID. In packer we explicitly specify rhel8_64Guest, but just in case I also decided to specify it in terraform https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/vsphere/latest/docs/resources/virtual_machine#guest_id-1 and got different errors:

rhel8_64Guest:

│ Error: deploy error: An invalid argument "configSpec.guestId" was specified.
│ 
│   with module.Personal.vsphere_virtual_machine.ld-lgonchar-2,
│   on modules/Personal/ld-lgonchar-2.example.local.tf line 2, in resource "vsphere_virtual_machine" "ld-lgonchar-2":
│    2: resource "vsphere_virtual_machine" "ld-lgonchar-2" {

rockylinux_64Guest:

│ Error: cannot find OS family for guest ID "rockylinux_64Guest": could not find guest ID "rockylinux_64Guest"
│ 
│   with module.Personal.vsphere_virtual_machine.ld-lgonchar-2,
│   on modules/Personal/ld-lgonchar-2.example.local.tf line 2, in resource "vsphere_virtual_machine" "ld-lgonchar-2":
│    2: resource "vsphere_virtual_machine" "ld-lgonchar-2" {

However in the docs https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/321876/determine-the-guest-os-from-a-vm-configu.html both of them exist. The next idea was to epoxrt list of guest IDs:

[VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineGuestOsIdentifier].GetEnumValues()

...
rhel8_64Guest
...
rockylinux_64Guest
almalinux_64Guest

and again... both of them exist. Also the windows VM were created without any problems. However, my workmate spotted that the different hardware version is available for customezation in web UI. I also found it in the doc https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/vsphere/latest/docs/resources/virtual_machine#hardware_version-1. So, If I set the hardware_version param to 21 it works because rockylinux_64Guest is introduced.

What happens?
1. We used to have the VM hardware compatibility set to version 19. And the templates we created used to be detected as RHEL8. And compatibility for version 19 supported RHEL 8.
2. Weekly template rebuild happens
3. what's happening right now?
- The template is still defined as RHEL 8
- During deployment VMWare automatically detects it as Rocky Linux 8
- Vmware sets the Guest OS to rockylinux_64Guest.
- rockylinux_64Guest is not compatible with VM version 19
- When the VM is startted it get the error The guest operating system 'rockylinux_64Guest' is not supported.
4. The compat level in packer template was increased to 21 and rebuilt.

Why it happens?

1. The first idea was that VMWare tools was updated(we are installing the latest one). but it's the same
2. The Vcenter version is also the same.
3. The code is also the same.
4. Something else has been updated inside the VM template(we also install all updates) like firmware but i've not find the diff yet. also the kernel https://oraclelinux.pkgs.org/8/ol8-baseos-latest-x86_64/kernel-4.18.0-553.46.1.el8_10.x86_64.rpm.html was suspicious but I found nothing interesting in the release notes
5. i also upgraded rocky 8.6->8.10 at a test VM just to exclude the changes in the /etc/redhat-release

so.. I don't know why.. wip..

#vmware #debug #terraform

📂 Photo archive

I have about 400gb of photos for 20+ years. The question is how to store it for the next 40 years? There are some problems:
- Durability - if it's stored on the HDD I lost it or it's damaged?
- Portability - if it's stored in google phots and the service has gone. how to restore data & meta data?
- Indexing - how to find desired photo?

After some iterations I've concluded with that:

💾 Storages
1. Get a synology storage(I have enough fun at work, so i looked for almost zero administration solution).
2. Get a cloud account with webdav interface and configure mirroring to it.
3. Get an external HDD and configure auto backup to it if it's connected to a NAS.
4. Configure phones automatically upload photos to a sort directory

🗄 Structure

.../photos/
  life/
    2012/
      2012-03-23 +tag1+ Very important event
      2012-03-23 +tag2+ not that important event
      2012-03-24 +tag3+ Another important event
    2013/
    ...
    2025/
  sort/
    lev/
      ...
      2025-04-08/
      2025-04-09/
    ...

Finally the structure is timeline & some tags. There are some manual proceses
1. Run a script to move files from sort to the date directories
2. Review the photos in the date directories, add tags and move it to the main timeline

⛳️ Tags
I decided to use + as delimiter because it should be supported by linux, mac, win. Also, I've decided to use 5 chars tags to make aligned. Some of them are self-explained. some not.
- autos - cars
- bikes - bicycles
- craft - DYI
- confs - conferences & meetups
- daily - blog/vlog
- event - just an important event like marriage, graduation, ...
- fixit - apartments renovation
- furry - pets, cats, dogs
- hikes - different hikes
- tours - trips & travels
- lions - I'm collecting, the lions picture. The rules are simple: you send me a picture + GPS, I'll send you later back photo from that place
- party - parties
- sport - sport events
- shows - music perfomances & conciertos
- study - pictures from school or university
- shoot - photo session
- works - work related

🏁 Result
1. I have portable solution. I almost 100% that in 40 years I'll have a way to read JPG files.
2. I have tags in place & can use find for searching.
3. If the hdd, NAS, cloud are dead because of fire/flood/meteor I still have a copy

💡 Plans:
1. Update EXIFs for photos 1950 - 2015 years: GPS & dates are missing
2. Add external indexer to make cool videos be place/person. But it shouldn't touch the master copy
- https://github.com/jabberjabberjabber/ImageIndexer
- https://www.photoprism.app/
- Photos + mac mini
3. Scan old photos. it might be interesting https://estherschindler.medium.com/the-old-family-photos-project-lessons-in-creating-family-photos-that-people-want-to-keep-ea3909129943

#photos

🗣 DevConf

I'm making the speach about GPT 4 IaC at https://www.devconf.info/cz/ . So, If you have a chance to visit it please ping me - will try to meet in person. otherwise, I'll post the important & interesting sumaries here.

June 12-14, 2025
Brno, Czech Republic

upd:
- schedule https://pretalx.devconf.info/devconf-cz-2025/schedule/
- my speach https://pretalx.devconf.info/devconf-cz-2025/talk/R7VQXB/ will be 2025-06-13 at 15:30 in E104

#speach #news

⚡️ Blackout in Spain & Portugal 2025-04-28

At 12:30, the grid lost over 15GW of power(about 60% of its total load).

❓What caused it? There’s no official answer, possible reason:
1. A short circuit triggered by a fire near a high-voltage line
2. This might destabilize a nuclear plant between Bordeaux and Toulouse
3. The domino effect led to a cascade failure & isolated Spain and Portugal from the rest of Europe

💡 Why did it take so long to restore? Because the system went down completely, operators couldn’t just flip a switch. They had to perform a black start

🛠 What is a black start? you need electricity to make electricity. How it works:
1. Tiny generators(eg diesel-based), kick in first-they don’t need the grid to run
2. They bring online slightly bigger power plants(eg hydro or gas turbines)
3. These medium stations help boot up larger stations like nuclear

Step-by-step, the grid is rebuilt. During that process:
- voltage and frequency must be matched
- the generation and consumption must be aligned

🌍 Terraform + OTC + windows

Surprisingly it was easy to create, but tricky to get access. It's not really well describe in the docs https://registry.terraform.io/providers/opentelekomcloud/opentelekomcloud/latest/docs/resources/compute_instance_v2#encrypted_password-1

1. Create the instance

resource "opentelekomcloud_compute_instance_v2" "win" {
  name      = "win"
  flavor_id = "s3.large.4"
  # Enterprise_Windows-Server_2025_STD_amd64_uefi_latest
  image_id          = "66b9843e-f662-40b2-a347-da1f99f314da"
  key_pair          = opentelekomcloud_compute_keypair_v2.pubkey.pub_key_name
...
}
...
output "win_admin_password_encrypted" {
  value     = opentelekomcloud_compute_instance_v2.win.encrypted_password
  sensitive = true
}

2. wait about ~5-10 mins till encrypted_password is reachable
3. Decode the password

echo pass - `terraform output -raw win_admin_password_encrypted | base64 -d | openssl rsautl -decrypt -inkey /path/to/private/key`

Alternative 1:
It's possible to print the password if terraform is able to decrypt

data "opentelekomcloud_compute_instance_v2" "win" {
  id                    = opentelekomcloud_compute_instance_v2.win.id
  ssh_private_key_path  = "/path/to/private/key"
}

output "win_admin_password" {
  value     = data.opentelekomcloud_compute_instance_v2.win.password
  sensitive = true
}

Alternative 2:
If there is cloud init inside, than it can be customized like that:

resource "opentelekomcloud_compute_instance_v2" "win" {
  name      = "win"
  flavor_id = "s3.large.4"
  # Enterprise_Windows-Server_2025_STD_amd64_uefi_latest
  image_id          = "66b9843e-f662-40b2-a347-da1f99f314da"
  user_data         = base64encode(<<-EOF
#ps1
$pwdAdmin = ConvertTo-SecureString "versysecurepassword" -AsPlainText -Force
Set-LocalUser -Name Administrator -Password $pwdAdmin -PasswordNeverExpires:$true
EOF
  )

#terraform #til #otc #windows

🛠 Ansible doesn't support python path with spaces

1️⃣ Jenkins job issue
I have jenkins job to test ansible roles. The job was was moved to the jenkins folder with the space & the error appeared:

<127.0.0.1> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'ANSIBLE_ASYNC_DIR=/home/jenkins_slave/.ansible_async/ /home/jenkins_slave/workspace/Ansible Guild/Snapshot/.venv/bin/python3.12 /home/jenkins_slave/...
failed: [localhost] (item=postgresql-instance) => {
    "ansible_loop_var": "item",
...
    },
    "module_stderr": "/bin/sh: /home/jenkins_slave/workspace/Ansible: No such file or directory\n",
    "module_stdout": "",
    "msg": "MODULE FAILURE\nSee stdout/stderr for the exact error",
    "rc": 127
}

I found that it caused by
1. calling community.docker.docker_container https://github.com/ansible-community/molecule-docker/blob/main/src/molecule_docker/playbooks/destroy.yml which executing
2. the python code https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.docker/blob/main/plugins/module_utils/module_container/module.py which called
3. the python code https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/lib/ansible/modules/async_wrapper.py

2️⃣ Reproduce
so it wasn't about the molecule. I decided to reproduce it:

1. Prepare the venv

 mkdir "test dir"
 cd test\ dir/
 export PYTHONPATH=/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages
 python3.12 -m venv .venv --system-site-packages
 . .venv/bin/activate
 pip3 install --upgrade pip
 pip3 install -r ../example/requirements.txt 

2. Run debug

ANSIBLE_KEEP_REMOTE_FILES=1 ansible  -vvvv -m stat -c local -i 'asd,' asd
...
python3 ./AnsiballZ_stat.py explode

3. check internals

 echo PLATFORM; uname; echo FOUND; command -v 'python3.12'; command -v 'python3.11'; command -v 'python3.10'; command -v 'python3.9'; command -v 'python3.8'; command -v 'python3.7'; command -v 'python3.6'; command -v '/usr/bin/python3'; command -v '/usr/libexec/platform-python'; command -v 'python2.7'; command -v '/usr/bin/python'; command -v 'python'; echo ENDFOUND
PLATFORM
Linux
FOUND
/home/username/test dir/.venv/bin/python3.12
/home/username/.pyenv/shims/python3.9
/usr/bin/python3.8
/usr/bin/python3.6
/usr/bin/python3
/usr/libexec/platform-python
/home/ms/lgonchar/test dir/.venv/bin/python
ENDFOUND

the module detected symlink and caused the issue.

4️⃣ What is the source?
1. .venv/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/ansible/executor/interpreter_discovery.py:60

try:
...
    shell_bootstrap = "echo PLATFORM; uname; echo FOUND; {0}; echo ENDFOUND".format('; '.join(command_list))

2. .venv/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/ansible/plugins/action/__init__.py

found_interpreters = [interp.strip() for interp in match.groups()[1].splitlines() if interp.startswith('/')]
quoted_interpreters = []
for interpreter in found_interpreters:
    if ' ' in interpreter and not (interpreter.startswith('"') or interpreter.startswith("'")):
        quoted_interpreters.append('"%s"' % interpreter)
    else:
        quoted_interpreters.append(interpreter)
found_interpreters = quoted_interpreters

so the idea was to modify the .venv/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/ansible/plugins/action/__init__.py

if ' ' in interpreter:
    interpreter = shlex.quote(interpreter)
async_cmd = [interpreter, remote_async_module_path, async_jid, async_limit, remote_module_path]

It fixed the python detection but also there are some other places were _low_level_execute_command is called and much work to do.

5️⃣ Final
1. Rename the jenkins folder without space
2. Propose to use the first interpreter without spaces https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/82535#issuecomment-2910076878

#ansible #debug #jenkins