Running unraid inside a virtual environment for testing purposes

[unraided]

I have a several virtual machines running on a VMware ESXi v3.5 server that I have, with a mixture of Windows and Linux-based OS's. I've been trying to virtualize the unraid OS under ESXi last week without any sucess. I'll explain what I've done so far:

 

1). Created a Virtual Machine using both 'Other Linux 32bit' and also tried 'Other OS' options too.

2). Allocate 384MB RAM (A little small I know)

3). I only have the option to allocate a SCSI-based disk controller, either a LSI or BusLogic controller. ESXi cannot emulate a IDE-based disk controller and disk. In this case I create a 2GB vdisk and I've tried both LSI and BusLogic disk controllers in my testing.

4). I allocate a Virtual Floppy Disk and CDROM for booting in a Win98 Boot Disk image to format the disk using 'fdisk' and 'format' command. I've tried both FAT16 and FAT32 and in separate occasions and made sure I labelled the disk as 'UNRAID' as required. I used a Ultimate Boot CD ISO to boot into a BartPE environment, map a network drive, run 'syslinux.exe -ma C:' to make the 2GB vdisk bootable and to extract and copy over the unraid OS files and config folder onto 2GB vdisk.

5). When I start my Virtual Machine unraid server, it boots fine but the unraid OS cannot see the formatted 2GB vdisk labelled as UNRAID, therefore the networking side of things and other functions of unraid fail to work as per normal, rendering this useless for any testing.

 

My conclusion to this failure is that the ESXi only me the option to create a SCSI-based disk controller, again only using a LSI or BusLogic controller and no IDE-based disk controller and disk options. As I don't have VMware Wortstation (I should perhaps download a trial version for the basis of my testing), but I wasn't sure whether VMware Workstation or other VM host solutions are still supporting IDE-based disk controllers and disks. If I recall, I believe the either versions of VMware Workstation (v 3.x and 4.x) supported  IDE-based disks controllers and disks, I think, it has been years sinced I've use Workstation.

 

The questions I raise, has anyone been able to virtualize unraid? Ig so, what VM solution does it work in, ie: Virtual PC, Virtual Box, any VMware product? Can you have unraid run from a SATA/SCSI-based disk controller and disks or just via a USB or IDE-based interface or disks? Ideally I would like to have this running under VMware ESXi server, but if this feasible, I'll highly consider other options too to get the unraid OS fully operational.

 

I currently have a physical test rig, but it takes well over 7 ~ 8 minutes. It is a 7+ year old PC and it only has USB1 support, hence why it is slow to boot up or restart. This isn't ideal to run tests on as I'll need to reboot it several times trying different tweaks or what not, which is just waisting time to have to wait that long for a reboot. Again you would not run unraid under a virtualized guest for production, but I would really like to get it virtualized purely for testing. Thanks.

[WeeboTech]

vmware server can use IDE Disks and as far as I know vmware workstation does also.

 

As far as speed of booting. Use an old ide drive and set up a fat partition to boot the bzimage/bzroot.

If you use syslinux it will work or if you use grub4dos, you can boot off one of the reiserfs disks.

 

[BRiT]

Give Virtual Box a try.

 

I've used VirtualBox for my unRAID 64bit experiments. VBox allows you to simulate upto 32 SATA drives. It also provides for 4 legacy IDE devices too. You can capture a USB device and dedicate it to the virtual too.

[unraided]

Thanks WeeboTech and BRiT, I'm familiar with VMware Server though I've never used Virtual Box, but using Virtual Box would be better to run on a Desktop PC. Very much appreciated guys, Thanks!

[unraided]

Hi. I've created a virtualised VM under VMware Server of the unraid OS, and it boots fine, the only thing is, I've got no Eth0 up and running. The only line that I can see wrong when it starts up is below:

 

Triggering udev events:  /sbin/udevadm trigger --retry-failed

 

I basically did the following below to create it:

 

1). Created a Virtual Machine using the 'Other Linux 32bit' option.

2). Allocate 512MB RAM.

3). Created a IDE-based disk controller and disk, 1GB IDE disk.

4). I allocated the actual CDROM BartPE CD, formatted the 1GB vdisk as FAT16 and labeled 'UNRAID'.

5). Booted into Bart PE, mapped a network drive, run 'syslinux.exe -maf C:' to make the 1GB vdisk bootable and to extracted and copied over the unraid OS files and config folder onto the vdisk.

6). When I start my Virtual Machine unraid server, it seems to boot up as per normal, but without networking.

 

I've emulated the NIC as Bridged, NAT and Local Only, all rendering the same result.

 

See attached screen shot and syslog.txt for information.

 

Any ideas? Thanks.

syslog.txt

[jimwhite]

Try changing the "chip" that the vm emulates for it's network interface... IIRC, it defaults to some SMC chip, change it to the Intel and try again...

 

[unraided]

I'll have a look but to my experience VMware Server only emulates the AMD PCNET compatible NIC, and there is no other option to use a different chipset for the NIC. However, I'll investigate into this and see what i can find. i might have to use a different VM solution if worse comes to worse, Thanks, I'll keep you all posted.

[unraided]

It seems I'm having very little success with getting the unRAID OS to running under a virtualised environment. I've tried as earlier stated VMware ESXi Server v3.5.0 and I've recently used VMware Server for Windows v2.0.1, VirtualBox v3.1.6 and Virtual PC 2007, all of which are resulting with no network support. I've noticed that all of the VM's I've created (except for VMware ESXi which wasn't seeing the formatted FAT16/32 partition label as 'UNRAID') resulted in this line below:

 

Starting Network Interface Plugging Daemon: eth0

 

which to my understandings seems like the network interface eth0 is becoming/has become active, but when I issue a 'ifconfig /all' command, I only get the 'lo' interface and no 'eth0'. When I issue the 'ifconfig eth0' command, I obviously get the following:

 

eth0: error fetching interface information: Device not found

 

All of the VM application solutions use basic NIC card support, which I believe have all been based on the AMD PCInet cards, basically these NICs which have lots of support (in Windows, Linux and UNIX), maybe not for unraid? I've tried both 4.4.2 and 4.5.1 as well during my testing, resulting in the above still.

 

Has anyone in the past been able to get a virtualised unraid server running? if so, what did you use, how did you set it up? Any tricks I need to look out for? Thanks.

[purko]

I've recently used ...VirtualBox v3.1.6 ..., all of which are resulting with no network support.

I've been using unRAID in VirtualBox since forever.  It has all the network support you could wish for.  It's a five minute setup.

 

Did you by any chance just copy a unRAID config folder from another working server?

If so, then you need to delete that no-longer-valid MAC address from the network.cfg file. 

That's not a problem with virtual machines.  You'd have the same thing if you copy the config folder to 'real' machines.

 

[unraided]

Hi purko, no I actually booted from a BartPE CD for network access, mapped a network drive to a PC, formatted the vdisk as FAT16, then ran 'syslinux.exe -maf C:' to make the vdisk bootable and extracted and copied over the unraid OS from a fresh zip folder onto the vdisk. It'll to boot up as per normal, but without networking. I'll persevere and try again. Thanks.

[BRiT]

Did you select the Intel 1000 device for the NIC in Virtual Box?

[purko]

Which network adapter did you assign in VirtualBox?

Did you try the "Intel PRO/1000 T Server" from the list there?

In what mode did you assign that adapter?  

Where is the virtual unRAID getting its IP address(es) from?

 

I have a virtual unRAID running on this laptop as we speak, that has two virtual adapters assigned.

One is bridged to my laptop NIC, from where it can interact with my real unRAID server,

the other is in host-only mode, from where it is serving some disk shares to a few other virtual machines.

I can equally well acces that virtual unRAID through each of its interfaces.

 

EDIT:  BRiT beat me to that while I was typing.

 

[unraided]

Q). Which network adapter did you assign in VirtualBox?

A). I didn't know you can adjust the NIC Card type, but I'll check it out on VirtualBox again

Q). Did you try the "Intel PRO/1000 T Server" from the list there?

A). I need to look.

Q). In what mode did you assign that adapter? 

A). I tried Local-only and Bridged.

Q). Where is the virtual unRAID getting its IP address(es) from?

A). Wasn't getting one at all, no NIC working to begin with.

 

I'll have another play with VirtualBox and report back. thanks both BRiT and purko.

 

Which network adapter did you assign in VirtualBox?

Did you try the "Intel PRO/1000 T Server" from the list there?

In what mode did you assign that adapter?  

Where is the virtual unRAID getting its IP address(es) from?

 

I have a virtual unRAID running on this laptop as we speak, that has two virtual adapters assigned.

One is bridged to my laptop NIC, from where it can interact with my real unRAID server,

the other is in host-only mode, from where it is serving some disk shares to a few other virtual machines.

I can equally well acces that virtual unRAID through each of its interfaces.

 

EDIT:  BRiT beat me to that while I was typing.

 

[purko]

Q). Where is the virtual unRAID getting its IP address(es) from?

A). Wasn't getting one at all, no NIC working to begin with.

I understood that several posts ago.  What I meant was, what is your design for your networks.  You must have some plan, I'm sure.

 

[unraided]

Update, it is all working now. I ended up using the Intel PRO/1000 T NIC using the Bridged option and it seems to be fine now. I wasn't aware that you can change the NIC card chipset for VirtualBox, which is quite flexible compared to Virtual PC 2007 and VMware Server. Many thanks BRiT, purko and jimwhite for your assistance. I'll press on and see how I go from here.

[NAS]

ould you consider sharing your virtual machine once you are happy it is complete?

[unraided]

You mean upload the virtual machine for others to use? I have no problems with that, but how would I go about doing it? I could give a detailed overview in the steps in which I did to get it going if it would be easier?

[NAS]

Thats exactly what i mean.

 

I can see a scenario where some new users would grab the virtual machine to checkout unraid before purchasing so a donwloadable version would be good.

 

it all depends if someone can supply some web space to host

[unraided]

If the web space can be sourced, Im happy to upload it. In the interim, I'll write up a doco in full detail to give all a thorough run through on how to create it. But yeah, it would be easier just to download one zipped file with with VirtualBox install and have a readme file with instructions on what to do. Good thinking NAS. Would Tom be fine with this you think?

[unraided]

I've just emailed Tom on what he thinks on the VM unRAID OS download. When he replies back I keep you all informed. When I have time tomorrow, I'll summerise what I did to virtualized the unraid OS.

[unraided]

Below are some instructions on how to virtualize the unRAID OS for testing or development purposes.

 

1). Get the latest version of VirtuaBox, download from 'http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads'. It can be installed for Windows, Linux and Solaris, for my Host OS, I installed it on a Windows XP PC.

2). Install and use the default setup options.

3). When you have VirtualBox installed, open and click on the 'New' button to start the VM creation process.

4). Give your VM a new that you'd like to use, I called it 'vm-unraid', for the OS Type I selected 'Linux 2.6' as the unRAID OS is based on the 2.6 kernel.

5). For RAM, I gave my VM 512MB and 1 CPU, these can be increased to your desire. (Pointless giving it multiple CPU's, but RAM can be increased, pending your usages).

6). For the display, leave the default 5MB VRAM, disable 2D and 3D Video acceleration as it isn't required, you may if you like enable 'Remote Display Server', though I haven't used it a I would simply use puTTY/telnet to connect to it.

7). For Storage, I configured this initially but added more vdisks later on just to keep it simply at the moment. I only installed one 1GB IDE-based disk (IDE Primary Master, 1GB should suffice, again, pending your requirements, it can be bigger if you like), left the CDROM (Primary Slave), remove the Floppy if you wish to use any Floppy Disk-based utilities, I disabled it.

. I removed Audio support, Serial, though I left USB Support (it can be removed if you wish) and disable Shared Folders.

9).For the Network Adaptor, I used the 'Intel PRO/1000 T Server NIC, which is Bridged with my PCs NIC to allow it to retrieve an IP from my DHCP server which is on the network. If you're running this VM on a network-less PC or stand alone PC, I'd recommend to use NAT setup. NAT will give your VM an IP from a virtualized network that VirtualBox has created, this will be seen only on your Host OS which VirtualBox is running from.

10). For my setup (open to opinion), I used a BartPC-based CD from the UltimateBootCD, which is basically a WinPE environment with a myriad of GUI/CLI Windows-based tools for diagnostics, utilities, etc... It is great as it has the tools you'll need to do partition/format the vdisk, has network support and to assist in making your vdisk bootable and also to copy the unRAID OS onto the disk. You must change the Boot Order to make your VM boot from such a physical CD/ISO first.

11). Start your VM and boot into the BartPC or other desired CD/ISO which basically fits the requirements for this exercise.

12). I used a Disk Partitioning application called SwisKnife or something upon those lines (You could even use PartedMagic or GParted if you like). I created a FAT16 partition on the 1 GB vdisk made sure it was labeled it as 'UNRAID', without the quotation marks.

13). I rebooted the VM and booted into the UltimateBootCD once more to format the vdisk. I went into CMD and issued the 'format C: /FS:FAT /V:UNRAID'.

14). I had the 'syslinux.exe' file on a network share, I did the following at the command prompt:

 

net use Y: \\servername\your_share_name\to_unraid_required_os_files

cd Y:

syslinux.exe -maf C:

 

15). As I had the unRAID OS files on a network share, I simply used the embedded Windows Explorer window to copy a unzipped unRAID OS files and 'config' folder onto the C:\ of the vdisk of the VM. You should have the following on your C:\

 

bzimage

bzroot

ldlinux.sys

license.txt

memtest

menu.c32

readme.txt

syslinux.cfg

'config' folder, it should contain > 'shares' folder > should be blank

                                                 go

                                                 network.cfg

                                                 secrets.tdb

                                                 shares.cfg

 

16). Now gracefully power off your VM and change the Boot Order to from the first 1GB vdisk IDE Disk first.

17). From this point, I modified the hardware to remove the CDROM (freeing up a virtual IDE interface) and I added three more disks (size is to your desire, I simply created 2GB vdisks). The disk order/configuration should be like the following:

 

IDE Controller:

 

IDE Primary Master: vm-unraid.vdi (Normal, 1.00 GB) - Your originally created vdisk which has the unRAID OS

IDE Primary Slave: vm-unraid1.vdi (Normal, 2.00 GB) - Assign this as your Parity Disk

IDE Secondary Master: vm-unraid2.vdi (Normal, 2.00 GB) - Assign this as your Data Disk1

IDE Secondary Slave: vm-unraid3.vdi (Normal, 2.00 GB) - Assign this as your Data Disk2

 

18). Now you're ready to power on your virtualized VM. Start it up, you should see the unRAID Boot Menu, it should boot up, and you should have the unraid command prompt. If all is well, you're in business, if not, refer to the above instructions and troubleshoot where you went wrong.

19). If you're physical network has a DHCP server setup, you're VM should of retrieved a IP from it, if you do not, you can manually edit the /boot/config/network.cfg file to assign it a static IP address/netmask to suit your network.

20). Once all the networking side of things is in order, see if you can ping/telnet to your VM server from your Host OS and other hosts on your network (Only works for a Bridged network setup). Once the networking is working fine, fire up your favourite web browser, and you should see the unraid's web gui.

21). Now just assign the disks according to Step 17, take caution and do not assign the 1GB unRAID OS Boot vdisk as part of the array! Add only the 2GB vdisks in the order above, format them and you should have a fully running virtualised unRAID OS.

 

If I've missed something or have any questions/comments, feel free to post on this thread. Thanks.

 

[unraided]

I've just got a reply from Tom to say that he likes the idea for me to create a downloadable package, consisting of the VM unRAID OS, readme notes and the VirtualBox install. He's out of the country at present and I'll see what can be arranged to have this facility up and running. All credits to NAS as he thought of the idea to allow all to be able to download this VM kit for testing/developing purposes, Thanks.

 

I've just emailed Tom on what he thinks on the VM unRAID OS download. When he replies back I keep you all informed. When I have time tomorrow, I'll summerise what I did to virtualized the unraid OS.

[Msan]

If you need a space to host the file for now, just PM me..

[BRiT]

Might I suggest the following steps on your configuration before distributing?

 

A) Add SATA Controller

B) Map your unRAID Data and Parity drive images to SATA controller

 

This way the user will have a better feel for how unRAID on modern equipment will look like. They will also be able to experiment with disks outside of the array. They can even max out the Plus and Pro licenses on number of disks and have cache-disk functionality.

 

[unraided]

No worries BRiT, I'll see what I can put together and I might create the following alternatives to be available for download with the VirtualBox install and some instructions:

 

A standard IDE-based one that I've created (Plain vanilla and no frills, for non-registered users to use)

 

A SATA-based version (Again plain vanilla no frills three SATA vdisks for non-registered users to use)

 

A SATA-based version which as 6 SATA vdisks for Plus-licenced users to use their Plus-registered USB drive with

 

and

 

A SATA-based version which as 20 SATA vdisks for Plus-licenced users to use their Pro-registered USB drive

 

I'll need to work out on getting a connected USB drive to actually boot from within a VM using VirtualBox, which I'm sure isn't too hard. I might have to get back on this as I'm preparing to be away for a week. Before or when I get back, I'll invest some time on getting this going. I'll also liaise with Msan on some hosting space via PM. Thanks to all for the suggestions.

 

Might I suggest the following steps on your configuration before distributing?

 

A) Add SATA Controller

B) Map your unRAID Data and Parity drive images to SATA controller

 

This way the user will have a better feel for how unRAID on modern equipment will look like. They will also be able to experiment with disks outside of the array. They can even max out the Plus and Pro licenses on number of disks and have cache-disk functionality.