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VMware Server Installation on Centos 4.1 (RHEL 4.0)
VMware introduced a FREE virtualization software called VMware Server, which installs on any server hardware and partitions a physical server into multiple virtual machines by abstracting processor, memory, storage and networking resources. The VMware Server installs on a server (called host), and creates virtual machines (called guests). The host and guest operating system can be either Windows, Linux or Solaris.
My installation is done on a Dell Poweredge 2650 (Dual 2.8GHz Xeon processors) with 3GB of RAM, and 3x146GB SCSI HDDs running in RAID 5 configuration. The host operating system is Centos 4.1 (equvalent to RHEL 4.0).
Getting Started
1. Download the VMware Server from VMware. It is available at http://www.vmware.com/download/server/.
2. You'll need a serial number to install the software. Register the product by filling out a form at http://register.vmware.com/content/registration.html, and request a desired number of licenses. You may request up to 100 licenses.
Requirements
1. Make sure your hardware and operating system meets VMware software requirements. The software supports up to 16 Intel (or AMD processors), either 32-bit or 64-bit, requires minimum of 512MB RAM (preferrable a lot more to support multiple virtual machines), and
a minimum of 250MB of HDD Space (preferrably a lot more).
2. X Server is required to run the VMware Server Console, a X Windows software used to manage virtual machines. Although you may use remote Windows or Linux client to run VMware Server Console, I have decided to use host machine to run both VMware Server Console, and VMware Management Interface via firefox.
3. The real-time clock function must be compiled into your Linux kernel.
4. VMware Server for Linux systems requires that the parallel port PC-style
hardware option (CONFIG_PARPORT_PC) be built and loaded as a kernel module (that
is, it must be set to m when the kernel is compiled).
*Note: I wasn't sure whether the requirements #3 and #4 were met. My default Centos 4.1 installation with lastest up2date seems to work for me.
Installation Procedure
Enough said. We need to get the software installed by following the steps below. I have chose to use RPM installation for those components that are available (otherwise tar installation is used). I have decided to install VMware Server, Management Interface, and Server Console components only. I'm using the VMware Server version 1.0.1.
I'm assuming that the reader has basic understanding of Linux operating system, and archive files such as tar and zip files. This document does not explain detailed steps for unarchiving (tar xf and unzip) downloaded files. The VMware admin manual has step by step procedure for doing that.
1. Download VMware-server-.i386.rpm, VMware-mui-.tar.gz and VMware-server-linux-client-.zip. The VMware-server-linux-client contains the RPM needed to install VMware-server-console among other components.
# ### Become a root user, and install above components.
# rpm -Uhv VMware-server-.i386.rpm
2. Before installing VMware Management Interface, we need to install compat-db RPM package.
# yum install compat-db
# ### Untar VMware-mui-.tar.gz, and run install program
# tar xfz VMware-mui-.tar.gz
# ./vmware-install.pl
# vmware-config.pl
3. Install VMware Server Console
# ###unzip VMware-server-linux-client-.zip
# rpm -Uhv VMware-server-console-.i386.rpm
# vmware-server-config-console.pl
# ### The VMware admin manual says vmware-config-console.pl, but it is the name
# ### shown above.
4. Once we've got the VMware server installed, we need to install a guest operating system. We do that with VMware Server Console, so start the Server Console application from the X windows. Please review VM manual for virtual server installation.
# vmware &
5. Create a virtual machine.
6. (Optional) Install VMware Tools.
# ### From Server Console application, choose VM > Install VMware Tools.
# ###Once the VMware Tools is installed from the VMware Server Console, the
# ###necessary installation image (CD-ROM image) is ready to be mounted on
# ###the virtual machine.
# mkdir /mnt/cdrom; mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
# cd /tmp
# tar zxf /mnt/cdrom/vmware-linux-tools.tar.gz
# umount /mnt/cdrom
# ### Run configuration program.
# vmware-config-tools.pl
# Run VMware Tool
# vmware-toolbox &
7. Once a virtual server is installed, we can clone it to create a new one. Unlike VMware Workstation, the VMware Server does not offer cloning option in the Server Console. This makes the task a manual step, but it isn't too bad.
# ### Copy the virtual machine directory structure from the original to a new.
# ### We are copying vps1 to vps2
# cd /var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines
# cp -r vps1 vps2
# cd vps2
# ### Rename all files starting with vps1- to vps2-
# ### Edit vps2.vmdk, vps2.vmx and change all reference to vps1 to vps2
# nano vps2.vmdk vps2.vmx
8. Restart VMware Server Console and open a new Virtual Machine called "vps2". Rename the virtual machine to "vps2" by clicking on "Edit Virtual Machine Settings" button, then "Options" tab.
9. Start the new virtual machine, and create a new UUID. Login to the virtual server, and change IP address of the machine by editing /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0.
That pretty much wraps up VMware Server installation on Centos 4.1 platform. |
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