unRaid as a virtual machine guest


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Hi All,

 

I've been looking for a nas that suits my needs for quite some time and I'm fairly certain i've found that with unRaid.  I do however like to prototype things before i commit to them fully so i built a usb key for unRaid, attached it to vmware workstation and booted off the key within a vm.  The problem with this however is that the network card that vmware emulates is not supported, is anyone aware of solution to this problem?  The more i thought about it however though I realized perhaps runnig unRaid inside a vm might be a great idea, would provide the ability do multiple things on the same machine without hacking my unRaid install to bits to install Vmware and with a more advanced version of vmware (or another vm platform) i could encorporate NFS and iScsi shares as drives within unRaid that it would then expose to the network via SMB/CIFS.

 

I could build a slackware dev environment and build the required pcnet32.ko driver but i would have to continually maintain this every release.  I was wondering if anyone had come across this problem before and if they had come up with a solution?  Is there another virtual machine software that exposes a network card unRaid supports?  Or is the appropriate place for this within the feature request forum to incorporate the required driver into the kernel.

 

Thanks in advance,

Donny

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Ya i just found that.. thanks! I'm about to give that a try.

 

In the short/mid term i'd like to buy unRaid, however if i go the vmware ESXi route at home as i would like I wont be able to use a usb key.  Is there anyway around this without going the full slackware install route?

 

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Just as an update setting the driver to e1000 in the vmx file works great.  However the issue remains of the usb key, is there any chance of sensible instructions for installing to a hard drive, is that something that may be an option in version 5?  I created a hard disk image that booted but it had a few errors due to the usb device not being present.

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Just as an update setting the driver to e1000 in the vmx file works great.  However the issue remains of the usb key, is there any chance of sensible instructions for installing to a hard drive, is that something that may be an option in version 5?  I created a hard disk image that booted but it had a few errors due to the usb device not being present.

 

You can run without the USB Key but only the free version as the USB Key is used for the license file.  When you install to a Hard drive I think it is recommended that you name it UNRAID so that it is mounted a /boot.  I have not done this personally but you should be able to find similar information in the FAQ, Best of the Forums, or the Topical Index.

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Just as an update setting the driver to e1000 in the vmx file works great.  However the issue remains of the usb key, is there any chance of sensible instructions for installing to a hard drive, is that something that may be an option in version 5?  I created a hard disk image that booted but it had a few errors due to the usb device not being present.

You can easily boot off of any device you wish, you can boot off of a hard disk, a CD, a floppy, or an alternate USB drive, but if you wish more than three disks you must have a USB drive labeled as UNRAID with a serial number that matches the one submitted in the license registration process.  I doubt if you'll ever be able to do without the USB key.  

 

unRAID expects to mount the device with the UNRAID label at /boot, and it expects to find the configuration files, and its "key" file there in /boot/config.  The serial number in the key file MUST match the usb hardware serial number, or you'll be limited to three drives (parity+2data)

 

Joe L.

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be carrefull when you have both unRAID server AND the Virtual unRAID connected on the same lan.

why ? because they both have the same mac adress.

 

Sorry, jupilerman, that does not make any sense.

 

A mac address is a number unique for every LAN adapter.

The virtualization software can genetate any number of unique mac addresses for your virtual unRAID,

and these mac addresses will never be the same as your physical unRAID.

 

(see the config file).

 

You can safely delete the mac address listed in the config file,

and unRAID will get the corrent number for lan0 next time it restarts.

 

I don't even know why the mac address is listed in that config file.

Maybe to give you a way to use an alternate LAN port on machines with more than one LAN port.

 

As we speak, I have four unRAIDs on the same lan: one physical, and three in VirtualBox

(4.5.0-final, 4.4.2-bubba, and 4.3) on my laptop. They all see each other and share their disks.

I have open telnet sessions on all of them.

 

Purko

 

 

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I don't even know why the mac address is listed in that config file.

Maybe to give you a way to use an alternate LAN port on machines with more than one LAN port.

 

Thinking some more about that, I still don't see a good reason why the mac address is listed in that config file.

 

My "physical" unRAID has two LAN ports, and is happily serving its disks to two separate and independent local networks (without routing between them).

 

So, the mac address in the config file is maybe a leftover from some "good reason" in the past.

In any case, delete that mac address when you install/reinstall stuff, and unRAID will know what to do.

 

Purko

 

 

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...and is happily serving its disks to two separate and independent local networks

..and if anybody is curious about "how"...

I just added the following line to my "go" script:

ifconfig eth1 x.x.x.x netmask 255.255.255.0 up

where x.x.x.x is unRAID's IP address on the other network.

 

 

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It booted just fine for me but it noted that usb was missing and network config was messed up (loopback was missing even).

 

Did you read the earlier posts?

 

Did you label your boot disk UNRAID ?

 

 

 

I believe so yes, under /dev/ the disk by label portion directory was completely missing.  When i created the drive image i basically added a new hard drive to another vmware virtual machine, then mounted it and ran a quickformat it on it and set the label to UNRAID then ran sysconfig with -f to force because the drive was not removable and of course copied the files.  Then i detached the drive from the windows vm and attached it to the vm i had configured for vmraid, as i said it booted but had a few errors.  I can try it again to make sure I did not make any errors but in the long run I intend to have more then 3 drives so its likely not worth the effort.  It would be ideal to have a version which will install to the HDD and use a hard drive serial or something of that nature for license purposes.  Then again if its a VM i suppose that is all fake able.

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i basically added a new hard drive to another vmware virtual machine, then mounted it and ran a quickformat it on it and set the label to UNRAID then ran sysconfig with -f to force because the drive was not removable and of course copied the files.  Then i detached the drive from the windows vm and attached it to the vm i had configured for vmraid

You mean syslinux, right? 

And why quickformat? Do a normal format with FAT32.

 

If you have done all that then it is really strange that you are having problems.

 

Personally, I would mount that disk again in a windows virtual machine and see if its label indeed says UNRAID.

 

 

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I don't even know why the mac address is listed in that config file.

Maybe to give you a way to use an alternate LAN port on machines with more than one LAN port.

 

Thinking some more about that, I still don't see a good reason why the mac address is listed in that config file.

 

 

 

Not that it matters for most of unRAID setups, but anyway...

The reason the network config has the MAC address is for multi-NIC setups where you want be sure that your logical interface (ethX) is bound to particular physical NIC. MAC address of the NIC is used to establish the relationship. When the system boots it enumerates NICs in the order the drivers are loaded, as well as in the order it finds them on PCI bus, then assigns eth0,1,2,3,etc. If the MAC address of the NIC is present in the network config for particular ethX the system first tries to match the MAC against what is set up in the config rather than enumerating them in arbitrary (from the end user perspective) order.

Hope this helps.

 

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  • 1 month later...

I got unRaid Pro to work under Virtual Box.  First, to get it to boot from a USB key, I went to http://agnipulse.com/2009/07/boot-your-usb-drive-in-virtualbox/ and created a .vmdk file which will connect the USB key as a bootable hard drive.  But as noted previously, the UUID gets reported as -2, so you're stuck at basic level and 3 drives.  I then plugged in my second USB key drive and attached it to the VM.  No dice.  Then it ocurred to me to change the label on the boot key from UNRAID to UNR.  Voilla!  The system saw the SECOND key drive as UNRAID and the UUID was visible... Pro up and running  :)  All config changes get recorded to the second key.  I then created another virtual hard drive (1 gb, fat32, bootable) while in my Slackware VM and copied the contents of the flash to it, but did NOT label it UNRAID.  Then I "syslinux'd" it.  I then reconfigured my unRaid VM so that:

 

My newly created boot drive was attached to IDE Primary Master

My CD/DVD was on IDE Secondary Master

My 5 array +1 parity virtual drives were attached to a Sata controller.

 

Turned on the VM and it booted FAST off the virtual HD, it used the one attached USB key (labeled UNRAID) for config and license and I was up with pro and 6 array drives.

 

Caveat: Performance is abyssmal.  Parity check is running about 6mb/sec :( Thank God I only created 100gb drives :o

 

Hope this helps someone....

 

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ah, but it makes perfect sense if I want to just have some data on the VD's and use them in my unRaid on full distro's experiments

 

Oh, yes, a sandbox unRAID.  That too.  I always keep some such virtual unRAIDs handy for experiments.

I wal just pointing out that you can also have a fully functional Pro unRAID with real disks out of a virtual box.

 

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ah, but it makes perfect sense if I want to just have some data on the VD's and use them in my unRaid on full distro's experiments

 

Oh, yes, a sandbox unRAID.  That too.  I always keep some such virtual unRAIDs handy for experiments.

I wal just pointing out that you can also have a fully functional Pro unRAID with real disks out of a virtual box.

 

 

What about vmware ESX? Can it present the drive underneath as an SATA Drive?

I'm only used to vmware workstation & vmware server.

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