VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘vmware server’

VMware Communities: Vmware-Server, RC1, Firefox 3.0.1, … is a popular thread right now. Here’s the scenario. If you are running VMware Server 2.0 RC1 and using Firefox to administer guest VMs, when you upgrade to Firefox version 3.0.1 the VMware Remote Console plug in is no longer compatible and is disabled. You get a message very similar to “VMware Remote Console Plug-in 2.5.0.100265 could not be installed because it is not compatible with Firefox 3.0.1“.

After reviewing the forum thread linked above and several other sources I have settled on what I think is the easiest work around – Add the Nightly Tester Tools Firefox plug in and force the incompatible Remote Console plug in to run.

I am running Ubuntu 8.0.4 and upgraded Firefox when I was prompted to install the latest distribution updates. Of course, hold off on the Firefox upgrade if you can and wait for the next release of VMware Server 2.0. Let’s assume (and hope) that the Server 2.0 team anticipates the frequent update cycle of Firefox moving forward and designs the plug in to survive upgrades if possible.

You can review the thread for a few other work arounds, but here’s the info on the Nightly Tester Tools plug in from the Firefox Addons web page:

Read the rest of this entry »

Jason Perlow of blogs.zdnet.com has written a great feature comparison post of the 2 best multi-platform, free virtualization products in my opinion – Sun xVM VirtualBox 1.6 and VMware Server 2.0 Beta 2.

Personally, I used to run VMware Server 1.x on my XP notebook until I was tempted to try VMware’s first beta of version 2.0. Although not an officially supported OS for any version of VMware Server, my use of Server on XP was for basic research and test purposes, and I chose the free version over VMware Workstation. Like most, after the switch to 2.0 beta 1 I experienced frustration with the web interface. Now, since I discovered Sun’s xVM VirtualBox 1.6 seamless feature and the ability to run virtual machines created in VMware’s .vmdk format, I have switched. I am extremely happy with VirtualBox, and I even consider it to be a closer open-source replacement for VMware Workstation with features that rival the still in beta version of Workstation 6.5. I also use VirtualBox 1.6 on both 64 bit and 32 bit Ubuntu at home.

Jason’s comparison focuses on using the products in a true virtualization host capacity, and he provides some interesting performance analysis. Read the rest of this entry »

The VMware Guest Operating System Installation Guide is downloadable as a .pdf or available online. The document’s “About this Book” section summarizes it’s purpose as follows:

“This manual, the Guest Operating System Installation Guide, provides users of VMware® ESX Server, VMware® GSX Server, VMware® Server, VMware® ACE, VMware® Workstation, and VMware Fusion^TM information about choosing and installing guest operating systems for VMware virtual machines.”

There are sections of installation instructions for every past and present operating system that is supported. What I am posting from this document is a very helpful table that is a quick reference of what VMware products support which VM operating systems. This table has been copied from the online version of the guide.

This table makes it very easy to answer questions like:  Read the rest of this entry »

The free VMware Server does not have the resource pools or shares system like ESX or ESXi. However, you can manually create priorities for your guest VMs to imitate the effects of these features. If you have a Linux host you can use the scheduler to prioritize by PID, or for any host OS, you can modify the .vmx file of each VM to set priority. In effect, both these methods create a “tug of war” design similar to the resource pool design I discussed in my post titled Designing ESX Resource Pools. The details of using both methods are discussed in this post. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the advantages of a virtual infrastructure is the ability to cost effectively replicate your production systems to a secondary disaster recovery environment. Not only can you do this with virtual machines, but there are now several options available to allow physical servers to be replicated to a stand-by VM. This post will briefly cover several products and solutions and provide multiple commercial options and a free alternative. Read the rest of this entry »

I run the free VMware Server on 32 bit Linux at home. I have it installed on PCLinuxOS 2007 – only because it was the distribution that I had loaded at the time. Before I installed VM Server I increased the server’s memory from 1 GB to 2 GB. Up until now I was only running a couple of VMs at a time and never really had any resource contention.

Just recently I decided to build some additional VMs, and to my surprise I noticed that the server was only showing 1 GB ram, and therefore VM Server only had 1 GB ram available for hosting guests. After some research I found the following article:

Linux.com :: Got more than a gig of RAM and 32-bit Linux? Heres how to use it

“Nowadays, many machines are running with 2-4 gigabytes of RAM, and their owners are discovering a problem: When they run 32-bit GNU/Linux distributions, their extra RAM is not being used. Fortunately, correcting the problem is only a matter of installing or building a kernel with a few specific parameters enabled or disabled.

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From the 2x.com web site:

Desktop Virtualization with 2X ThinClientServer and VMware

Desktop virtualization takes the headache out of desktop administration by increasing security, redundancy and scalability. With 2X ThinClientServer and VMware server you can run your desktops virtually on central servers, and use the client machines to connect to the virtual machines. Stream your company’s desktops and applications just like a video!

Benefits of Virtual Desktop computing with 2X ThinClientServer and VMware

• Maintain and secure Windows desktops and builds and all connected hardware devices from one central location
• Improve support by shadowing sessions and watching the user’s actions
• Easy addition, recovery and replacement of virtual desktops
• Centralize control by allowing you to remotely shutdown or restart all devices
• Reduce costs by converting old PCs to thinclients with the latest XP or Vista
• No Terminal Services CALs required – re-use existing Windows XP license.

What do I need to achieve this?

1. 2X ThinClientServer PXES edition – Cost: Free
2. VMware Server – Cost: Free
3. An OS, either Linux/Windows – Cost: Free (If re-using same license)

I am using the ThinClientServer at home.

I have VMware Server hosting both a Winodws server and an XP desktop. ThinClientServer is running on the server and is configured to allow a group of users to be assigned an RDP session to the XP VM. I have an old pc that I boot from CD (the ThinClient .iso) to connect to the ThinClientServer VM where my login is authenticated. Then I am able to log in to the XP desktop RDP session.

The old pc I am using has a 333mz cpu and 128 mb of ram. The XP VM is using my host’s 1800+ cpu and 512 mb ram. It works great! I did not have a hard drive for this pc or otherwise I could have permanently installed the thinclient OS. It’s a great solution! All that is missing is 32 bit graphics and DirectX!

There is also commercial edition that has full support. The free edition only provides support via their forums.

Let me know if you have tried 2X ThinClientServer in a production environment.