Sarah Fortune

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Keyboard layout problems with Sun Ray Connector for VMware VDM

Tuesday Feb 24, 2009

There have been a couple of problems reported with international keyboards and the Sun Ray Connector for VMware VDM.

Some of the issues are:

Inability to enter characters that require Alt Gr combinations
When numlock is enabled the Enter, backspace and arrow keys don't work
In the Windows session, the keyboard is mapped as US

The first two are caused by a problem with Java and xkb. The solution is either to turn of the xkb extensions using this command '/opt/SUNWut/bin/utxconfig -k off' in the kiosk script: /etc/opt/SUNWkio/sessions/vdm/vdm. Using Java 6 also solves these problems, (you will need the Java 6 update 12 JDK, other versions can cause problems). You may need to change the kiosk script to point to the correct Java install. Change the line 'theJavaExec=/usr/java/bin/java' to point to the new location.

The third problem is due to the locale not being set for the windows session. You can set it in two ways. In the Sun Ray web administration go to Advanced > Kiosk Mode > Edit and enter the correct value for Locale. Or you can pass the locale as an argument to the kiosk script. On the same page add the argument -l <locale> after the double dashes.

The names of the locales can be found here. These solutions assume that everyone on the site is using the same keyboard layout. Other configurations will require some extra changes to the kiosk script, that's left as an exercise to the reader.

Thanks to Tomas O'Connor for the solutions.

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Posted at 06:07PM Feb 24, 2009 by Sarah Fortune in Sun
Tags: kiosk srvc srvdm sunray vdi vdm virtualization

VirtualCenter unable to decrypt passwords

Tuesday Feb 03, 2009

There is a long standing problem in VirtualCenter 2.5 where cloning fails with this error:

The VirtualCenter server is unable to decrypt passwords stored in the customization specification.

It happens apparently randomly, but can be caused by installing Internet Explorer 7 on the VirtualCenter host. There is an ongoing thread in VMware communities about it: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/54721. There were rumours that the problem was going to be fixed in update 3, but it shows up in update 1, 2 and 3.

One of the solutions is to export the customisation spec, edit it so that the password is stored in plain text, and import it back into VirtualCenter.

If storing the password in plaintext isn't acceptable, replacing the SSL certificate in VirtualCenter can also fix the problem, provided the new certificate uses the password that is hardcoded into VirtualCenter.

Fix the problem by using plain text passwords

Export the customisation spec, and edit the saved XML file.

Locate the password section:

       <password>
          <_type>vim.vm.customization.Password</_type>
          <plainText>false</plainText>          
          <value>MJwe3zWdcKeAfZIBKDwhY6D+mSPBHMadN3oDFZxf3gjaQRZ9s/0IM6gumgiDjAGxGSPMJEbq4uyIZjUI57e3CVhIK7EmpZNgQTjQrV2D6wcmQSyTY5MUbpZXRicBjKVQY0Ln2TVXFe4Rke3R4W98pYwNr+SLy2NPYua5Hbs7vSk=</value>
        </password>

Change the value <plainText>false</plainText> to <plainText>true</plainText>
And <value>MJwe3zWdcKeAfZIB ... etc... </value> to the actual password, e.g. <value>Password01</value>.
So the password section should look like this:

       <password>
          <_type>vim.vm.customization.Password</_type>
          <plainText>true</plainText>          
          <value>Password01</value>
        </password>

Import the XML back into VirtualCenter as a new customisation spec.

Fix the problem by replacing the SSL ceritificate

Follow these instructions to generate and install a new certificate. Be warned it a pretty long process and requires you to install software your VirtualCenter server. http://vmetc.com/2008/07/22/guides-for-replacing-the-virtualcenter-certificate/
There is one step in the instructions needs to be modified, you have to change the password to the one that VirtualCenter expects.This command:
openssl pkcs12 -export -in rui.crt -inkey rui.key -name rui -passout pass:vmware -out rui.pfx
Should be replaced with:
openssl pkcs12 -export -in rui.crt -inkey rui.key -name rui -passout pass:testpassword -out rui.pfx
After you have replaced the certificate you will have to reconnect the ESX servers in VirtualCenter, and recreate the customisation specs. At this point it is safe to install Internet Explorer 7 on the server.