[Quantian-general] vmtools and vmplayer

[Ben Goodrich]

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Hi,

Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> Hi Simon,
>
> On 18 July 2006 at 10:57, Simon Blomberg wrote:
> | Hi everyone,
> |
> | I used the following link as a hint to installing VMtools inside my
> | guest Quantian setup. VMtools supposedly provides some performance
> | enhancements, but the most useful thing that I have noticed is that
> | it synchronises the Quantian clock with the host clock. VMtools is
> | only available as part of VMworkstation, but apparently there are no
> | copyright issues with using it with VMplayer.
> |
> |
http://www.brandonhutchinson.com/Installing_VMware_Tools_with_VMware_Player.html
>
> I glanced at that page but found it to be terse. What exactly do the
> the VMtools offer?

My experience with VMtools is that it makes more of a difference with my
Windows guest than with my Quantian guest. I suppose it is worth doing,
though.

Perhaps the VMware clustering thing would work better if the master
virtual machine used the vmxnet network driver. We should test this.
However, the vmwnet driver isn't an option for the nodes, which have to
use the unofficial Intel driver if they are virtual machines or whatever
the real card is in the case of real machines.

Installing VMtools is documented and relatively easy if you are
installing Quantian on a virtual machine. However, if you are booting
the virtual machine from the .iso (for example, if you were clustering),
then AFAIK there are no official VMtools instructions because you have
to reboot before VMtools kicks in. Here is what I do in this situation
(from memory, chime in if it doesn't work for you):

- -------------------------
To start, boot the virtual machine from the Quantian.iso. Then, make a
Quantian directory within $HOME and copy the whole /dev/cdrom/boot
directory to $HOME/Quantian. Then, make it into a small QuantianBOOT.iso
with

mkisofs -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
	-b boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin -c boot/isolinux/boot.cat
        $HOME/Quantian -o QuantianBOOT.iso

Email / FTP / USB the QuantianBOOT.iso to yourself and reboot the
Quantian virtual machine, this time pointing the first virtual DVD drive
to QuantianBOOT.iso and the second virtual DVD drive to Quantian.iso.
Now, you can get the VMtools binary, (which requires disconnecting the
first virtual DVD drive, hence the above). I use

alien -d vmtools*.rpm --scripts

to make it into a .deb.

Now, repeat the above procedure to make a QuantianBOOT.iso with two
additions: First, move vmtools*.deb to $HOME/Quantian and second make a
$HOME/Quantian/knoppix.sh script that includes the line

dpkg -i /dev/cdrom/vmtools*.deb

Once you have done these two things, run mkisofs ... to make a new
QuantianBOOT.iso. Email / FTP / USB the QuantianBOOT.iso to yourself,
overwrite the old QuantianBOOT.iso, and reboot the Quantian virtual
machine with the cheatcode

knoppix (or whatever) unionfs myconfig=/dev/cdrom

which will execute knoppix.sh (and thus install VMtools) right before
the X server is started every time you reboot Quantian.
- ---------------------------

All this is easier than it sounds and I believe legal (IANAL), but is
still a pain. Dirk, you might contact VMware about including VMtools and
a correspoding knoppix.sh in the root of the Quantian.iso when you
remaster, but there are obviously licensing considerations because
nothing VMware makes is free-as-in-speech and you don't want a
Kororaa-sized headache.

Ben
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