May
3
Now that most of the modern world has upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04 I’ve begun to see comments regarding VMware Server no longer working. You may have used my previous article, Installing VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.10, which has worked great. Now that 8.04 “Hardy” is installed things have become a bit more complicated unfortunately.
The problem is that VMware has not updated their latest versions to make use of the latest kernel, GCC or gnome libraries. So, we’ve got two options.
- Wait for a new VMware release and hope they patch everything.
- Follow the rest of this tutorial and get your hands dirty on the terminal. We can make it work, but we have to hammer it into submission.
So, I’ll assume because you’re still reading that you’ve opted for the hammer into submission option. Let’s get started.
Downloading the Requirements
The first step, of course, is to download VMware Server 1.0.5. You’ll have to agree to the EULA (actually twice. Once before download and once during installation. Remember, VMware is free-as-in-beer but not free-as-in-speech.)
The second step is to install some development tools that we’ll need to get things running. Use the following command or click the package names to install the requirements:
sudo aptitude install build-essential linux-kernel-devel linux-headers-generic xinetd
The third step is to download one more tool to help in the manual build process for VMware Server 1.0.5. What we need is a script which will help in the custom config hosted at Google Code. Download the vmware-any-any-update-116.tgz.
You will also need to generate a serial number to run VMware Server. Visit this link to register and generate the number of codes you might want. Remember to print the codes or write them down because in my experience they are not emailed to you.
OK, at this point we should have all of the requirements, now we can get to work…
Installation and Configuration
Let’s unpack the VMware archive that we downloaded and run the VMware installer. NOTE: After some basic configuration it will ask you to run vmware-config.pl. DO NOT RUN vmware-config.pl, WE ARE NOT READY YET.
tar xf VMware-server-1.0.5
cd vmware-server-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl
When it asks you to run vmware-config.pl you want to answer “no” and this is where the vmware-any-any-116.tgz patch comes in.
cd ..
tar xf vmware-any-any-update-116.tgz
cd vmware-any-any-update116
sudo ./runme.pl
After this runs it will ask you again if you want to run vmware-config.pl. At this point select “yes”.
The Last Step
If you attempt to run vmware at this point you might notice that it spits out some nasty errors and complains at you. There is one more thing we need to setup. (Hey, VMware, if you’re reading this will you please incorporate these fixes into your official download already!)
Basically VMware is missing and complaining about some cairo libraries and gcc. So, the simple fix for this is to point to them by using a symbolic link:
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/gcc/i486-linux-gnu/4.2.3/libgcc_s.so /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0
At this point you should be able to launch vmware and enjoy some virtualization goodness. Please stay tuned for virtualization updates regarding virtualbox and the new KVM!
sources: I want to throw a big thanks to my buddy Igor for helping figure out these tweaks. Check out his blog, with these and other instructions, here.
UPDATE: based on some of the comments below I’ve added the “-f” to the symbolik link options.
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Feb
1
How To Do Seamless Window and Folder Integration with Ubuntu & VirtualBox
Filed Under virtualization | 24 Comments
As promised in yesterdays post I’m going to outline today how to setup seamless window integration with Ubuntu and Virtualbox. If you missed yesterday’s post you might want to take a look at the seamless integration screenshot. No, that is not Photoshop’d, its really my desktop. I’ll also outline how to setup a shared folder between the two systems so that the icons and folders available on your XP desktop are available on your Ubuntu dekstop. So lets go ahead and dive in.
Installing VirtualBox
If you’ve already got VirtualBox installed you can skip ahead here down to Activating Seamless Integration. If not we’ll be starting you from scratch. Fortunately Ubuntu has packages for VirtualBox available in the repositories. I have a previous post on installing VirtualBox, but we’ll repeat the steps here:
sudo aptitude install virtualbox-ose virtualbox-ose-modules
This’ll install VirtualBox Open Source Edition, and should take just a few minutes.
After the installation is finished you’ll need to do just one of the following.
- Add yourself to the vboxdrv group (
sudo usermod -G vboxusers -a username), and then re-login. - change permissions on the vboxdrv device (
sudo chmod 666 /dev/vboxdrv)
You should now have VirtualBox listed in your Applications menu (Applications > System Tools > Innotek VirtualBox). Go ahead and launch this and install Windows. (I wont get into details on Windows installation, I’m hoping you can figure that much out on your own.)
Activating Seamless Integration
With the release of VirtualBox 1.5.0 (the version you just installed via the Ubuntu repositories) Innotek added the seamless integration feature. This is similar to what is available on Parallels on Mac, allowing you to run individual applications from a virtual environment seamlessly on your native desktop.
Once your guest machine is running and logged in you can activate seamless mode via a shortcut key. Now I want to note that you might double-check to see what your “Host Key” is set to before you dive into this. This proved problematic for me on my MacBook as the default key is right-ctrl, but there is no right-ctrl on the MacBook.
Navigate to (File > Preferences) inside the main VirtualBox window, select the “Input” option and verify or set your “Host” Key” before you go forward.
You’ll also need to install Guest Additions on the Windows guest for this to be available. See the mention in the next section on how to do that.
Once you’re sure what your “Host Key” is, go back into your running Windows guest and activate seamless mode by hitting:
"Host Key"+L
This should make everything but the Start menu disappear, allowing you to launch individual applications as you normally would. You may want to move your bottom gnome panel to the top for better integration.
Configuring Shared Folder Integration
One additional thing you might want to setup is shared folder integration. What I mean by this is having the files from your Ubuntu desktop appear on your Windows desktop as well. This might be useful, for instance, if you launched Internet Exploder via your integrated Start menu and downloaded a file. The saved file would then appear on your native Ubuntu desktop, via the shared folder system.
First we’ll need to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions. I haven’t yet blogged about how to do this on Windows guests, but you might refer to my previous post on Installing Guest Additions for Ubuntu Guests. Hopefully this’ll be enough until I write a proper article on the topic.
Next activate virtual shared folder support in your guest OS (Windows). Do this via the main VirtualBox window, selecting (Machine > Settings > “Shared Folders”). Click the button to add a shared folder (the top right icon), and define the path to your share. You’ll likely want to share your current Desktop, so you might select:
/home/username/Desktop
Now, toggling back to your Windows guest, you’ll want to mount this shared folder. You’ll need to open a shell using (Start > Run > “cmd“). Then use the following command to “mount” this shared folder between your Ubuntu host and your Windows guest.
net use x: \\vboxsvr\Desktop
You should now have access to your shared folder, but we also want to tell Windows to use this as its primary folder.
Start up regedit via (Start > Run > “regedit“) and navigate to the following location:
(HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Explorer > User Shell Folders)
Look for the key “Desktop” and change the value to:
x:
Save your changes, reboot your Windows guest and you should be done.
I realize this post ended up a bit longer than I expected, but hopefully its comprehensive enough to make it easy to follow. I am really impressed with VirtualBox Open Source Edition, and this even improves my opinion of it!
Jan
31
Seamless Window Integration - Preview
Filed Under virtualization | 8 Comments
I’ve got a tutorial in the works that I’m really excited about. If you use virtualization much you might want to come back for this one. I’ll outline how to setup and run seamless window integration using VirtualBox for your virtualized applications. I’m not sure how I’ve missed using this for so long, I just hadn’t heard of it. If you’ve been using this already please hold you comments (and hopefully tips) until tomorrow so we get all the ‘how-to’ in one place. Thanks.
The reaction from one of our LoCo members was entertaining:
01:02 < tonedevf> Zelut: that's hella bitchin'
Until the tutorial is done (it’ll post tomorrow) here is a screenshot teaser.
Nov
19
This is an attempt to document the steps I needed to take to install VMware Server 2.0 beta now available for download. Please note that this is beta software from VMware and this should also be considered a beta tutorial. I have not tested these steps to any great degree, but its my hope that this will be a good starting point for those interested and any improvements can be left in comments for future improment.
I should mention first off that the VMware Server interface has completely changed in this release. It is now accessible via a web interface vs the application interface. This took a little bit of searching for me to find initially. To access your VMware Server you’ll need to do so via Firefox (I can’t get the remote console to work in Epiphany).
How to install VMware Server 2.0 Beta in Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon”
- Download VMware Server 2.0 Beta available from the VMware website. Write down the serial number it generates for you at registration.
- Unpack this archive to a location on your machine (perhaps /tmp).
- Before you configure and compile VMware Server we need to disable ipv6 support in Ubuntu as it is not currently compatible.
- sudo aptitude install build-essential xinetd
- cd /tmp/vmware-server-distrib ; sudo ./vmware-install.pl
- Answer the questions presented during the installation. The defaults should be safe in most cases.
- Because Ubuntu does not use the root user account we also need to setup access for your main user. Replace root with your username on line 10 of: /etc/vmware/hostd/authorization.xml (ACEDataUser).
- At this point I had to restart my machine to put the changes in place. I did try restarting the service(s) after changing the config, but it still didn’t allow access.
- Access your VMware Server via http://localhost:8222 or https://localhost:8333
- Accessing the remote console tab to view your virtual machine will also require an extension installed to Firefox. This also requires a browser restart after the extension is installed.
The web interface took a bit of getting used to for me. I had to spend a few minutes in there poking around to find everything. I see some advantages in moving in this direction, but for those more familiar with VMware Server 1.x it is quite a change. All the rebooting and restarting seems a bit “Windows” to me, but maybe this can be improved in the future. Again, at this point the software (and this tutorial) are beta so you get to run it at your own risk and help fix bugs.
Nov
17
Install VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” : Updated
Filed Under virtualization | 34 Comments
UPDATE: This post has been updated for VMware Server 1.0.5 on Ubuntu 8.04. If you are running Ubuntu 8.04 you’ll need to follow those instructions.
My previous tutorial on installing VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.10 has been wildly successful but I also realize now that it has become a bit out of date. This tutorial is an update with a few simplified steps. It will be nice when VMware Server makes it into canonicals partner repository (as is available on Ubuntu 7.04), but until then these few steps should work for most of us.
As an update from the previous post, for those that are curious, here is an explanation. At the time of that writing there was a slight issue with the current kernel that required the suggested patch. Since that post was published the kernel has been updated and the patch no longer needed. It doesn’t appear to conflict with anything if it is run with the patch, but I felt that this warranted an updated tutorial.
Installing VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon”
- Download VMware Server from the VMware website.
- Unpack the contents of the archive to your system (perhaps /tmp)
- sudo aptitude install build-essential xinetd linux-headers-$(uname -r)
- Open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal), cd /tmp/vmware-server (or wherever you unpacked the archive)
- sudo ./vmware-install.pl
Answer all of the questions presented to you. The defaults should be fine if you are unsure about any. When everything has finished you should be able to launch VMware Server from your desktop menu under Applications > System Tools.
The last step in the installer should ask you for your VMware Server serial number. While VMware Server is free (free as in beer) it does require a serial number to use and is not free software (free as in freedom). If you need a serial number generated you can register for your VMware Server serial number(s) here.
Oct
13
As promised in my previous post on installing VirtualBox Open Source Edititon today I’ll be going over installing the Guest Addition tools for better integration between host and guest. These steps have not been tested on other Linux distributions but I’m sure they’ll work about the same way. I tested these on Kubuntu 7.04 running atop Kubuntu 7.10 beta as the host.
Installing Linux Guest Additions in VirtualBox
VirtualBox has made it pretty easy to install the Guest Additions for improved integration between guest and host. Some of these benefits are mouse-capture improvements and improved video resolution. The mouse capture improvements now allow you to control your virtual machine when the mouse is over the window, and seamlessly return to your host when it is not. Improved video resolution should allow you to customize a better resolution for your guests.
What we need to do to install the Guest Additions is select the option from the VirtualBox menu. You’ll want to do this after your guest is running (the guest-additions are installed to the guest, not the host). Select:
Devices > Install Guest Additions...
This sometimes takes a minute so don’t worry if you don’t see anything right away. This should then prompt you and say something along the lines of:
The Guest Additions image is not found on your host. Would you like to download this image now?
We’ll select YES and let it download the image. The image is downloaded to the host machine and then mounted within the guest. This way it can be shared with future guests without needing to download multiple times. It should also prompt you whether or not you’d like to mount the image. Again, select YES.
At this point you should see a disk image mounted on your desktop. What we’ll do here is run a script that will generate the proper modules to allow for guest additions. In my preferred method we’ll do this:
- Open a terminal by pressing ALT-F2 and enter “gnome-terminal” on gnome or “konsole” on KDE.
- cd /media/cdrom
- sudo bash ./VBoxLinux*
This will grind away at generating the proper modules and then prompt you to restart your guest machine. Once this has finished and you’ve rebooted your guest operating system you should have the guest improvements ready to go. No additional configuration for the mouse integration should be needed, but you may have to manually update to a better resolution as wanted.
Hopefully I’ll have the tutorial for building proper network bridging soon as well. Until then, enjoy your virtualization with VirtualBox!
Oct
12
How To Install VirtualBox Open Source Edition on Ubuntu 7.10
Filed Under virtualization | 8 Comments
This tutorial has Jeff Schroeder and Aaron Toponce to thank for their tips and prodding to try VirtualBox again. Thanks guys… now if one of us can just document simpler proper network bridging we’d be in good shape!
I’ve previously written on how to install VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.10, install VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.04 and install VMware Tools, but installing VirtualBox has a few of its own benefits. One, it is actually Open Source / Free Software whereas VMware is freeware. This is very important to a lot of people, myself included. When possible I prefer to run the “Free Stuff” vs the lock-in, trade-secrets, we-don’t-get-how-open-source-can-save-us stuff. VirtualBox will do that for us. It has also been found that VirtualBox can be faster than VMware Server in many cases. I haven’t done any direct side-by-side comparisons, but many of the articles that I have read refer to this. If anyone is able to do some direct testing I would be interested in hearing about it.
Installing VirtualBox Open Source Edition
Update: If you are running the final release of Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” you can cut down these steps as a pack of the modules are already built. Use the following:
sudo aptitude install virtualbox-ose virtualbox-ose-modules-generic
You can now skip to step #3 below.
One of the benefits of running the Open Source Edition is that we get to compile it for our machines. This should lead to a bit better performance and, again, we’ll be rid of the binary blobs. We’ll need to install the following:
sudo aptitude install virtualbox-ose build-essential linux-headers-generic
We’ll then use module-assistant to prepare the kernel modules for our Virtualbox installation:
- sudo m-a prepare
- sudo m-a a-i virtualbox-ose
- sudo usermod -G vboxusers -a username (your username)
- sudo chmod 666 /dev/vboxdrv (this is only done to avoid a logout/login for the group-change to take effect)
You are now ready to launch VirtualBox. You can launch it from the command line using the virtualbox command.
I will be writing a few follow-up posts on configuring bridged networking and guest-additions for better performance within the guests.
If you’re not familiar, currently the NAT setup in VirtualBox means that your guest machines can get out, but nothing else can connect in. To use this viably for any type of guest-based-server we need bridging. I’ll be hacking together some steps for that soon.
Oct
2
I’ve been playing more and more with virtualization lately. Partly in testing Ubuntu alpha and beta releases but also testing the folding project installer and compatibility with multiple distributions. You may have seen my previous tutorials on installing VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.04 or installing VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.10. This tutorial should maintain compatibility with either host (servers running 7.04 or 7.10) in installing vmware tools within the Ubuntu guests.
Install The Compiler Tools
You’ll need to install a few packages in order to compile the latest VMware Tools. These steps are done within the Ubuntu virtual guest:
sudo aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)
Install VMware Tools
Next you need to tell VMware Server that you’d like to install the VMware Tools. This is done by clicking on VM > Install VMware Tools… in the VMware Server menu running on the host. This must be done while the virtual Ubuntu guest is already running.
This will load a virtual CDROM within your virtualized Ubuntu guest. You may see a window pop-up within the guest. You can close this as we’ll be compiling the VMware Tools on the command line.
Open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and use the following commands. It should be safe to copy-paste:
sudo aptitude updatesudo aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)
cp -a /media/cdrom/VMwareTools* /tmp/
cd /tmp/
tar -vxzf VMwareTools*.gz
cd vmware-tools-distrib/
sudo ./vmware-install.pl
Simply select all the defaults (press ENTER) at the prompts and before you know it you’ll have VMware Tools installed on the virtual Ubuntu guests. The only prompt I had to make a different selection on in my machines was the video resolution.
note: considering we are compiling the tools for the current running version of the kernel these steps may need to be retaken if the virtualized Ubuntu guest upgrades its kernel.
Sep
26
UPDATE: This tutorial has been updated to half as many steps. Please use the updated tutorial available: Installing VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” : Updated.
UPDATE: For those running VMware Server 1.0.3 there is an updated version available.
As I mentioned a few posts ago (How to Install VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.04) I would be outlining how to install VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.10. These steps are a bit different from Ubuntu 7.04, as the canonical commercial repository is not up to date with the alpha releases of Ubuntu 7.10. There is a workaround however that can help you get VMware Sever installed.
Installing VMWare Server on Ubuntu 7.10
- Download VMware Server source from the VMware website.
- Download this installer patch. (source reference)
- Extract all the archives to some location on your system (tar -zxvf VMware-server* ; tar -zxvf vmware*)
- Ensure that you have build-essential installed in order to compile these sources (sudo aptitude install build-essential)
- Install the xinetd server (sudo aptitude install xinetd)
- Run sudo ./vmware-install.pl located within the vmware-server-* unpacked archive.
- Select all the default options *EXCEPT* do not compile the modules at this point. (Do you want this program to try to build the vmmon module for your system? NO)
- Run sudo ./runme.pl located within the vmware-any* archive. This will launch step 8.
- Select the default options and this time answer YES to compile the proper modules.
- Run vmware-server using the command vmware or via your Applications Menu.
Basically, at this point, VMware Server needs to be installed manually from source until the canonical commercial repository catches up and Ubuntu 7.10 is final. Until then this should work for manually installing.
note: if you update your kernel you will need to re-run the scripts to regenerate and recompile VMware Server for your updated kernel. I’m guessing this close to beta and final releases that we wont have any more kernel updates.. but I’m sure that will soon prove me wrong. Just be aware.
UPDATE: This tutorial has been updated to half as many steps. Please use the updated tutorial available: Installing VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” : Updated.
Sep
12
UPDATE: This post has been updated for VMware Server 1.0.5 on Ubuntu 8.04. If you are running Ubuntu 8.04 you’ll need to see those steps.
I’ve been playing more with virtualization recently and thought I would outline the steps I took to install VMWare Server on Ubuntu 7.04. I will also have steps for installation on Ubuntu 7.10, but it requires a bit more tweaking so that’ll have to wait.
Installing VMWare Server
Installing VMWare Server on Ubuntu 7.04 is made very simple by the Canonical commercial repository. It’s as simple as an ‘aptitude install’, following just a few steps. Here is what we need to do:
Register for a VMWare Server use-code. VMWare Server is freeware but it requires registration at vmware.com to generate a license code for use. Visit this link to register and generate the number of codes you might want. Remember to print the codes or write them down because in my experience they are not emailed to you.
Include the repository
Add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list or via System > Admin > Software Sources menu.
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu feisty-commercial main
You’ll need to update aptitude to the change using:
sudo aptitude update
Installation
You can now install vmware-server by installing the packages:
sudo aptitude install vmware-server vmware-server-kernel-modules-$(uname -r)
Virtualize
You should now have VMWare Server installed in your Applications menu, or you can launch it via the ‘vmware’ command. Enjoy.
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