VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘linux’

Duncan over at Yellow-Bricks.com just a posted about a technology preview of the new VMware vCenter 2.5 for Linux available for beta testing. The virtual appliance can be downloaded from the VMTN forums in both .zip and .ovf format.

This early edition is for beta testing only, and VMware strongly suggests not to use this edition in a production environment. There is also a vCenter on Linux install guide .pdf available for download.

I’m looking forward to my current download completing so I can explore vCenter on Linux. I will not be able to post anything immediately as verbiage from the download page clearly states this technical preview is “highly confidential”.

Hopefully this is the start of some exciting new product announcements and features to coincide with the opening day of VMworld Europe 2009 tomorrow!

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu Project, has announced via the Ubuntu Development List that Ubuntu Server 9.10, which will be available in October 2009, will allow companies to build their own open source, private clouds. Mark explains in his announcement, “Ubuntu aims to keep free software at the forefront of cloud computing by embracing the API’s of Amazon EC2, and making it easy for anybody to setup their own cloud using entirely open tools.” Mark states that official Ubuntu based revisions of Amazon Machine Images (AMI), the operating system and software stack currently deployed on Xen Server in the EC2 cloud, are currently in beta.

However, Mark indicates that plans for the new Ubuntu Server include more than just providing for the hosted Amazon Cloud service:

“What if you want to build an EC2-style cloud of your own? Of all the trees in the wood, a Koala’s favourite leaf is Eucalyptus. The Eucalyptus project, from UCSB, enables you to create an EC2-style cloud in your own data center, on your own hardware.”

Ubuntu 9.10 ’s official distribution name will be “Karmic Koala” thus explaining the mascot refrence in the previous quote. (I can’t help but think about dining at the Rainforest Cafe when considering all of the Ubuntu distro names and mascots!) Eucalyptus is a cloud management interface in development by Ubuntu which will enable private EC2 style clouds. Eucalyptus is actually an acronym for Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve probably already heard about VMware’s open source VDI client. VMware’s official announcement for the VMware View Open Client was released on February 4. Touted as the next step for creating a universal client to be used on any device from anywhere, VMware releasing the client as open source enables technology partners to start to fufill the vision. In VMware’s words:

“Now, VMware is providing VMware View Open Client for partners, enabling them to use VMware View source code to optimize their products to deliver rich, personalized virtual desktops to users. In addition, partners will be able to use the source code to help accelerate the development and delivery of solutions for enterprises to provision and manage thousands of virtual desktops simply, securely and at substantially lower operating costs.”

What I find most interesting is that Linux systems now have a installable VDI client. Unless I am mistaken, previously a web browser was the only way a connection to a virtual desktop could be made from Linux. Not only does this increase the functionality and features, Read the rest of this entry »

VMware announced specific Linux packages are now available for it’s VM Tools not too long ago. They also introduced the  Operating System Specific Packages (OSP) Home Page where “you will be able to search, browse and download VMware Tools software packaged in the native package format (e.g. rpm, deb etc) for select supported Operating Systems.” At VMworld 2008 I attended a session about VMware’s Roadmap for Linux that promised distribution packages were on the horizon, so it’s great to see them so quickly.

VMware currently has Linux packages for:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (including GA and Update Releases 1 through 7)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (including GA and Update Releases 1 and 2)
• Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 (including GA and Service Pack releases 1 through 4)
• Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10 (including GA and Service Pack releases 1 and 2)
• Ubuntu Linux 8.04 (including GA and Update Release 8.04.1)

VMware has created a guide for installing the OSPs (http://www.vmware.com/pdf/osp_install_guide.pdf), but after reading this PDF I was a little disappointed in the complicated process described inside. It made me curious if it could really be that hard, for Ubuntu for example, when so many packages are readily available via the Synaptic Package Manager. So, I decided to check for myself and the result was the screen shot image in this post. Click it for a larger view.

I haven’t actually tried an install from Synaptic yet, but I am definitely excited about the package availability! Let me know if you’ve already used Synaptic, Yum, apt-get, or any other native Linux package management tool to successfully install VMware Tools.

In my opinion, this is a huge advancement in the automation of Linux guest administration, and it will make installing and  keeping VMware Tools updated for Linux operating systems almost as easy as in Windows guests!

5 Linux-based Virtualization Companies to Watch on Ken Hess’s Linux Blog is a post about the 5 main server virtualization platforms based on Linux. Ken also mentions the only non Linux based hypervisor, Microsoft’s Hyper-V.

“There’s only one company that doesn’t use Linux for its server virtualization platform. Can you guess which one it is? If you guessed Microsoft, you’re correct. Microsoft is a newbie in the virtualization space but wants in and may make significant dents in the already well-established market that is significantly owned by VMware. For Windows-only virtualization, there may be some validity to the switch to Hyper-V.

For the rest of us, who are either too stubborn or too smart to make the shift to Hyper-V, what are our choices? The following is a list of 5 of the main players in Linux-based virtualization.”

Use the link above to read all of Ken’s original post for some brief info about each platform, but I am listing the 6 products and the links to their free versions for quick reference here. Ken does not discuss nor am I including free hosted platforms such as Microsoft Virtual PC or VMware Server. Read the rest of this entry »

If you run the free VMware Server on a Linux host then VMTN Communities user phxrider has created a couple of scripts that can make your life a little easier. Phxrider’s clone and rename scripts automate the process of two administrative tasks that are frankly a burden to do manually. Both VMware Server 1.x or 2.0 do not offer any template or cloning abilities from their respective GUI interfaces, so these scripts are an essential tool to have if you want to duplicate VMs or change the VM’s files to match a renamed directory.

Check out either http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8050 or the VMTN Forum thread at http://communities.vmware.com/thread/168266 to download the scripts. Here’s some brief info from these links:

“The clone script does a straight clone of a VM. It copies the directory, renames the files and tweaks all the text inside the files by using sed to replace the old name with the new one, then sets all the permissions to what they would be if you created a new VM.

The rename script basically does all but copy it. This is handy for if you tried to rename a directory manually or attempted a manual copy and then found it still shows up under the old name in the web console. Remember this one assumes you have already renamed the directory to the new name and it MUST be the same as what you intend for the new name to be.

Both work the same way… scriptname <old name> <new name>”

I am not aware of equivalent scripts for VMware Server hosted on Windows, but if they exist please leave a comment with a link for VM /ETC readers.

The rest of this post is my example of using the clone_vm.sh script to make a template for future VMware Server 2.0 VM cloning. Read the rest of this entry »

So everybody and their mother has a virtualization product now. Too bad all the vendors could not standardize on the same key (or key combinations) that releases the mouse from a virtual machine’s (VM) console window. Until that day happens (don’t hold your breath) this post will be my listing of known host key or key combinations by vendor and product for when your mouse is stuck in a VM.

Please leave a comment on any products I have not included and I’ll update the list.

Updated 10.03.08 – corrected key combination for Mac versions and created separate rows for VMware Fusion and Parallels Workstation

 

One of the posts I used as a research reference was Common Virtualization Keyboard Shortcuts from x86virtualization.com. Check out this post for a complete listing all keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft and VMware products besides the one for escaping the mouse from the VM console.