Installing VMware Server on unRAID Box

[Acuum]

Joe - As always thankyou very much!

 

just to check, the spin down time on the *cache* disk, is this written to the firmware of the hdd? I wondering if it will survive a reboot or if i need to add that line to my go script?

 

 

[Joe L.]

Joe - As always thankyou very much!

 

just to check, the spin down time on the *cache* disk, is this written to the firmware of the hdd? I wondering if it will survive a reboot or if i need to add that line to my go script?

 

 

I don't really know... , unRAID used to do it every time you booted.  But it might depend on the drive.

[Joe L.]

Oh yes, one more thing... the config/smb-extra.conf file will only work if you use a fairly current version of unRAID. 

[RobJ]

And secondly can i set the spin down timer on this *cache* disk?

 

Please see this HowTo:  Unofficial method for control of individual drive spin down

[Acuum]

Thanks Rob.

 

 

[olympia]

@musicmann

Thank you for the excellent guide! Finally I was able to install VMWare on my unRAID box.

 

Now I am wondering about the recommended CPU for running VMWare Server on unRAID.

Originally I bought an Intel E1200 for my unRAID and it was more than enough.

It's a more than weak CPU, but is it normal that running a single VM using VMWare Server blows it up? It's running almost always between 80-100% if there is any activity in the VM.

 

So should it be that high on this weak CPU? If yes, what is the recommended sizing?

 

Thank you!

[WeeboTech]

What is the operating system you are running under vmware?

Have you installed vmware tools. This is an important step.

 

For VMware I always recommend a CPU with the largest cache and a reasonable price.

I would use a E6600 or better in this case. Even a used eBay E6600 will give you decent performance.

 

This doesn't mean your CPU cannot do it. I've done it with dual Pentium III 850's and W2K guests.

However, each jump in CPU and/or cache size brought about a very noticeable performance improvement.

 

If you can afford it go for the latest and greatest with the lowest price and highest cache.

Lots of memory helps here too.

 

[olympia]

Memory is 3GB, I assume that should be enough.

 

I was just tried with a simple WinXP in the VM. Not installed vmwaretools yet. Is it affect performance?

I noticed that this ~100% CPU usage happens, when there is disk activity in the VM(e.g: during winxp installation).

[WeeboTech]

Memory is 3GB, I assume that should be enough.

 

I was just tried with a simple WinXP in the VM. Not installed vmwaretools yet. Is it affect performance?

I noticed that this ~100% CPU usage happens, when there is disk activity in the VM(e.g: during winxp installation).

 

Install the vmware tools for any operating system that supports it. It helps.

As far as 100% CPU utilization, There is going to be allot of waiting on I/O for a parity update, plus the celeron cache may be getting flushed allot.

 

Consider the levels of I/O, Windows XP writes to a virtual controller which, writes to a virtual drive, which then goes out to the host operating system which writes to a file on a parity protected drive.  There are allot of extra cpu cycles in there just to write a chunk of data to the drive.

 

3GB is plenty of ram, just make sure it is running at the proper speed.

 

I virtualize a windows XP machine on a Dual LV 2.4GHZ xeon system. 

These processors have 512K cache, 533MHZ bus, but are at 2.4ghz.

I rip DVD's and AUDIO Cd's pretty fast to a network share on my unRAID Server.

 

1. I did install vmware tools. I would say this is a requirement.

2. I'm using vmware server 1.0 so the graphical front end is over the network via X terminal.

3. I did have to tone down the graphics to a minimal level on XP.

 

I was able to virtualize adequately on a pair of LV 2.0ghz xeons also.

It was good enough to get the job done.

 

I would not virtualize on a 1.6ghz Celeron if I dd not have to.

 

You could run a slackware dev environment on it in the background for compilation.

Anything graphical or I/O I would choose a more powerful processor.

[olympia]

OK, thank you WeeboTech for the detailed explanation!

 

I've installed vmwaretools and it really seems a little bit better. I am going to test it more deeply later.

(BTW I am running VMWare server and the VMs from cache drive)

 

One more question. Should the cache drive stay spinning, even if there is no VM running(VMWare Server runs)?

[WeeboTech]

OK, thank you WeeboTech for the detailed explanation!

 

I've installed vmwaretools and it really seems a little bit better. I am going to test it more deeply later.

(BTW I am running VMWare server and the VMs from cache drive)

Running from the cache drive should improve performance greatly.

 

One more question. Should the cache drive stay spinning, even if there is no VM running(VMWare Server runs)?

 

I cannot answer that authoritatively. I would suggest getting lsof from the slackware repositories and see which files are open on the cache drive.

Then see if you can minimize activity. There could be a log file that is updated every now and then.

 

[ftp222]

Chiming in a little late to the thread, but I have personally had issues when selecting 2 CPU's for a VM.  The VM seems to run much slower than with just 1 selected, so for the time being I set all VM's to 1 CPU and things run great.  You might want to double check this setting for the VM if you are experiencing slow-downs.  I am running a quad core CPU, so I am not sure how a single core CPU runs in VMware.

 

Another issue I have seen that I have not been able to resolve is the VMX process on the linux (unRAID) host starts using 100% of the 1st core of my CPU after the VM server has been up for several days.  Inside the VM's themselves they do not show 100% CPU usage though.  I only notice a small slow-down in all of the VM's when this happens, but it is annoying.  To get everything back to normal, I have to shut down all the VM's and restart the VMware server.  Has anyone else noticed this?

 

I believe I am running VMware 2.0.0 and I think there is a 2.0.1, so maybe that will resolve the issue.

 

 

[WeeboTech]

Have you installed the vmware tools in those guests?

[ftp222]

Have you installed the vmware tools in those guests?

 

Yes, always the first thing I do.  The 1 CPU limitation was more noticeable in Vista versus XP, so I defaulted to XP for everything.

 

[santan17]

 

Hi guys,

 

 

Sorry for the noob question, but rather than running VMware in Unraid has anybody had success running Unraid as a VM in something like a VMware ESXi Server?

 

Thanks.

[flixxx]

Hi, i have been following the steps to install vmware on the basic version (just to test it out) and when i run the install package i get the following eror:

 

-bash: ./vmware-install.pl: /usr/bin/perl: bad interpreter: Permission denied

 

what may be the cause of this error>?

[Joe L.]

Hi, i have been following the steps to install vmware on the basic version (just to test it out) and when i run the install package i get the following eror:

 

-bash: ./vmware-install.pl: /usr/bin/perl: bad interpreter: Permission denied

 

what may be the cause of this error>?

You don't have "perl" installed. perhaps??

[musicmann]

Hi, i have been following the steps to install vmware on the basic version (just to test it out) and when i run the install package i get the following eror:

 

-bash: ./vmware-install.pl: /usr/bin/perl: bad interpreter: Permission denied

 

what may be the cause of this error>?

 

Are you following the steps on a running unRAID server or on a development environment?  The instructions require a development environment.  The result is a package that can then be installed onto a running unRAID.

[flixxx]

Hi, i have been following the steps to install vmware on the basic version (just to test it out) and when i run the install package i get the following eror:

 

-bash: ./vmware-install.pl: /usr/bin/perl: bad interpreter: Permission denied

 

what may be the cause of this error>?

 

Are you following the steps on a running unRAID server or on a development environment?  The instructions require a development environment.  The result is a package that can then be installed onto a running unRAID.

 

Ok it's running on the unraid server, i wasn't aware that it needs to be on a development environment, I am literally a few days old on this unraid and I want to make sure it can do what I need it to (and of course me being capable of it)before purchasing a icence.

 

i'll read up on how to bring up a development environment. I read the term slackware quite a bit around here so i suspect it has something to do with it.

 

Edit: You seem to be everywhere, i just found this topic regarding a dev. environment posted by you http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2937.0 Thanks for your continuing support and thorough instructions!

[musicmann]

i just found this topic regarding a dev. environment posted by you http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2937.0 Thanks for your continuing support and thorough instructions!

 

You should be able to use the info in that thread to create your development environment.  I recommend making a virtual development environment versus dedicating a physical machine to it.  I install VMware Server on a Windows machine and create the Slackware/unRAID development environment under that.  Eventually, you'll have package that you can install directly on your unRAID server.  Note, if you're planning to test it on the free unRAID, I'm not sure if it supports the cache drive which is a drive outside the array.  If this is the case, it has a couple of implecations for you.  First, the VMware instructions are written assuming a cache drive; you will need to modify install locations if you do not have /mnt/cache.  Second, the performance using a cache drive is superior to running VMs on protected drives.  This may need to be accounted for when you evaluate whether the software is going to fit your needs.

[flixxx]

i just found this topic regarding a dev. environment posted by you http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2937.0 Thanks for your continuing support and thorough instructions!

 

You should be able to use the info in that thread to create your development environment.  I recommend making a virtual development environment versus dedicating a physical machine to it.  I install VMware Server on a Windows machine and create the Slackware/unRAID development environment under that.  Eventually, you'll have package that you can install directly on your unRAID server.  Note, if you're planning to test it on the free unRAID, I'm not sure if it supports the cache drive which is a drive outside the array.  If this is the case, it has a couple of implecations for you.  First, the VMware instructions are written assuming a cache drive; you will need to modify install locations if you do not have /mnt/cache.  Second, the performance using a cache drive is superior to running VMs on protected drives.  This may need to be accounted for when you evaluate whether the software is going to fit your needs.

 

Thanks I took that into account regarding the "Cache" drive. Once i succesfully have this installed I will make sure to go the pro version to ensure i get cache as well. I have a 32 GB SSD card that will have cache and swap (is this a good recommendation by the way?). The SSD will be running Vmware with windows XP for utorrent. I will also do other addons i found here like the directory cache.

 

I'm thinking of making the cache 20gb and the swap 12 gb. Is that overkill for a swap partition?

[WeeboTech]

I'm thinking of making the cache 20gb and the swap 12 gb. Is that overkill for a swap partition?

It's usually 2X ram. In today's linux, you probably don't need that much.

I would not make it more then 2G.

However, if you are swapping that much, then you really need to add more ram.

 

The only time you really need that much swap is if you have a specialized application that uses huge internal arrays or tmpfs filesystems.

I have 8GB of ram on one machine with 4GB of swap (just in case).

I have 4 virtual machines active all the time and I'm using 324K of swap.

 

If you are running virtual machines and doing torrents, then real ram is what is going to help the most.

[flixxx]

I'm thinking of making the cache 20gb and the swap 12 gb. Is that overkill for a swap partition?

It's usually 2X ram. In today's linux, you probably don't need that much.

I would not make it more then 2G.

However, if you are swapping that much, then you really need to add more ram.

 

The only time you really need that much swap is if you have a specialized application that uses huge internal arrays or tmpfs filesystems.

I have 8GB of ram on one machine with 4GB of swap (just in case).

I have 4 virtual machines active all the time and I'm using 324K of swap.

 

If you are running virtual machines and doing torrents, then real ram is what is going to help the most.

 

Thanks, the machine has 2 gigs of ram. The only thing it will do is stream video (up to 1080P) to at the most 3 pc's, stream music and store graphic photos (about 40-50mb each) which will be used about an hour a day.

 

Also I will have vmware to do utorrent exclusively.

[WeeboTech]

Chiming in a little late to the thread, but I have personally had issues when selecting 2 CPU's for a VM.  The VM seems to run much slower than with just 1 selected, so for the time being I set all VM's to 1 CPU and things run great.  You might want to double check this setting for the VM if you are experiencing slow-downs.  I am running a quad core CPU, so I am not sure how a single core CPU runs in VMware.

 

Another issue I have seen that I have not been able to resolve is the VMX process on the linux (unRAID) host starts using 100% of the 1st core of my CPU after the VM server has been up for several days.  Inside the VM's themselves they do not show 100% CPU usage though.  I only notice a small slow-down in all of the VM's when this happens, but it is annoying.  To get everything back to normal, I have to shut down all the VM's and restart the VMware server.  Has anyone else noticed this?

 

I believe I am running VMware 2.0.0 and I think there is a 2.0.1, so maybe that will resolve the issue.

 

I've seen this happen on vmware guests that do not have the VMware Tools installed.

[olympia]

Is there any workaround for the bug of unRAID 4.4.2, whereas unRAID is trying to move dirs from cache drive even if they named .something?

 

I've installed vmware server into .custom dir as the guide suggested.

My syslog is fully spammed with the unseccessful moves and the syslog file also gets huge in terms of size.

 

So do you have a workaound for this, or we have to live with this until next unRAID release comes out of Beta?