Installing VMware Server on unRAID Box


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BTW, I plan to try to clean up the instruction when Tom releases the final 4.4.  I'm waiting because I want to build on the same kernel that he is using.

 

Looking forward to this when you get time. ;)

 

I'll try to re-do it really soon (either this weekend or next) because I'll have to travel soon.  To tell you the truth, I don't know if anything needs to be re-done (if you're currently using VMware Server 2.0 final)...I just don't know enough about how linux works to know if the new kernel really requires a rebuild of the VMware server software.  I WILL have to redo mine though as I'm still using a beta version of the VMware Server software.  Funny thing is that it's been running for months without any problems, but last night, when I was doing some updates on a virtual machine, I accidentally shut the virtual machine down and it wouldn't restart because the VMware Server Beta had EXPIRED!  I had to reset the date on my unRAID to get my VM to start again!  Needless to say, I was supremely happy to see Tom's post when I logged in this morning!

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That is good news! Thanks for setting me straight on the 4GB multi CPU support.

I am still tempted to try it with ESXi as it also boots from a USB Key (very fast as well) 32 MB.

I like the idea of having the VM host everything, and have unraid remain somewhat unmodified from one version to the next.

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So far I have it boot off a usb stick. Even my laptop allowed it to boot (tried it for fun).

I followed the instructions on creating a bootable esxi USB key and I was amazed it worked.

It brought me to a screen where I can configure network, root password, and the such.

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2008/07/29/esxi-35-update-2-on-a-usb-memory-key/

"For those like me who would like to check ESXi 3.5 update 2 but don’t want to install on a local harddisk. Here’s a good pdf about how to install it on a USB memory key. It’s fairly easy and I just booted my IBM X61 laptop with ESXi.

 

In short:

 

  1. First get the following tools: 7-Zip(Free), WinImage(Demo)

  2. Download the ESXi ISO

  3. Open the ISO with 7-Zip

  4. Extract “install.tgz”

  5. Open “install.tgz” with 7-Zip

  6. Click on “install.tar”

  7. Browse to “usr\lib\vmware\installer\”

  8. Open “VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0_Update_2-103909.i386.dd.bz2?

  9. Extract “VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0_Update_2-103909.i386.dd”

  10. Open WinImage and go to Disk, click on “Restore Virtual Harddisk Image on physical drive”

  11. Select a physical drive

  12. Select “VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0_Update_2-103909.i386.dd”

  13. And click “yes” to write the DD image to the USB Disk

"

 

Now I have to create an image to test it. I will be testing it on my workstation class MB Asus P5NT, E7300 Dual Core, 4 GB of Ram DDR2 (nothing Fancy).

I will let you know how it goes. I had to download VM Infrastructure client to manage it.

From what I understand, the free version of ESX Server ESXi has some limitations, but it should be able to run on most systems.

I'll know for sure once I put it through the test.

 

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BTW, I plan to try to clean up the instruction when Tom releases the final 4.4.  I'm waiting because I want to build on the same kernel that he is using.

 

Looking forward to this when you get time. ;)

 

Just another user very interested in the latest on this when you get to it.

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BTW, I plan to try to clean up the instruction when Tom releases the final 4.4.  I'm waiting because I want to build on the same kernel that he is using.

 

Looking forward to this when you get time. ;)

 

Just another user very interested in the latest on this when you get to it.

 

Thirded.

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I got a chance to re-try the instructions over the weekend and found that there really wasn't anything to clean up.  I found I could shave a couple of lines (yes, literally two) off the instructions by doing a mv where I had the cp -a followed immediately by a rm.  But that's really trivial.  Therefore, the old instructions (found here http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=862.msg18630#msg18630) should still work.  Granted, the only testing I've done was to load the packages onto a clean VM and make sure the web access worked.  I have not had a chance to upgrade my production machine yet.  I'd like to make a "stock unRAID VM" to load it onto, but I haven't had time to do that either.  However, since my previous build was with a release candidate, I can't imagine it not working.

 

A few things of note:

  • I still used the linux-pam package found here: wget http://repository.slacky.eu/slackware-12.0/system/linux-pam/0.99.10.0/linux-pam-0.99.10.0-i486-1gufo.tgz.  There are newer packages that might also work
  • Using a new development environment that matches the new kernel in 4.4, of course the old references to 2.6.24.4-unRAID become 2.6.27.7-unRAID
  • For my build, I changed my directory structures so that everything is now under /mnt/cache/.custom/vmware/.  I did this so that I could have a single (hidden) directory on cache for any custom software that I add and so everything related to the vmware install is in a common folder (of course there are sub-folders such as /usr/bin, /etc,...).  This will enable me to more easily upgrade/change the vmware install without affecting any other custom software that I may add under the .custom/ directory

 

Because I can't legally distribute the packages I built, perhaps the hardest thing about pulling this off is simply building a working development environment to match the unRAID kernel.  I kept notes about how I built mine this time, so I'll post that along with my kernel config file a little later.  I can also post the (very slightly) updated steps I took if the changes I listed above are not clear enough.

 

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@musicmann: Try this -- Build it without emhttp, and replace emhttp with a script, that will extract emhttp and run it from the flash at run time.  I have done this with images for several proprietary applications.... instead of distributing the proprietary software, you run the copy that the user already has.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Nothing major has changed since the previous set of instructions.  However, I had been planning to rebuild my installation upon the release of VMware Server 2.0 (final) and the release of unRAID Server 4.4 (which includes SMP support).  When I did, I decided to change the directory structure to make it a little more logical and potentially more user-friendly.  I haven't gotten a chance to really test this, but it should work.  Also, I'm writing this without full notes, so there might be a few typos that I will correct on this same post as discovered.  Enjoy.

 

DIRECTORY STRUCTURE

Below is the directory structure that is being used in this build.  Hopefully this will give a better understanding of what we are doing and why we are doing it.  It should make it easier for you to adapt your installation to your particular needs.

 

!mnt/                          #Because of the large install size, I want to make most of it a permanent install.                       
|___cache/                     #  For my installation, I'm putting it on the cache drive
!   |___.custom/               #This directory will contain any custom permanent software I install; I prepend with "." so the mover won't move it
!   !   |___vmware/            #This directory will contain ALL the custom software for VMware.  It will be easy to wipe & reload as needed
!   !   !   |___etc/...
!   !   !   |___usr/...
!   !   !   |___var/...
!   !   |___virtualmachines/   #I'm putting my VMs here, so they aren't affected by any changes to the /vmware directory (such as upgrades)

 

 

 

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS

 

0.  Prepare your unRAID development system.  If you need help building one, see here http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2937.0

 

1.  On your unRAID development system, make the installation directory for VMware Server. This same directory/path will be used when the software is later installed on the actual unRAID system. The software is pretty bulky, so I want to make the bulk of it permanent (i.e., not have to be reinstalled on each boot).  I want to use the cache disk as the permanent home of my software, so I need to recreate it on the development system.  You might choose a different location.

mkdir /mnt/cache

 

2.  Install Linux-PAM (linux-pam-0.99.10.0-i486-1gufo.tgz)

wget http://repository.slacky.eu/slackware-12.0/system/linux-pam/0.99.10.0/linux-pam-0.99.10.0-i486-1gufo.tgz
installpkg linux-pam*

 

I tried a number of PAM packages for this build, and I think this is one that worked.  I might need to verify this.  Before building your packages (Step #8), make sure you can log into the development system install.

 

 

3.  Download VMware Server 2 from http://www.vmware.com/products/server/.  It's free, but you'll have to register in order to get a license key.

 

4.  Untar VMware Server

tar zxpf VMware-server*

 

5.  Install VMware Server

cd vmware-server-distrib
./vmware-install.pl

 

    You'll see:

 

In which directory do you want to install the binary files?
[/usr/bin]  

 

    Change this to

   

/mnt/cache/.custom/vmware/usr/bin

 

Note, I redirect this to the cache drive and I prepend the directory name with a "." to keep the mover from moving this directory to the protected array.

 

 

    At the next few prompts, you should be able to simply accept the defaults:

 

   

The path "mnt/cache/.custom/vmware/usr/bin" does not exist currently.  This program is going to create it, including the needed parent directories.  
Is this what you want? [yes]  
    
What is the directory that contains the init directories (rc0.d/ to rc6.d/)?
[/etc/rc.d]   

What is the directory that contains the init scripts?
[etc/rc.d/init.d]  

In which directory do you want to install the daemon files?
[/mnt/cache/.custom/vmware/usr/sbin]

 

    All the directories that need to be re-directed should already be re-directed based on our first change (except for when we get to the storage directory for the virtual machines during configuration), so you should be able to just press ENTER through the rest of the installation.  NOTE:  By default, the installer will automatically start the configuration script (vmware-config.pl), and there will be some options that you'll probably want to change.  If you don't pay attention, it might not be obvious that the installation has ended and the configuration has begun.

 

6.  Configure VMware Server

    The configuration script may seem like just part of the installation because the installer defaults to running the configuration script.  The configuration script first compiles some needed modules (vmmon, vmci, and vsock).  You may receive some warnings while they are compiling.  Just make sure the status messages say that each module "loads perfectly into the running kernel."

 

    Next, networking will be configured.  I just chose the defaults.  This will give the virtual machines your choice of bridged, NAT, and/or host-only networking.  If you don't need all these choices, you can make changes here.  At the end, it should compile the vmnet module.  Make sure it "loads perfectly into the running kernel."

 

    Next, you'll need to choose the ports for connections.  For my installation, I left the port for remote connections as 902.  However, you'll need to decide what to do regarding the port for standard http connections.  The default is 80 which is also the port used by unRAID's emhttp (which serves the user interface).  Either VMware Server or unRAID's standard port will have to be changed so as not to conflict.  You can change the VMware Server port here, or you can change unRAID's port in the go script.  Since I will probably want to access unRAID's management page more often than VMware Server's, I chose to leave unRAID on the standard port (80) and change VMware Server to use port 81.  I left the port for secure http connections as the default (443).

 

    Note that depending on your development system setup, you might not get the same defaults as I did.  This may be the case if your development server has a web server already setup.  This was the case on my latest build.  However, since I know unRAID will only have a potential conflict on standard port 80, I used the ports listed below.

 

 

Please specify a port for remote connections to use [902]
Please specify a port for standard http connections to use [80] 81
Please specify a port for secure http (https) connections to use [443]

 

  Choose where you want to store the actual virtual machines.  Again, I want a persistent location that's easy to access.

 

In which directory do you want to keep your virtual machine files?
[/var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines]
mnt/cache/.custom/virtualmachines

 

  Other items, I let default to the previously defined (custom) installation directory.

 

 

The configuration of VMware Server 2.0.0 build-xxxxx for Linux for this running kernel completed successfully.

 

7.  Make sure you can log into the VMware Server. If you are having login problems, the PAM package is probably the culprit.

 

8.  Prepare the Packages

    Stop VMware Server

   

/etc/rc.d/init.d/vmware stop

 

    Move VMware configuration and log files the "persistent location"

   

mkdir -p /mnt/cache/.custom/vmware/etc
mv /etc/vm* /mnt/cache/.custom/vmware/etc/
ln -s /mnt/cache/.custom/vmware/etc/vmware /etc/vmware
ln -s /mnt/cache/.custom/vmware/etc/vmware-vix /etc/vmware-vix
mkdir -p /mnt/cache/.custom/vmware/var/log
mv /var/log/vm* /mnt/cache/.custom/vmware/var/log/
ln -s /mnt/cache/.custom/vmware/var/log/vmware /var/log/vmware

 

 

    Create the package tree for the one-time (persistent) installation

   

mkdir -p /pkgONETIME/mnt
cd /pkgONETIME
cp -a /mnt/cache mnt/ 

 

 

    Note, I can simply copy /mnt/cache because I've used a clean development environment on which this directory did not exist before.  Everything that is in this directory comes from this VMware installation.

 

    Create the package tree for the realtime (each boot) installation

   

mkdir /pkgREALTIME
cd /pkgREALTIME
mkdir dev
mkdir -p etc/rc.d/init.d
mkdir -p lib/modules/2.6.27.7-unRAID/misc
mkdir -p var/log

cp -a /dev/v* dev/
cp -a /etc/rc.d/init.d/v* etc/rc.d/init.d/
cp -a /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-unRAID/misc/v* lib/modules/2.6.27.7-unRAID/misc/
cp -a /lib/libvixAllProducts.so lib/
cp -a /etc/rc.d/rc0.d etc/rc.d/
cp -a /etc/rc.d/rc2.d etc/rc.d/
cp -a /etc/rc.d/rc3.d etc/rc.d/
cp -a /etc/rc.d/rc5.d etc/rc.d/
cp -a /etc/rc.d/rc6.d etc/rc.d/
cp -a /etc/vm* etc/    
cp -a /var/log/vm* var/log/

 

    Create the packages

   

cd /pkgONETIME
makepkg VMware-server-2-ONETIME.tgz
cd /pkgREALTIME
makepkg VMware-server-2-REALTIME.tgz

 

 

9. Using the packages

    Install the one-time package.  Like it says, it should only need to be installed once.  However, if something ever happens to corrupt the software, you can easily delete the /mnt/cache/.custom/vmware and and reinstall the one-time package to get it working again.

   

installpkg VMware-server-2-ONETIME.tgz

 

    Install the real-time packages on each boot:

   

installpkg linux-pam-0.99.10.0-i486-1gufo.tgz
installpkg VMware-server-2-REALTIME.tgz

 

 

10. Move the /tmp directory

    I discovered that I was getting some hanging issues (and maybe some performance issues, as well) due to running out of space in the /tmp directory.  It also seems that the individual VMs use their own individual directories within the /tmp directory so simply redirecting the /tmp/vmware-root didn't work, so I moved the whole damned thing!  Note, the following lines are written so they can be used on subsequent reboots.

   

rm -r /mnt/cache/.tmp
mv /tmp /mnt/cache/.tmp
ln -s /mnt/cache/.tmp /tmp

 

11.  Start VMware Server

     

/etc/rc.d/init.d/vmware start

 

      Browse to it via:

      http://tower:81/

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  • 2 weeks later...

Questions about questions:

 

Would you like to make this stuff the install script for this package

and remove the symbolic links ([y]es, [n]o)?

 

This seems like a yes to me

 

-

 

Would you like to reset all directory permissions to 755 (drwxr-xr-x) and

directory ownerships to root.root ([y]es, [n]o)?

 

This one I am not so sure about

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Questions about questions:

 

Would you like to make this stuff the install script for this package

and remove the symbolic links ([y]es, [n]o)?

 

This seems like a yes to me

 

-

 

Would you like to reset all directory permissions to 755 (drwxr-xr-x) and

directory ownerships to root.root ([y]es, [n]o)?

 

This one I am not so sure about

 

I honestly just did some guessing when I got to this point.  I chose NO and then YES, and that was a combo that worked. 

 

I think either answer for the first will work.  I originally made packages using both choices, but when I tested the "NO" one and it worked, I didn't test the "YES" one.  In thinking about it, I bet you're right that YES is the safer choice, and it could be the fact that the normal unRAID setup is so static and known that "NO" works fine in this case.

 

I don't think that making the ownerships root hurts anything (it definitely works), but maybe a better linux expert might know more definite answers to both. 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

If you are building a VMware package and using the kernel config file that I had posted in the Building a Development Environment, you might end up with an installation in which bridged networking doesn't work for your virtual machines (although NAT does).  I have updated the config file in the orignal post of that thread which hopefully fixes that problem.

 

 

Building a Development Environment Thread: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2937.0

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  • 4 weeks later...

Given this a go today... and now have VMware server 2 working on my production unRAID :) ! I built a Slackware dev environment as a VM, added unRAID to it, installed VMWare server 2, created the packages, and transferred to my production unRAID. Here are a few helper notes I made below for installation using unRAID 4.4.2, and Slackware 12.2. Hope this helps somebody. This was the 1st time I have recompiled a kernel. I would not have succeeded without the posts and wiki notes referenced below!

 

Next steps for me are probably to boost the ram to 4gb, and replace the celeron with a core2duo. I want to run 3 VMs (Homeseer+Squeezecentre, SageTV, Gallery2) on it so I can cut down to 1 machine on 27x7. The VMDKs are on the cache drive at the moment which is a failure point, so I need to work out whether to move them onto the array, or put a cron script in to periodically suspend the VMs and copy them elsewhere.

 

Building the dev environment.

-Built within VMware workstation 6.5.1

-Created New VM with "Other Linux 2.6.x Kernel" option with 15GB disk and 512 ram.

-The wizard provides a SCSI disk by default. I deleted this disk and set up an IDE disk of 15GB

-Connected the virtual CD device to the Slackware 12.2 DVD ISO I had previously downloaded.

-Booted into the ISO, and ran CFDISK. Created a 1GB linux swap partition and an approx 14GB linux partition

-Ran setup and did full install, formatted disk as ext3.

-Set root password so that I could use putty as an SSH client to allow me to easily copy and paste from instructions in this thread.

-Do not try to install VMware tools, as cannot have VMWare tools and VMWare Server on the same machine.

 

Adding Unraid to the new Slackware 12.2 install (ref post http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2937.0)

-Step 2 can be reduced to "cd /usr/src". Wgets are not required as slackware 12.2 is already the correct version for unraid 4.4.2

-Step 3 should be modified for version 4.4.2 to "wget http://download.lime-technology.com/unRAID%20Server%204.4.2.zip"

-Step 4 not required as we already have a full and correct install.

-Step 5 need to have copied the config2 file attached to the post into your /usr/src directory prior to running this step - I did this by using "vi" to create a text file and then paste the contents of config2 into putty. Could also do it by uploading to a convenient webserver, and using wget. Or by mounting a share as described later. Need to rename the file as ".config"

-Step 6 needed modification of menuconfig as per step 8 on this wiki entry http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Installing_unRAID_on_a_full_Slackware_distro#Modify_the_unRAID_config

to add in ext3 and the ide drive config. I did not do this to start with and ended up with kernel panics because it could not find a file system. NOTE Also needed to add "pcnet32" network device driver otherwise the unRAID did not see the network.

-Step 8 my vm hard disk was /dev/hda2. It took a couple of goes to get a working kernel config. I had to run "lilo -v" each time I re-compiled before I could boot into it.

-After all this, I could boot into my unRAID dev environment.

 

Installing VMWare Server onto the unRAID dev environment

-Followed instructions on this post

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=862.msg24297#msg24297

-Step 3 I downloaded vmware and put the .gz file onto a share on tower. Then I mounted that share using this command "mount -t smbfs -o username=root,password=**** //tower/Share /mnt/tower" on the dev environment and copied it across. Need to do "mkdir /mnt/tower" beforehand, and I think the share names are case sensitive. I could then "cd /mnt/tower" to browse to my share and copy files over.

 

Copying the packages to production unRAID

-Step 9 Copied the created packages to unRAID by mounting the cache drive with "mount -t smbfs -o username=root,password=**** //tower/cache /mnt/towercache" after creating /mnt/towercache.

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@al_uk:  Thanks for the updates!

 

This part is interesting:

-Step 6 needed modification of menuconfig as per step 8 on this wiki entry http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Installing_unRAID_on_a_full_Slackware_distro#Modify_the_unRAID_config

to add in ext3 and the ide drive config. I did not do this to start with and ended up with kernel panics because it could not find a file system. NOTE Also needed to add "pcnet32" network device driver otherwise the unRAID did not see the network.

 

"Config2" was the version in which I specifically added pcnet32.  I'm pretty sure that IDE was included (and ext3, as well) in all the versions, too.  Sorry if I posted the wrong version of the config file.  I'll try to check it when I get some time.

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config2 does look as though pcnet32 is already enabled. I was following my nose somewhat, so maybe I did not copy the config file across correctly in the 1st place. Certainly the 1st time I tried to boot into unraid, it could not see the ext3 filesystem, and once this was fixed, it did not see the network.

 

Just thinking out loud here: In order to make installation easier, what would the feasibility be of creating a package that could run on the stock unraid ram/flash drive, containing the correct kernel headers + source, the "make" program, perl, pam, anything else required, and a wrapper script to run the vmware installer, and then package up the results into the onetime and realtime packages? So all someone needs to do is download this package, and the vmware install.

 

 

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Just thinking out loud here: In order to make installation easier, what would the feasibility be of creating a package that could run on the stock unraid ram/flash drive, containing the correct kernel headers + source, the "make" program, perl, pam, anything else required, and a wrapper script to run the vmware installer, and then package up the results into the onetime and realtime packages? So all someone needs to do is download this package, and the vmware install.

 

just a comment from someone closely following the thread in preparation to attempt to to this, the above sounds awesome if doable and would be greatly appreciated.

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  • 1 month later...

I'm going round in circles trying to get this working on my development server at the moment, and I'm not having much success..

 

The root of my problems seems to be pam, and having followed the instructions above (the only thing that's different is that when vmware asked me if I wanted a username to access the system I said yes, and entered 'root' without quotes) I'm unable to login to the UI, with the following errors in the logs:

 

[2009-04-19 21:16:39.485 'App' 3064286096 error] System PAM libraries are unusable: libprelude.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such 
file or directory
[2009-04-19 21:16:39.486 'ha-eventmgr' 3064286096 info] Event 4 : Failed login attempt for [email protected]

 

After finding and installing libprelude, the error becomes:

 

[2009-04-19 21:21:35.924 'App' 3063761808 error] System PAM libraries are unusable: libgnutls.so.13: cannot open shared object file: No such 
file or directory
[2009-04-19 21:21:35.926 'ha-eventmgr' 3063761808 info] Event 5 : Failed login attempt for [email protected]

 

libgnutls has a whole bunch of dependencies that aren't installed.. Is my development box (installed as per the dev box thread from a Slackware 12.1 DVD) missing libraries that you all have by default, or have I gone wrong somewhere in the vmware install?

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Are you logging on to the UI on your dev system or on the unRAID box (after making packages)?

 

If unRAID, of course, make sure you are installing PAM before logging in.

 

If on Dev Box (or unRAID), which PAM package are you using?  I found that some of the newer PAMs didn't work for me (even though they better matched the underlying Slackware installation).  If you have made the packages, you might be able to try the different PAM packages without rebuilding all the packages.  I'm not at home right now, so I can't see which exact PAM I used (but it should have been mentoned in the latest set of instructions).

 

Also, I never tried setting a different user name during the VMware installation.  I just let it pick up the username/password used in unRAID.  Actually, I've only used the "root" from unRAID to log into VMware, but I have done it both with and without a password.  None of this was set up in the VMware install.

 

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*sound of much forehead-slapping*

 

I used the wrong pam package - I'd downloaded the one from the 12.1 repository (which doesn't appear to work) rather than the one from the 12.0 repo (which does work).. At least that's what it appears to have been - all logged in now on the unRAID dev box.

 

I can't move everything over to the actual unRAID box just yet as I don't have a cache drive installed (need to move the ~700Gb of content off the other server to free up it's drives - that's going to take a while, since I never did get around to upgrading to gigabit ethernet!).

 

Thanks for the help :)

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First off thank you to musicmann for putting together such a great manual.  I have been wanting/needing to do VMWare on my unRAID server ever since I set it up a few weeks ago.  This will quite literally save me from having to buy a more powerful laptop to run day to day tasks.

 

With that said, /begin rant

This is what drives me absolutely crazy about Linux.  Why do I have to download a 4+ Gig OS, install it to a test system, download another package, install it, configure it, and then compile a whole other package to install it on the box I want to use it on?  I know the whole EULA thing, but we are all compiling the same exact package that we have already all agreed to the same EULA for.  Why can't I just get a package from someone that has already been through all of this and I already agreed to the EULA for vmware anyway.

 

Seeing as though I don't have the time or spare hardware to go through this process, I will most likely end up buying a new laptop that I don't really need.  Arrrrrgggg.

 

/end rant

 

Seeing as though Tom is working on an API/Plug-in environment for unRAID 5, does anyone believe we will get to the point where a one-click VMWare install will be possible?  I am sure there are many others out there that would absolutely love to run VMWare on their server, but are either limited by time, resources, or skill level.

 

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Seeing as though Tom is working on an API/Plug-in environment for unRAID 5, does anyone believe we will get to the point where a one-click VMWare install will be possible?  I am sure there are many others out there that would absolutely love to run VMWare on their server, but are either limited by time, resources, or skill level.

 

@ftp222, I definitely understand your frustration. 

 

At this point, it's really not the lack of an API/Plug-in environment that creates the need for each person to DIY.  The packages that are created following the instructions could easily be shared and can be installed with minimal edits to the Go script (or an even easier "one-click" using unMENU and the Package Manager).  It's the legal side that prevents us fron sharing the packages.

 

Yes, we all agree to the same EULA.  Plus, the software is free (as in beer), so there isn't direct revenue loss to VMware from us sharing.  However, I am not VMware, and I don't have the right to distribute their proprietary software.  What would happen if we did?  I don't know, but being a big fan of unRAID, I love it when Tom is concentrating on new features, and I certainly don't want to put him in a position of having to split time between development and fighting lawyers from a $2B company regardless of how remote that possibility might be.

 

What's most unfortunate is that having an easy virtualization solution could prove to be a big benefit to unRAID.  I agree that a number of people are probably looking for one as they decide which home server option to choose.  You can easily add virtualization to WHS or to full Linux distros, and adding that ability to unRAID could be a deciding factor in who gets some of that home server revenue.  Originally, I considered using VBox for my virtualization platform because there is an open-source version that we could legally distribute amongst ourselves (but I decided against it partially because it required a custom kernel be used on the unRAID box itself).

 

Anyway, the true solution to getting a distributable VMware package for unRAID would be to get permission from VMware.  If anyone wants to take that up, I would gladly donate my packages once permission is obtained.  Another solution would be to use VBox if Tom could/would make the needed kernel changes to the stock unRAID.  (However, the other reason I didn't settle on VBox was that some of the features that I wanted, were only in their closed-source version)

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