patrik.cqure.net

Archive for the ‘Virtualization’ Category

Thanks to SavvyAdmin.com I finally got bridging to work with my wireless device in VirtualBox. I have not yet given it as extensive testing that I would like but my first impression is that it actually works. In order to get it running you need two programs bcrelay and parprouted. I just this minute finnished typing the last lines of my script that starts bridging between a given interface and the wlan. The script is somewhat long as it enables ip forwarding, makes apropriate changes in my firewall configuration, starts the daemons and finally tries to reset it all when it ends. I have posted the script here for anyone who would like to try it out. Feel free to drop me a line with suggestions or changes.

Posted by Patrik in Virtualization | No Comments

Sun released the 2.0.2 maintenance release yesterday. Judging by the changelog it fixes a number of kernel related crashes of the guest os and a number of GUI crashes. Might be good to upgrade in other words.

Posted by Patrik in Virtualization | No Comments

Virtualbox 2.0.0 was released yesterday. Be sure to check it out at www.virtualbox.org.
A part from the GUI improvements it contains a couple of performance improvements and bugfixes. The complete changelog is here.

If you don't want to end up loosing some work (as I did), make sure you don't have any machines with their state saved (ie. make sure you shut all machines down) before you upgrade.

Posted by Patrik in Virtualization | No Comments

I recently changed mobile phones from my LG KS20 to a Nokia E71. All in all I am very pleased with the change to Nokia and I must say that I am truly impressed with this model. Well, except for PC suite not working with Virtualbox ofcourse I don't know whos to blame but the software does not want to connect to my phone over USB. It finds the phone and installs all the right drivers but once PC Suite tries to connect I get "PC Suite does not regcognise the connected phone. The connection between the PC and phone failed, error code 0x80044403. Switch of your phone, switch it on, and try again."

I am running the latest PC Suite 7.0.8.2 on Windows XP in Virtualbox 1.6.4. My current workaround is to connect to the phone over bluetooth from the same Virtual XP installation using a USB Bluetooth dongle. I must say that this part is a bit of a pain in the ..... Well, I guess you can't have it all.

The issue has been reported at both Virtualbox and Nokia forums so hopefully there will be a fix soon.

Posted by Patrik in Virtualization | 2 Comments

I have been meaning to look into using Virtualbox as an alternative for VMware Workstation that I have been using for quite sometime. Now, that I have been running them in parallel for almost a month I see some  benefits and some disadvantages with both. The definition of personal use for Virtualbox is undeniably a big benefit. According to the licensing FAQ this is the definition of personal use:

"Personal use is when you install the product on one or more PCs yourself and you make use of it (or even your friend, sister and grandmother). It doesn't matter whether you just use it for fun or run your multi-million euro business with it. Also, if you install it on your work PC at some large company, this is still personal use. However, if you are an administrator and want to deploy it to the 500 desktops in your company, this would not qualify as personal use. Well, you could ask each of your 500 employees to install VirtualBox but don't you think we deserve some money in this case? We'd even assist you with any issue you might have."

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Patrik in Virtualization | No Comments

We're getting closer, however we're not there yet. The VMWare module source shipped with VMware server 1.0.6 still fails to compile on my Ubuntu Hardy systems. I received the following errors when running vmware-config.pl

/tmp/vmxnet-only/vmxnet.c: In function ‘vmxnet_open’:
/tmp/vmxnet-only/vmxnet.c:675: error: ‘SA_SHIRQ’ undeclared (first use in this function)
/tmp/vmxnet-only/vmxnet.c:675: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
/tmp/vmxnet-only/vmxnet.c:675: error: for each function it appears in.)
/tmp/vmxnet-only/vmxnet.c: In function ‘vmxnet_netpoll’:
/tmp/vmxnet-only/vmxnet.c:1045: error: too many arguments to function ‘vmxnet_interrupt’

I have made appropriate patches (for the network module only) and uploaded a patch file here

In order to apply the patch do the following and then re-run vmware-config.pl

cd /tmp
wget http://www.cqure.net/files/VMwareTools-1.0.6-91891.patch
tar xvf /usr/lib/vmware-tools/modules/source/vmxnet.tar
patch -p0 < VMwareTools-1.0.6-91891.patch
tar cvf vmxnet.tar vmxnet-only
sudo cp vmxnet.tar /usr/lib/vmware-tools/modules/source/vmxnet.ta

/Patrik

Posted by Patrik in Virtualization | 5 Comments

VMware workstation 6.04 was released the other day. No need to patch any of the modules for recent kernels (2.6.24) anymore.

Posted by Patrik in Virtualization | No Comments