How do I interact with a VM?


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I have created a Linux Mint 19.x VM.  I assume that it has started since my UnRaid boot times went from 100 seconds to 200 seconds.  The question that I am not finding discussed anywhere is "how do I use it?".  I am coming from Windows (I know!) and Virtual Box.  In that environment I just go to a graphical interface, start the vm, see it start up in a graphical environment, click on the VM window and log in (or start the install).  

 

In UnRaid case, I assume that I have to "remote in" somehow.  Much of what I am finding discusses using remote desktop to "remote in" to a Windows VM but I am not using a windows VM, I am trying to use a Linux VM. 

 

I assume that I have to somehow get at the VM and tell it to do an install etc.  Once I do so I still have to get at the VM in a graphical environment to use Mint.

 

I understand VNC, I have used it in the past 30 years to "remote in" to various things, though in the last many years I was "Windows only" and generally used RD to remote in.

 

So how do I get into the VM I just created?  I have a local Windows 10 machine that I generally use a browser to hit 192.168.122.115 which is my UnRaid main web page.  I can get at UnRaid directly from my server of course.

 

Please couch it in friendly step by step terms (or point to such a thing).  I am trying hard to learn Linux but I am decidedly not there yet.  Please be kind.

 

Thanks,

 

Jwcolby

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On 12/11/2018 at 9:39 AM, jwcolby54 said:

Much of what I am finding discusses using remote desktop to "remote in" to a Windows VM but I am not using a windows VM, I am trying to use a Linux VM. 

Those discussions center on what to use AFTER the VM is installed and running. The equivalent with a Linux VM would be to enable the VNC server in the VM OS, then connect directly to the VM's IP and port that have the VNC server running.

 

Think of the unraid IP:Port for VNC as the local console for those VM's, where the performance isn't always great, but you get to see the boot process and stuff that runs before the VM is fully booted. Once the VM is booted, you can use the same remote access tools that you would use on a physical machine, splashtop, teamviewer, vnc, whatever you want to install in the VM.

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  • 4 weeks later...

OK, so I got in to my Linux VM using port 5900.  Now I am trying to set up a Windows 10 VM.  I don't really know if the vm created is full on up and running, or is sitting there waiting for me to go through the typical windows setup.  Either way I need to connect to it somehow and it escapes me how I am going to do that.  I would think that RDP will not function until such time as I turn it on in a fully installed windows VM.  Which leaves initial remote in via VNC?  What port?  Or some other way?

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I don't recall doing anything complicated to get to my Win10 VM when I installed it. Go to the unRAID GUI VM page, start the Win10 VM and then click on the VM icon and choose VNC Remote from the menu. That should get you into the Win10 setup process. (If things aren't working, take a look at SpaceInvaderOne's video on installing a Windows VM on unRAID.)

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8 hours ago, sonofdbn said:

I don't recall doing anything complicated to get to my Win10 VM when I installed it. Go to the unRAID GUI VM page, start the Win10 VM and then click on the VM icon and choose VNC Remote from the menu. That should get you into the Win10 setup process. (If things aren't working, take a look at SpaceInvaderOne's video on installing a Windows VM on unRAID.)

Clicking on the VM does not display "VNC Remote".  My Linux VM does show that as a menu item.  So I am left with no way in to that VM.  

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It turns out that I had specified to pass through my video card which it was doing.  The video card was not displaying anything however.  And even if it did, I don't know yet how to pass through the keyboard and mouse.  In addition I could not find any way to go back and tell it to just use VNC for display.  I ended up just deleting the VM entirely, and this time selecting VNC for display, and now I can get in.

 

But of course... now I am at something that appears to ve a command window with 

 

EUFI Interactive shell v2.2

.

.

.

Shell>

 

Sigh.

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1 hour ago, Squid said:

It was doing a "press escape" thing but that timed out in about 5 seconds and went on to that screen before I ever got in to the vnc screen.  Once I figured that out, I managed to get in in time to hit escape and it started the windows setup thing. 

 

I have no idea where all this stuff comes from but this whole vm install thing (for windows at lease) is a friggin mess.  I have to assume this is typical "linux is a just a mess and we like it that way" thing.  There is just no way that a vm install could be figured out by a novice.  

 

And yes, SpaceInvader One's youtube video works just fine.  What would REALLY be good is if he actually explained what each and every part of the properties form does for us.  Or if that explanation were WRITTEN DOWN RIGHT IN THAT FORM!!!  Asking a bit much it seems.

 

Having followed his video, stopping every 10 seconds to do what he says to do, I am now up and running.  Not that I could ever do it a second time without following his video stopping every ten seconds...

 

Thanks for all the help attempts on this thread.

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53 minutes ago, jwcolby54 said:

Or if that explanation were WRITTEN DOWN RIGHT IN THAT FORM!!!  Asking a bit much it seems

Have you tried turning on the Help in the GUI?   If the additional information that supplies is not enough you could make suggestions on how it could be improved.

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Have you ever used Virtualbox?  Or Windows server Hyper-V?  

 

In 2009 or so I built a server from parts.  I installed Windows 2008-R2.  I clicked a button to slide Hyper-V under the install.  I started up the app that Windows provides to build virtual machines.  I created 6 virtual machines.  The entire thing was GUI.  The entire process of creating a VM was intuitive.  Yes, I had to read how to do it, then I did it.  In a matter of hours I had a whole set of VMs running, which run to this day.

 

So how am I supposed to make suggestions about improving this mess?  It is a mess.  Nothing whatsoever is intuitive.  It is a ton of properties that I have no clue what they are doing.  How do I suggest improving an entire page of mess that I have no clue what it is doing?

 

How about somebody that knows what this mess is doing clean up the mess and make it point and click?

 

I know, I know, Linux is not windows.  I get it.  But getting my self worth from a thousand hours of figuring out mess is not my idea of a way to spend my life.  I have kids to play with, meat to BBQ, places to go, people to see.  I have a very powerful 6 core 12 thread machine (that I built)  that I handed over to Unraid.  I like what Unraid does, but I hate the mess it makes me figure out to get anything done. 

 

Unraid doesn't need those 6 cores / 12 threads so I want to put them to use running VMs, docker containers etc.  Holy CRAP batman, hours and hours of reading threads clear back a half dozen years and I STILL don't have a clue what this mess does.  So I watch a video where this very nice man guides me step by step through the mess.  He doesn't explain the mess, he just says "click here, do this".  If ANYTHING goes wrong (and it did, multiple times) I am back out in dozens of threads trying to figure out what the part that went wrong does.  Eventually I did get a VM working.  After HOURS and HOURS of struggle.  And NO, my self worth was not increased by the struggle.  And NO, if I wanted to do another I absolutely could not do so without watching the nice man guide me through it again.

 

Now I am dead sure that there are hundreds of Linux Gurus who are going to read this thread and scoff at me.  Oh well.  I have built computers clear back in the 70s with soldering iron, chips bought from the ads in Popular Electronics and schematics.  I have installed CPM on the systems I have built.  I have learned Turbo Pascal, Turbo C, Fortran, C++, C# and I keep learning.  I have made a good living building SQL Server databases automated with C# which I wrote.  I am neither a nubee nor am I incompetent.  And this stuff is a friggin MESS!!!  

 

And No, I can't recommend how to clean it up since I haven't a clue how it works, nor am I willing to spend hundreds of hours learning it.  Unraid is supposed to be a tool to allow me to get on with more important things (to me).

 

Sorry for the rant.

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4 hours ago, jwcolby54 said:

How about somebody that knows what this mess is doing clean up the mess and make it point and click?

From your rant above it is difficult to understand what you consider a mess.

Setting up a VM without any hardware passthru requires a few fields to be entered and all the rest can stay at default unless there is specifc requirements.

The built-in help tries to explain each setting and does give some suggestions in case a change is required (usually depends on the hardware in use).

 

We always want to improve the user experience but need to understand what specific issues you encountered.

 

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