tom's blog » Virtualization

More OpenSource virtualization

tom — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:56:42 +0000

Wow!
I just found Proxmox Virtual Environment (v1.1) which is kind of combination between VMware and OpenVZ.
There is the possibility to run Virtual “chrooted” Appliances and “real” Virtual Machines.
That means, you have your Linux boxes (OpenVZ style) and Windows machines (KVM virtualization).
-> (Almost) NO overhead, when running linux clients (because of chrooted environment)
-> Possibility to run Windows machines, etc., too

Features:
- Out-of-the-box installation (insert CD, [Enter], [Enter], ready)
- Web based management
- Cluster functionality
- Live migration
- Install clients from ISO files (full virtualization)
- Run (OpenVZ) templates (container virtualization)
- Backup / Restore (via LVM snapshots)
- Testing Proxmox VE in VMware
- ….

I think it’s worth to have a look at …

Note: 64bit CPU required; for full (KVM) virtualization, you need Intel VT / AMD-V support.

VMware Server 1.0.7 released

tom — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:22:26 +0000

A few days ago, VMware Server 1.0.7 has been released.
The update mainly cares about security issues:

Security Fix for VMware ISAPI Extension
Setting ActiveX killbit
Security Fix for Local Privilege Escalation on Host System
Update to Freetype 2.3.7

More info can be found in VMware’s Release Notes

VMware Server [1.06] on SLES 10 x86_64

tom — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:52:41 +0000

OS: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 (x86_64) [64 bit]

VMware Server [1.06] depends on some 32 bit software:
+ xorg-x11-libs-32bit-6.9.x (should automatically add the other packages, too)
- expat-32bit-2.0.x
- fontconfig-32bit-2.3.x
- freetype2-32bit-2.1.x
- glibc-32bit-2.x
- ncurses-32bit-5.x
- zlib-32bit-1.2.x

Additionally gcc, make, kernel headers, etc. have to be installed to run vmware-config-tools.pl properly.

If you forgot installing the 32bit packages, an error like this might appear:
The correct version of one or more libraries needed to run VMware Server may be missing. This is the output of ldd /usr/bin/vmware: linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000) libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0xf7f1f000) libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0xf7f1b000) libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0xf7f08000) libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0xf7e0a000) libXtst.so.6 => not found libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0xf7dfa000) libXt.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXt.so.6 (0xf7da3000) libICE.so.6 => /usr/lib/libICE.so.6 (0xf7d8a000) libSM.so.6 => /usr/lib/libSM.so.6 (0xf7d81000) libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXrender.so.1 (0xf7d78000) libz.so.1 => /lib/libz.so.1 (0xf7d65000) libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0xf7c38000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xf7f5d000) libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0xf7c35000) libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0xf7c2f000)

Update June 24rd, 2008:
Disable powersaved or any other cpu throttling software – otherwise you’ll get in trouble with time (running too fast / slow) within the vm guests. VMware Tools should be installed (in the virtual [guest] machine), anyway.

VMware Server 2.0 beta released

tom — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:28:24 +0000

A new version of VMware Server 2.0 has been released – Version 2.0 beta 1 is available right now.

New features:

improved web-based management interface
more operating systems are supported
better support of high end hardware (up to 8 GB per virtual machine, etc..)
64 bit os support
support for usb 2.0
…

Howto: Install Win98SE in VMware Server for Linux

tom — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:01:34 +0000

Just a short howto for installing Windows 98 SE (R) in VMware Server (1.0.3) for Linux. Although I’m not a big fan of M$, sometimes I have to use it. I.e. my bank does not have any linux software for online banking… whatever.. I had an old Win98SE license at home and that ~~crap of~~ software is quite fast as a virtual machine and as long I don’t have to use too often, stability is not the essential part for me..

Prerequisite: You already have installed VMware Server

Create a new virtual machine and choose Win9x as guest system. As the Win9x cdrom is not bootable, boot with a dos disk and create a partion using fdisk (If you lost your dos disk or you don’t have a floppy drive, you can get an image i.e. at http://www.bootdisk.com).

After rebooting your computer, format drive c: using
format c: /s

Reboot your computer again and ensure that atapi/scsi drivers are loaded so that you can access your cdrom-drive (or image).
Start installation with
Z:\setup.exe /iv

The rest is quite easy – follow the installtion steps in the setup program and install the VMware Tools when your system is up and running.

If you want to enable sound, add a sound device for the virtual machine and install the Sound Blaster PCI 128 (R) driver from the creative labs archive.

VMware / time sync with linux guests

tom — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 13:23:57 +0000

In my default configuration, time was running way too fast in VMware linux guests. After spending hours of searching howto solve the problem, I finally found a few different points that might work as a solution.

Enviroment:
Host: SuSE Linux 10.1
Guest: SuSE Linux 10.1
VMware Server: 1.0.2

Install the vmware-tools on the guest.
Don’t forget to install the kernel-sources if you have to recompile some modules.
Insert clock=pit into the guest’s kernel boot options.
When you’re using grub, it kinda looks like this:
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda3 apm=off acpi=off clock=pit
Set tools.syncTime = “TRUE” in your virtual machine .vmx-file
(found on the host machine [default in /var/lib/vmware/..])
Your guest has to be rebooted to activate this setting.
Finally, I had to change a little thing on the host machine:
Disable powersaved (or powernowd or whatever applies to you)

~~From that time on, my guests are perfectly in sync with the host’s time.~~

Note: Nov, 23th 2007: .. or not … time is still too fast on some virtual machines : (

Next thing I tried right now is to add the following lines in /etc/vmware/config:
host.cpukHz = 2200000 host.noTSC = TRUE ptsc.noTSC = TRUE
Where 2200000 (2,2 GHz) is the max speed of the host cpu.

+ Updated to VMware Server 1.0.4
^^ At first sight, this works perfectly for me : )

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