VM /ETC

This post is a mix of the official Virtualization Mobile Manager (VMM )instructions found at Hyper9.com and my notes and screen shots of the configurations necessary to get the Tomcat application configured on Windows 2003 Standard with SP2. I’ve seen a few emails and comments from others who have found the VMM configuration process challenging, so I kept track of my install for future reference and hopefully to serve as some assistance to others.

At the end of this post I discuss my attempts to configure a virtual host in Tomcat in order to connect with VMM on my Blackberry from the Internet.

General Notes

Here’s the link to the Hyper9 VMM Getting Started Guide:

http://firstcontact.hyper9.com/index.php?title=VMM:Getting_Started

I Installed VMM on the same server running the Hyper9 search management tool.

VMM Requires Java 5 according to the Getting Started Guide. I installed the latest version of Java (ver 6 update 13).

I’ve quoted substantial portions of the Hyper9 Getting Started guide in the rest of this post. I’ve indented these sections to single them out from my comments

Install Java

Download Java at http://java.com/en/download/

I actually installed VMM before Java was installed. I had to re read the guide to catch this Java dependency, and when I saw it I remembered William Lam’s feedback thread where he indicates he also missed this detail when he was testing VMM. Regardless, I learned the hard way that Java can be installed after the VMM install. You will get an error when attempting to start the Apache Tomcat service until you install Java, however.

Install Java first and then start following the Hyper9 Guide.

Install VMM on Windows

1. Decompress the contents of the archive into a permanent location. C:\vmm is a good choice.
2. Open a command prompt and navigate to the new vmm directory.
3. Type bin\service install VMM to install VMM as a Windows service.

And you’re done. VMM is now installed. The next section explains how to configure VMM for your environment.

A screen shot of installing the VMM service

The VMM Properties File

The configuration of this file is critical to a successful VMM installation. In this section I added screen shots to the quoted guide for extra clarification on the configuration steps.

The VMM properties file, vmm.properties file is located at conf/vmm.properties

Adding Your First Hypervisor

Open the vmm.properties file and find the lines ….

com.hyper9.vmm.myserver.serverTypeAlias=vmware

The first property, com.hyper9.vmm.serverAliases, is a comma-delimited list of aliases that you define which reference your hypervisors. In the example text above there is a single server alias, myserver. Again, this does not have to be a valid DNS entry or network address. Just make it short and sweet as it will be used repeatedly in later property names. 

The second two properties, com.hyper9.vmm.myserver.serverTypeAlias and com.hyper9.vmm.myserver.displayName specify the server type alias and display name of your server.
!!! Be sure to change the myserver alias in the property paths to the alias you specified for your server. !!!
The server type aliases are defined earlier in the file, but for inclusivness, here they are again:

• vmware – This server type alias works for VMware Server 2 servers, VI3.5, and vSphere servers.
• hyperv – This server type alias works for Microsoft Hyper-V servers.
• xen5 – This server type alias works for Citrix XenServer 5 servers.

The display name property should be set to whatever value you desire to be displayed to the end user in the web interfaces (both full and lite modes).

Next find the line:

com.hyper9.vmm.server.myserver.address=myserver.mydomain.com

Change the alias myserver in the property path to whatever you named your server’s alias, and then change the actual value of the property to the IP address or fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) of your hypervisor.

You’ll notice that the lines above this describe properties such as port numbers and SSL settings. You can customize these too — either globally or specific to a server. To do this however it is recommended that you read the explanation of the property file’s schema.

Adding Additional Hypervisors

Adding additional hypervisors is simple. Just repeat the steps above by first adding a new alias to the com.hyper9.vmm.serverAliases property and then re-creating all of the properties that were discussed above for the new server alias.

So I started the Apache Tomcat service

Testing VMM with a web browser

Unfortunately, I could only test by opening web browser on my desktop. Although I was able to get the log in screen of the lite.jsp page on my Blackberry I kept getting an HTPP 500 error when attempting to log on. I was unable to test with other mobile devices.

In the feedback thread I mentioned earlier, William Lam reported he was able to make a VPN connection with his phone to test.

Here’s some screen shots of the VMM interface from a web browser

http://Hostname:8080/lite.jsp

Notice “null” in the servers drop down box of the first screen shot?

I had to go back and get the displayName properties section right! Restarted the service and all was OK.

Screen shots of http://Hostname:8080/full.jsp

Accessing VMM from the Internet

Next I needed to work out internet access so I could connect with my Blackberry.

Turns out I needed to add a virtual host on the embedded Tomcat server for the external URL my Blackberry browser was pointed at. I found some help from this web page:

http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2003/06/25/tomcat_tips.html

I used the example from this page on how to add a virtual host. As directed I edited the server.xml file. Note: be sure to replace the external hostname and the path=”" with the absolute path.

Then I restarted the Apache Tomcat service again.

Finally, after working out the port redirection on my lab firewall, I was able to see the log in screen on my Blackberry. Unfortunately, I was unable to log in on my Blackberry. I received an HTTP 500 error. I fooled around with adjusting my device browser settings, but since IE8 and Firefox web browsers allowed me to log on and manage my VMs fine, I lost interest and gave up learning about configuration and administration of Tomcat.

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