Category Archives: Virtualisation

All about virtualisation. VirtualBox, VMware Workstation, ESXi and vCenter, qemu

VMware ESXi: Setting up NAT with a linux virtual machine

Hi,

other than the Workstation, VMware ESXi does not has the functionality to “NATting” virtual machines network traffic into a public network.

My approach to implement NAT is a virtual machine with a slimmed-down (Debian) Linux.

These virtual machine has two network interfaces. The first interface is connected to a vSwitch called “Public LAN” with access to the public LAN, the second interface is connected to a vSwitch which has no physical adapter attached to and is called “NAT Network”. On the NAT interface a DHCP server is assigning IP Addresses.
Continue reading VMware ESXi: Setting up NAT with a linux virtual machine

VMware ESXi: Error while cloning a Disk to 2gbsparse format

Hi,

since ESXi 5.1 it is no more possible to create or clone a disk by using the 2gbsparse disk format. Because it is not supported as a VMFS vitual disk format. This disk format is only part of the Desktop Products of VMware, like VMware Workstation or VMware Player.

However in earlier version the command line tool vmkfstools could create disks and clone disks in such format. If you try this in ESXi 5.1 or later version a

~ # vmkfstools -i Disk.vmdk clone.vmdk -d 2gbsparse
“The system cannot find the file specified.”

error occurs.
 
Continue reading VMware ESXi: Error while cloning a Disk to 2gbsparse format

VMware ESX, Workstation: Increase screen resolution on Windows Guests

Hi,

to set a higher graphic resolution in Windows guest operating system do the following steps:

Decide which resolution should be available, in this example 1680×1050 and calculate Video RAM size (default Video RAM for Workstation 16777216, for ESX 4194304):
Continue reading VMware ESX, Workstation: Increase screen resolution on Windows Guests

Virtualbox: Creating and controlling Virtual Maschines from command line

Hi,

VirtualBox offers a very powerful command inferface: vboxmanage. With vboxmanage you can create new virtual machine, add and modify harddisk and much more. All the things you could do in the GUI, and a lot more are also possible at command line. In this post I will create, modify, control and delete a complete virtual machine.

At the bottom of the post the whole script can be downloaded.
I used a debian linux system for my tests. To install the latest VirtualBox version use the following commands:

echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian wheezy contrib non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
# Add Oracle Keyring
wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | apt-key add -
# Update repositories
apt-get update
# Install latest virtualbox version
apt-get -y install virtualbox-4.3
# Installing the Extentionpack for USB2 and RDP support
wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.3.6/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.6-91406.vbox-extpack
VBoxManage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.6-91406.vbox-extpack

Continue reading Virtualbox: Creating and controlling Virtual Maschines from command line

VirtualBox: Changing the UUID of a VDI virtual disk File

Hi,

sometimes you simply want to copy a vdi file and attach it to another virtual machine.

This will fail because in a VirtualBox Installation each vdi Harddisk must have an unique UUID. This command line changes the UUID of a VDI file.
Continue reading VirtualBox: Changing the UUID of a VDI virtual disk File