CategoriesUncategorized

Vmware Cookbook – Preview

Myself and co-author Matthew Helmke recently completed our VMware Cookbook which is being published by O’Reilly and will be on the shelved October 22, 2009.

Our editor Andy Oram posted a quick blurb with a couple of examples from the book. Check it out if you dig VMware ESX and virtualization..

http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/08/a-peek-at-vmware-cookbook-reci.html

http://www.amazon.com/VMware-Cookbook-Real-World-Guide-Effective/dp/0596157258/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251512058&sr=8-1

CategoriesUncategorized

Installing Ubuntu 9.04 in Virtualbox 2.2.0

Ubuntu 9.04 hit the streets today, so I decided to take a look at the process of installing Ubuntu 9.04 in VirtualBox a open-source virtualization application.

Installing VirtualBox is pretty easy, download the latest version of the application which is 2.2.0. It supports Windows XP, Linux 32bit/64bit, OS X, Solaris and OpenSolaris as the host operating system and then follow the on screen instructions to complete the installation. It’s pretty simple!

I used the OS X version of VirtualBox because my Mac was handy at the time. However, the screenshots are similar regardless of the operating system you have VirtualBox installed on. 🙂

The goal of this article is to show novice users a step by step installation of installing an Ubuntu Desktop inside of VirtualBox without having to mutli-boot their computer. I am going to assume you have VirtualBox installed and have either downloaded the Ubuntu ISO image or have an Ubuntu CDROM handy.

Image figures are at the bottom of the post.

Creating the Ubuntu virtual machine

  • Open VirtualBox and create a new virtual machine and click the “New” Icon (Figure 1). A new wizard window will appear as shown in (Figure 2), click “next”.
  • Enter the name of your new virtual machine perhaps “Ubuntu904Desktop” and then select “Linux” from the drop down Operating System menu, Ubuntu 32bit will highlight by default, click “Next” (Figure 3)
  • Select the amount of RAM you wish to dedicated to your Ubuntu Desktop, the default is 256MB however, 512MB would give you better performance if you have the available RAM, click “Next“. (Figure 4)
  • Next, you will be presented with the option to create a new hard disk or use an existing hard disk, select create a new hard disk (Figure 5). Click the “Next” button and another window will appear (Figure 6), click “Next“, you are presented with an option to for “Dynamic” or “Fixed” storage. Dynamic storage will grow the virtual disk as you require more space (saving space on the hard drive) whereas Fixed storage will pre-allocate the space. I’ve selected “Dyanmic” for this installation (Figure 7), click “Next“.
  • Enter the name of the virtual machine and select the amount of space you wish to give your Ubuntu Dekstop, I’ve opted to use the default of 8GB. (Figure 8, Figure 9) Click, “Next” and finally “Finish” to complete the creation of the virtual disk for the Ubuntu Desktop.
  • You will be dropped back to the virtual disk screen and  you will notice the new virtual disk, click “Next” to continue. (Figure 10)
  • Finally, the last screen will give you a general overview of the virtual machine, click “Finish” to complete. (Figure 11)

Installing Ubuntu

  • Now that the virtual machine template has been created we can begin the installation of Ubuntu. The first thing we need to do is attach the Ubuntu ISO image or CDROM to our virtual machine. Click the CD/DVD-ROM link, its blue,  a new window will appear as shown in (Figure 12).
  • Check the “Mount CD/DVD” button and then select either “Host CD/DVD” if you have the CDROM or “ISO Image file” if you have the ISO image. I’ve used the ISO image in this example, click “Ok” to complete. (Figure 13, Figure 14)
  • Select the virtual machine from the left menu in VirtualBox and click the green start arrow to turn on your virtual machine.
  • NOTE: Once you click in the virtual machine window your keyboard and mouse are locked in.
  • Your virtual machine will now restart and the Ubuntu installation will begin (Figure 15), select the appropriate language and press “enter“.
  • Next, you will be presented with a menu (Figure 16) using the arrow keys select the “Install Ubuntu” option and press “enter“. Installation will begin as shown in (Figures 17). Once the installer has loaded a new window will be presented starting the actual installation (Figure 18) the language you selected in the previous screen should already be highlighted. Click “Forward“.
  • On the next screen select your timezone and click “Forward” (Figure 19), select your keyboard language layout (Figure 20), click “Forward“.
  • Next, you are presented with the disk partitioner. We are going to use the defaults here which is “Use the entire disk“, click “Forward” to continue the installation.(Figure 21)
  • Next, you will be presented with a series of questions pertaining to setup of your user account. Fill in the fields with the acceptable information and click “Forward“. (Figure 22)
  • At this point installation is ready to begin, look over the proposed settings and click “Install” when you are ready. This will take a few minutes to complete. (Figure 23)
  • Figure 24 and 25 is an example of what you can expect along the way during installation.
  • When the installation is completed you will be prompted with a windows requiring you to restart the computer. (Figure 26) Things got kind of weird at this point, since the CDROM is attached to the virtual machine un-mounting it by going to the “Devices > Unmount CD/DVD-ROM” would do no good since the virtual machine would reboot off the CDROM again. I couldn’t find a decent way to remove the CDROM from the virtual machine unless I powered it off. So, hit enter to restart the virtual machine and then power it off by click the “X” on the window. You will be presented with three options select “Power off the machine” and click “Ok“.
  • Select the virtual machine and click the green “start” button again.
  • Once your machine has rebooted you will be prompted with a login screen as shown in (Figure 27, 28) enter the username and password you specified during installation to log into Ubuntu. You will now see your desktop (Figure 29).

Installing the guest additions

  • Now, that our Ubuntu operating system is installed we need to install the “Guest Additions” these are similar to the VMware Tools that VMware provides.
  • From the VirtualBox menu select “DevicesInstall Guest Additions” a CDROM will appear on your desktop and give you a warning just click “Cancel” it’s trying to auto-run as if it was in Windows. Navigate to “ApplicationsAccessoriesTerminal“.
  • Enter the following command to switch to the CDROM directory “cd /cdrom“. Invoke the installer by running the following command “sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run” if you have a 32bit platform or “sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-amd64.run” if you have a 64bit platform.
  • Once the Guest Additions are installed, reboot and you will be presented with a window telling you the benefits of them. Click “Ok” to dismiss the window.

Enjoy Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope!

CategoriesUncategorized

Installing Ubuntu 8.10 in VirtualBox

I mentioned a couple days ago in a quick write up on installing Ubuntu 8.10 in VMware Fusion that I would take a look at the process of installing Ubuntu 8.10 in VirtualBox. VirtualBox, unlike other desktop virtualization products is free for personal use and is opensource. It allows users to install a wide variety of operating systems without having the overhead of physical hardware.

Installing VirtualBox is pretty easy, download the application which supports Windows XP, Linux 32bit/64bit, OS X, Solaris and OpenSolaris as the host operating system and then follow the on screen instructions to complete the installation.

In this article I’ve used the OS X version of VirtualBox because my Mac was handy at the time. However, the screenshots are similar regardless of the operating system you have VirtualBox installed on.

The goal of this article is to show novice users a step by step installation of installing an Ubuntu Desktop inside of VirtualBox without having to mutli-boot their computer. I am going to assume you have VirtualBox installed and have either downloaded the Ubuntu ISO image or have an Ubuntu CDROM handy.

Creating the Ubuntu virtual machine

  • Open VirtualBox and create a new virtual machine and click the “New” Icon. A new wizard window will appear as shown in (Figure 1), click “next”.
  • Enter the name of your new virtual machine perhaps “Ubuntu810Desktop” and then select “Linux” from the drop down Operating System menu, Ubuntu 32bit will highlight by default, click “Next” (Figure 2)
  • Select the amount of RAM you wish to dedicated to your Ubuntu Desktop, the default is 256MB however, 512MB would give you better performance if you have the available RAM, click “Next“. (Figure 3)
  • Next, you will be presented with the option to create a new virtual Disk. Click the “New” button and another window will appear (Figure 4), click “Next“, you are presented with an option to for “Dynamic” or “Fixed” storage. Dynamic storage will grow the virtual disk as you require more space (saving space on the hard drive) whereas Fixed storage will pre-allocate the space. I’ve selected “Dyanmic” for this installation (Figure 5), click “Next“.
  • Enter the name of the virtual machine and select the amount of space you wish to give your Ubuntu Dekstop, I’ve opted to use the default of 8GB. (Figure 6, Figure 7) Click, “Next” and finally “Finish” to complete the creation of the virtual disk for the Ubuntu Desktop.
  • You will be dropped back to the virtual disk screen and  you will notice the new virtual disk, click “Next” to continue. (Figure 8 )
  • Finally, the last screen will give you a general overview of the virtual machine, click “Finish” to complete. (Figure 9 )

Installing Ubuntu

  • Now that the virtual machine template has been created we can begin the installation of Ubuntu. The first thing we need to do is attach the Ubuntu ISO image or CDROM to our virtual machine. Click the CD/DVD-ROM link, its blue (Figure 10 ) a new window will appear as shown in (Figure 11).
  • Check the “Mount CD/DVD” button and then select either “Host CD/DVD” if you have the CDROM or “ISO Image file” if you have the ISO image. I’ve used the ISO image in this example, click “Ok” to complete. (Figure 11, Figure 12)
  • Select the virtual machine from the left menu in VirtualBox and click the green start arrow to turn on your virtual machine. You will be presented with a new window and a warning (Figure 13) click “Ok” to dismiss this.
  • NOTE: Once you click in the virtual machine window your keyboard and mouse are locked in.
  • Your virtual machine will now restart and the Ubuntu installation will begin (Figure 14), select the appropriate language and press “enter“. You will be presented with another window telling you how to exit the screen (Figure 14a), click “Ok
  • Next, you will be presented with a menu (Figure 15) using the arrow keys select the “Install Ubuntu” option and press “enter“. Installation will begin as shown in (Figures 16). Once the installer has loaded a new window will be presented starting the actual installation (Figure 17 ) the language you selected in the previous screen should already be highlighted. Click “Forward“.
  • On the next screen select your timezone and click “Forward” (Figure 18), select your keyboard language layout (Figure 19), click “Forward“.
  • Next, you are presented with the disk partitioner. We are going to use the defaults here which is “Guided – use entire disk“, click “Forward” to continue the installation.(Figure 20)
  • Next, you will be presented with a series of questions pertaining to setup of your user account. Fill in the fields with the acceptable information and click “Forward“. (Figure 21)
  • At this point installation is ready to begin, look over the proposed settings and click “Install” when you are ready. This will take a few minutes to complete. (Figure 22)
  • Figure 23 is an example of what you can expect along the way during installation.
  • When the installation is completed you will be prompted with a windows requiring you to restart the computer. (Figure 24) Things got kind of weird at this point, since the CDROM is attached to the virtual machine un-mounting it by going to the “Devices > Unmount CD/DVD-ROM” would do no good since the virtual machine would reboot off the CDROM again. I couldn’t find a decent way to remove the CDROM from the virtual machine unless I powered it off. So, hit enter to restart the virtual machine and then power it off by click the “X” on the window. You will be presented with three options select “Power off the machine” and click “Ok“.
  • Select the virtual machine and click the green “start” button again.
  • Once your machine has rebooted you will be prompted with a login screen as shown in (Figure 26) enter the username and password you specified during installation to log into Ubuntu. You will now see your desktop (Figure 27).

Installing the guest additions

  • Now, that our Ubuntu operating system is installed we need to install the “Guest Additions” these are similar to the VMware Tools that VMware provides.
  • From the VirtualBox menu select “Devices > Install Guest Additions” a CDROM will appear on your desktop and give you a warning just click “Cancel” it’s trying to auto-run as if it was in Windows. Navigate to “Applications > Accessories > Terminal“.
  • Enter the following command to switch to the CDROM directory “cd /cdrom“. Invoke the installer by running the following command “sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run” if you have a 32bit platform or “sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-amd64.run” if you have a 64bit platform. (Figure 28)
  • Once the Guest Additions are installed, reboot and you will be presented with a window telling you the benefits of them. Click “Ok” to dismiss the window. (Figure 29)

Enjoy Ubuntu. 🙂

Edit: Andreas pointed out in a comment below of an issue with keyboard layouts using Ubuntu 8.10 and Windows XP SP3. You can find more information here.

CategoriesUncategorized

Installing Ubuntu 8.10 in Fusion

If you have a Mac and Fusion this article will get you started with a safe way to install Ubuntu without having to mutli-boot your Mac. In this article we’ll be discussing installation of Ubuntu using a commercial virtualization product from VMware called Fusion, in the coming days we’ll also look at Virtual Box an opensource project similar to VMware Fusion.

VMware Fusion is the OS X equivalent to VMware Workstation or VMware Server (free), which runs on Linux and Windows. These products allow you to virtualize operating systems without having to format your main desktop or laptop hard drive. We are going to look at a the installation of Ubuntu 8.10 inside of VMware Fusion and discuss some caveots you may encounter along the way. Before we begin we’ll assume you have the Ubuntu 8.10 ISO image downloaded and you have the latest version of VMware Fusion installed.

Like most virtualization desktop products VMware Fusion uses a very simple GUI wizard to guide the user through the installation allowing them advanced installation options if they wish. Throughout the article, I will reference (Figure X) to correspond with the correct images which are displayed at the end of the article.

Virtual Machine Creation

  • Open Fusion and create a new virtual machine by navigating to File > New from here a new window will appear (Figure 1).
  • Next, select “Continue without disk“, this will bring you to another window (Figure 2) allowing you to select the installation media. Select “Use Operating system installation disk image file ” select the Ubuntu ISO image, then click “Continue“.
  • Next, select the operating system and distribution type (this will default to Linux, Ubuntu 32bit) and click “Continue” as shown in (Figure 3).
  • Finally, You will be presented with a finalization window displaying the current settings of your virtual machine. If you wish to make further advanced customizations to the memory, cpu, disk and so you can select the “Customize settings” button. You can also have the virtual machine automatically start when Fusion is opening by putting a check in the “Always open this virtual machine when VMware Fusion starts” option. (Figure 4)
  • Once you are satisfied with your settings click, “Finish” to build the virtual machine and continue with the Ubuntu installation. You will be prompted to enter a name for the virtual machine once you finalize your settings.

Ubuntu Installation

  • NOTE: Once you click in the virtual machine window your keyboard and mouse are locked in, press Control-Command to release it.
  • Your virtual machine will now restart and the Ubuntu installation will begin (Figure 5), select the appropriate language and press “enter“.
  • Next, you will be presented with a menu (Figure 6) using the arrow keys select the “Install Ubuntu” option and press “enter“. Installation will begin as shown in (Figures 6 and 7). Once the installer has loaded a new window will be presented starting the actual installation (Figure 8 ) the language you selected in the previous screen should already be highlighted. Click “Forward“.
  • On the next screen select your timezone and click “Forward” (Figure 9), select your keyboard language layout (Figure 10), click “Forward“.
  • Next, you are presented with the disk partitioner. We are going to use the defaults here which is “Guided – use entire disk“, click “Forward” to continue the installation.(Figure 11)
  • Next, you will be presented with a series of questions pertaining to setup of your user account. Fill in the fields with the acceptable information and click “Forward“. (Figure 12)
  • At this point installation is ready to begin, look over the proposed settings and click “Install” when you are ready. This will take a few minutes to complete. (Figure 13)
  • Figures 14, 15, 16 , 17 , 18 and 19 are examples of what you can expect along the way during installation.
  • When the installation is completed you will be prompted with a windows requiring you to restart the computer. Before doing this click the “Settings” button on the Fusion menu, navigate to the CDROM and disconnect it by un-checking the box, you will be given a warning select “Yes“. Once the CDROM is disabled, click “Restart now” to finalize and reboot (Figure 20).
  • Once your machine has rebooted you will be prompted with a login screen as shown in (Figure 21) enter the username and password you specified during installation to log into Ubuntu.

VMware Tools Installation

Now that our Ubuntu desktop installation is complete we need to install some additional tools in order to maximize productivity. VMware provides a utility called VMware Tools, which allows you to share folders, the keyboard and mouse between the virtual machine and the host operating system, in this case OS X and Ubuntu.

  • Once you are logged into the Ubuntu Desktop, you will want to install all the latest updates for Ubuntu to ensure the VMware tools install correctly. To do this, goto System > Administrator > Update Manager, click the “Check” button and enter your password if required.  Updates will be displayed, finally click “Install Updates“. This may take awhile depending on your Internet connection speed and the amount of updates required. Once completed, reboot your Ubuntu Desktop.
  • Once rebooted, Click the “Virtual Machine” menu bar while in Fusion. From here select the “Install VMware Tools” option. You will notice a CDROM being mounted on your Ubuntu desktop, drag the file to your desktop and double click it and drag the contents to the desktop. (Figures 22 and 23)
  • Next, we need to drop to a terminal and install a couple pieces of software. Navigate to Applications > Accessories > Terminal at the command prompted enter the following “cd ~Desktop/vmware-tools-distrib” and  “sudo apt-get install build-essential” to install the compilers needed for the VMware tools installation. If prompted enter your password, a confirmation dialogue will appear enter “y” and press enter. (Figure 25)
  • Once complete, run the following command to begin the VMware tools installer “sudo ./vmware-install.pl“. To save room I did not include the output from the installer, however, you can select the defaults throughout by pressing “enter” for each question.
  • Reboot once the VMware tools installation has completed, log in to your Ubuntu Desktop and then maximize the screen. VMware tools should automatically resize your desktop to fix your screen and your mouse should flow from Ubuntu to OS X without issue.
  • Enjoy Ubuntu 🙂

Below are the images referenced during installation.

CategoriesUncategorized

JeOSVMBuilder and VMware ESX

Virtualization is one thing that really gets me motivated, I primaly work with VMware’s ESX products however, I’ve recently been looking at alternative solutions such as Xen and Virtualbox to broaden my knowledge further. Earlier this year I co-wrote an article with Matthew Helmke on Ubuntu Jeos for Linux+ magazine. The other day I was looking at some Jeos information on the Ubuntu website and stumbled upon the vmbuilder application. 

The vmbuilder application will let you quickly build a virtual machine for a variety of virtualization products Xen, VMware Workstation, VMware Server, kvm and so on. Vmbuilder is very slick, after a couple software installations and I was building a VMware Server image on my Ubuntu desktop without any hassles. I then used VMware converter to import and convert the virtual machine to a VMware ESX compatible format. For those who might not know, VMware Server can use IDE based disks where as ESXi/ESX requires SCSI based disks.

I was curious as to why the vmbuilder application didn’t have support for the VMware ESX and noticed salf.dk submitted a patch to the vmbuilder application which extends the features allowing for ESXi/ESX vmdk creation. I promptly decided to test this patch and it worked well, however I noticed that the template for ESXi was setting the maximum CPU’s to “2”. Normally, in a ESXi/ESX environment you don’t need to pre-allocate multiple cpu’s to your virtual machine upfront because of the way ESXi/ESX handles resources.

So, I submitted a change based off the patch from salf.dk,  to allow a new CPU variable to be set during the build stage of a virtual machine.

I hope the maintainer of the vmbuilder project will merge the ESXi patches provided, this will be a nice alternative for mass producing test Ubuntu servers running ESXi/ESX environments.

CategoriesUncategorized

VMWare ESX 3.5u3 in Fusion

I’ve recently been working on a project and needed quick access to a ESX server for reference. I happen to use Macbook Pro and run VMWare’s Fusion product to manage my Ubuntu Linux and Windows desktops. I figured why not try to run ESX as well. Below are the extra variables I added to make ESX run stable inside Fusion.

Hardware: MacBook Pro 2.4ghz (code 2 duo), 4GB ram (early 2008 model)
VMWare Fusion: 2.0.1
VMWare ESX: 3.5U3

I needed to add the following variables to my .vmx file in order to successfully boot and install ESX inside Fusion. I’ve noticed some people are suggesting using 2 cpu’s instead of one however I found this caused serve slowness and ESX will run just fine with 1 CPU.

monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = TRUE
monitor_control.vt32 = TRUE
numvcpus = "1"
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
ethernet0.connectionType = "bridged"

CategoriesUncategorized

USB devices with VMWare ESX

I decided to do a short write up on using USB devices on your virtual machines inside of VMWare ESX. One of the challenges the company I worked faced when moving our physical servers to virtual machines was the fact some of the servers required a USB dongle for the software to run.

Unlike other VMWare desktop products such as Workstation or Fusion, ESX doesn’t allow you to utilize the ESX servers native USB ports and map them to a virtual machine.

We first tried a solution from Digi called AnywhereUSB, the product works well and is very stable and cost about $250 per unit. However, the down fall was we wanted to utilize the extra ports for other servers. At the time (and this still me be the case) the AnywhereUSB product wouldn’t allow multiple virtual machines to connect to the device and share the ports, we needed a solution that would allow separate virtual machines to connect to a dedicated port.

The second and final solution was a product from Lantronix called UBox, specifically the 4100 model and it cost around $150. It allows for 4 USB devices to be connected and each port can be specifically dedicated for a virtual machine, allowing us to connect 4 USB devices to 4 separate virtual machines without them knowing about each others devices. You can also have the operating system auto connect back to the USB device when the server is rebooted to ensure the hardware is always there by using the configuration software.

The simple configuration application will sit in the system tray of Windows. Below are a few screen-shots of the application (sorry for the nasty edits).

You’ll  notice the second image is giving us a warning about the software version we are running, it’s because it’s running on Windows 2000.

One of the cool things about these Lantronix units is that we are able to connect Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 virtual machines to the same UBox. The device comes with the Windows XP, 2003 software however the Windows 2000 software can be downloaded on the companies website.

In the end the Lantronix unit performs well, we have it setup on a private network and have had relatively few problems.