Friday, July 8, 2005

Creating a Vericept Instance in VMWare

Here's the generic host creation VM documentation with the promiscuous NIC setup and drive conversion sections. Here's a better structure below:

  • Determine customer platform (Vmware version: ESX v?, workstation, gsx, etc) and total space dedicated for this VM.
  • Create the VM in workstation with the total space defined as the MAXIMUM. Allow for auto-expansion of the disk to maximum. This will yield about a 6 GB partition. This was done correctly the first time.
  • Compress this final disk image with a file utility appropriate to the receiving host machine. Windows = winzip or windows compress utility. ESX, Linux = Tar/Gzip.
  • Burn to disk and ship. Be ready to have this available via FTP should the disk be damaged in transit. Include a document with step-by-step installation instructions from disc to image, through conversion, into VM setup and promiscuous port settings.

On the receiving end (ESX ONLY):

  • copy the compressed file from DVD and uncompress/untar it to the /vmfs directory of an ESX box (handles large files well).
  • Run the disk conversion process.

vmkfstools –i vmhba:X:X:X:X:.vmdk

  Make sure the customer has MAX DISK SPACE _plus_ the 6GB overhead of the original disk file.  When done, delete the old 6GB file.
  • Create a new VM, define for Linux, name, RAM, etc., and attach the new ("existing") disk you just converted.
  • You previously wired the NICs, defined the virtual switches and such so you have a _separate_ production and sensing network connections and virtual switches, right? Add one virtual NIC for this VM connected to the production network's virtual switch. Add one v-NIC connected to the "sensor" v-switch (don't worry about the terminology, it works). The production network can be shared amoung the VMs. The "sensor" network can only be used by Vericept VM and needs a dedicated NIC bound to a dedicated virtual switch within VM.
  • Set the "sensor" NIC into promiscuous mode.

echo "PromiscuousAllowed yes" > /proc/vmware/net/vmnicX/config

  • Run the VM.
  • Test test test
  • *optional* Log into Paypal.com and send $10 to Drew Hunt (pinowudi@yahoo.com) for his efforts.

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