VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘vmware tools’

I created a Windows 7 virtual machine in VMware Player, ran it for a while on my Windows notebook, and then decided to move it to one of my Ubuntu machines and host it in VirtualBox. I had no problem copying the folder and files between the different host based hypervisors. VirtualBox can use a virtual disk in the VMware .vmdk format so it was just a matter of file transfers between computers. VirtualBox has it’s own Guest Editions (or host tools) to add functionality and improve performance, so I needed to make that switch inside the VM too. My problem was that I did not remove the VMware Tools before I moved the VM.

When I went to uninstall VMware Tools after powering the VM on Ubuntu and in VirtualBox I received a message that “no VMware Products were detected”. Luckily, I quickly figured out I wasn’t the first to attempt this move and experience this hurdle. The post Uninstalling VMware tools when not running on a VMware host tells the same tale and provides the answer.

“I added the VMware Tools ISO to that VM and opened a command prompt. Then I found the “setup.exe” or “setup64.exe” files on the cd. Run those in the cmd window with a /c switch. (example:  ”setup64.exe /c” )  This will remove the Tools.  I installed the VirtualBox additions and then reboot.  On my Windows 2008 server it crashed on first reboot, then then I tried again and it loaded up just fine.  Network works and everything! Yay!”

On my Windows host with VMware Player installed (VMware Workstation has a similar location) the windows.iso file was found at C:\program files(x86)\VMware\VMware Player\windows.iso. Your path needs to be adjusted based on whether you have a 32 bit or 64 bit OS obviously. Mine was a 64 bit host even though the directory was at c:\program files(x86), by the way.

I’ll let you figure out your preferred method on how to copy the windows.iso file to the Ubuntu host, but once you do you can:

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This session was my last VMworld 2008 session on Tuesday 9.17. I must have missed it in my notebook Tuesday night, so I am posting my notes now. The session was hosted by Mike DePetrillo, Principal Systems Engineer at VMware. Mike did the entire session on one leg. If you saw one of Mike’s sessions or you know Mike you’ll understand that comment.

This session was designed for companies that are primarily Linux shops and have numerous virtual machines (VMs) on VMware virtual infrastructure. Mike provided general information about Linux as a guest OS as well as some best practices and performance tips for both the VMs and the ESX hosts. The rest of this post is my notes from the session.

Mike started out by talking about general recommendations for building Linux VMs.

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Last week I had a customer ask me for help with a repetitive administrative task that is extra aggravating for shops with a lot of Linux virtual machines (VMs). The customer was frustrated with the manual process of upgrading VMware Tools after kernel upgrades in their VMs. It’s a problem unique to Linux since the Windows operating system kernel does not change very frequently, but the development cycle of several Linux distributions can mean multiple kernel versions each year. After each upgrade and subsequent VM reboot the VMware tools must be re-installed so the tools are compiled correctly with the new kernel. Not exactly fun to do when you have a lot of Linux VMs.

I suggested 2 alternatives for the customer. The first is a scripted solution configured inside each Linux VM and the second is a built in feature of VirtualCenter and ESX for versions 2.0.1 and 3.0.1 or greater. I have not tested either of these solutions. My reason for writing this post is partly to explain the options, but also to get some feedback from the community. Let me know if you use or have tried either of these solutions or anything similar. If there is a better way please comment on this post! If you try one of these for your Linux virtual guests let me know what works and what doesn’t.

The following methods require that VMware tools are already installed in the Linux guests. For instructions for installing the tools check out the current VMware .pdf guide titled Basic System Administration Update 2 Release for ESX 3.5, ESXi version 3.5, VirtualCenter 2.5. if you are wondering if you should even install VMware tools in Linux guests than check out my post “Why do I need to install VMware Tools?”. Read the rest of this entry »

It happens more frequently than I would ever imagine, but from time to time I find clients have not installed the VMware tools in their virtual machine’s (VM) operating system. I find it more often in Linux VMs than Windows, but I’ve discovered it for both types of guests none-the-less. Some times the tools install is overlooked or forgotten, but every once in a while I am told something like “Does Linux needed VMware tools?” or “what do the VMware tools do for me anyways?”.

Well, I do not have any unique insight or clever commentary to add, but I am providing the following cut and pastes from the VMware .pdf Basic System Administration Guide as a easy reference. At the very least this post will save me some time because I won’t have to dig this info out of the .pdf again when I am asked.

The following sections provide info on what you install when you install VMware tools as well as steps for installing the tools for both Windows and Linux VMs. The rest of this post is not my material but comes straight from the linked guide above – although not necessarily in the order it appears in the original document, however. Download and read the current version for yourself! Read the rest of this entry »

It’s good to see more and more of the various Linux distributions prepackage enhancements that benefit the operating system when running in virtual machines. This also makes life a whole lot easier for the administrator configuring the virtualized OS. Building VMs is already fast in comparison to physical servers, but having to take the time to modify config files to get a usable screen resolution can get on your nerves real quick! Anyone who has ever built a Linux VM over the past several years has most likely experienced Xorg (screen resolution) problems and knows what I am talking about.

Today, thanks to VMware making a large part of the Linux version of the VMware Tools open source, the latest distribution of Ubuntu (8.04 or Hardy Heron) includes the xserver-xorg-video-vmware package in it’s core installation. Hopefully the other popular distributions are doing the same. Frankly, I haven’t had the chance to explore CentOS, Fedora or Red Hat, but recent announcements seem to indicate that the same virtulized enhancements are taking place for those distros too.

So, what this means is that you Read the rest of this entry »

Installing VMware tools on Linux virtual machines can be challenging compared to installing the tools on Windows VMs. Unfortunately the differences of various different Linux distributions do not allow a universal point and click installer to be created. Each distribution has package dependencies that must be met, and those packages are installed by different means in their respective operating systems.

In my experience a few of the Linux operating systems will complete the tools install without pre-installing the dependencies. SUSE has been one of these distributions. It seems more and more companies are both performing P2V migrations of SUSE servers or building new VMs with the OS. This fact, in turn, means that understanding how to install VMware Tools in the SUSE OS has become a more frequently asked question. I wrote the following tutorial for a client running openSUSE. Although this was written for the open source version, use this post as an example for VMware Tools installation on SLES and other Linux distributions as well. Read the rest of this entry »

The last steps of the VI3 upgrade process involve the virtual machines. Upgrading the VM hardware and the installed VM tools complete the virtual infrastructure migration, but can be a daunting task if you have numerous ESX hosts and guests. Fortunately, there are a couple of ways you can simultaneously update multiple VMs. One method uses the VI client and the other involves entering a console command on the VirtualCenter server. Read the rest of this entry »