Posts Tagged ‘virtualization’

Launching Ubuntu 11.04 Instances on KVM

This post is mostly for my own record as I keep having to look at my shell history every time I want to spin up a new virtual machine on my KVM server at home (so for those looking for something earth shattering, move along). For anyone looking for a how-to to get started, I followed an entry over a howtoforge. It’s pretty good, so no need to replicate.

Now, the goods.

If this is your first image, I recommend looking for the section in the page referenced titled “3 Creating An Image-Based VM” (seems no way to link to specific sections..). For me, I just copy one of the dirs from an existing one and clear out the ubuntu-kvm dir and edit vmbuilder.partition as necessary.

Then, from that dir, run:
sudo vmbuilder kvm ubuntu --suite=natty --flavour=virtual --arch=amd64 -o --libvirt=qemu:///system --ip=172.16.0.10 --templates=mytemplates --user=wyatt --name=Wyatt --pass=supersecret --addpkg=vim-nox --addpkg=unattended-upgrades --addpkg=acpid --addpkg=openssh-server --firstboot=/home/user/host.whatan00b.com/boot.sh --mem=1024 --hostname=host.whatan00b.com --bridge=br0 --part=vmbuilder.partition

Then, start the vm:
sudo virsh start host.whatan00b.com

It should boot shortly and you can ssh to the shiny new vm with the IP and username/password specified. Hopefully soon I can find some fancy way to integrate Puppet into the mix. :)

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Filed under How-Tos / Tips : Comments (0) : Oct 23rd, 2011

Vagrant Fails To Start VM with Bad Default Machine Folder

I’m here at PuppetConf in Portland and one of the speakers got me all excited again about Vagrant. I’ve played around with Vagrant before, but he was showing off some awesome features that I didn’t realize existed which made me want to play with the tool again (more on that later!). Anyway, I updated all the versions of things Vagrant-related and tried to use it again. However, when I downloaded one of the default images from the getting started page I was greeted with an awesomely descriptive error:

[default] Importing base box 'lucid32'...
The VM import failed! Try running `VBoxManage import` on the box file
manually for more verbose error output.

Running it with VBoxManage as instructed gave a slightly-better-yet-not-so-useful error:
VBoxManage: error: Appliance file must have .ovf extension
VBoxManage: error: Details: code VBOX_E_FILE_ERROR (0x80bb0004), component Appliance, interface IAppliance, callee nsISupports
Context: "Read(Bstr(pszAbsFilePath).raw(), progressRead.asOutParam())" at line 302 of file VBoxManageAppliance.cpp

A few Google searches for this error got me almost nowhere except that it was likely a VirtualBox configuration issue. Great. After digging around for far too long, I figured out that it was because when I had played with Vagrant/VirtualBox in the past I had configured VirtualBox’s default machine folder to an external drive that I didn’t have plugged in! Doh. Anyway, was a pretty easy fix but I thought I’d share if it saved someone some time. The default machine folder is set on the first screen in the VirtualBox preferences window (at least for me on my Mac).

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Filed under How-Tos / Tips : Comments (0) : Sep 23rd, 2011

Five Reasons I Would Switch (Exclusively) to Linux

Yesterday I took a look at some of the applications that I’d miss if I decided to switch away from Mac OS X to using Linux exclusively. I felt that wasn’t quite fair as there are some really compelling reasons to switch to Linux and I really didn’t give it much chance (publicly that is). Here’s five reasons I do want to make the switch.

Aptitude
Good package management is absolutely critical on any OS that one is going to be developing or serving data off of. Sure, you can download and install packages as needed, but if those packages aren’t bundled up nicely (as often happens with open source software ported to OS X or Windows), installing those packages become a pain. Need to install an application with its dependencies? No problem! Just do an apt-get install (or use yum or yast, etc. pick your poison). Sure, there’s projects like Macports, but let’s face it, you can’t beat a good native package manager.

Usable OpenOffice.org
Yes, I know that OpenOffice.org runs on Mac OS X. However, every time I’ve seen it run on OS X it’s much slower than running it in Linux on slower hardware. Even using the NeoOffice product, it seems like it just isn’t as responsive or load nearly as fast as running OOo on Linux.

Gnome / KDE (i.e. choice)
One could argue that the Linux desktop managers offer too many options, but being able to theme (nicely, not like those lame underwater themes everyone ran on Windows 98) and tweak everything is definitely a bonus. One Linux box can look exactly the same or dramatically different than the next. The important thing is, it’s all up to the user. OS X looks beautiful, but freedom is worth something as well.

Hardware Freedom
I don’t violate the EULA by installing Linux on standard PC hardware. That’s a pretty compelling argument for Linux right there. I will agree that the Mac hardware is pretty dang slick and nice, but having the freedom to run my OS on the machine of my choice is a very important deciding factor in choosing which OS I will use. I also only have to mention virtualization and Apple loses out big-time there as it won’t allow OS X to be licensed to run in a virtualized environment (except for the server).

Native X11
I know that you can run X11-based applications on OS X, but what a pain in the butt. They’re slow to start, the keyboard options change and the window management is terrible. Seriously, run GIMP on a Mac and then use it on Linux. You won’t go back.

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Jul 31st, 2009

Installing VirtualBox OSE on Ubuntu 8.04

Tonight I wanted to play with a couple of Linux distros on my desktop and I decided to install VirtualBox since it’s free and already has packages in Ubuntu for it. That turned into a much longer process than I thought, but not too bad. There’s a couple of steps that the open source edition’s installer on Ubuntu that are missed.

I installed VirtualBox through the Add/Remove Applications GUI application. When I ran VirtualBox, created a virtual machine, and tried to boot it I was greeted with an error:
VirtualBox kernel driver not installed. The vboxdrv kernel module was either not loaded or /dev/vboxdrv was not created for some reason. Please install the virtualbox-ose-modules package for your kernel, e.g. virtualbox-ose-modules-generic..

Apparently you have to install an additional module which Ubuntu conveniently left out. To get the correct module for any running kernel that you are using:
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose-modules-`uname -r`

Fine. My module is now installed. I went to boot up my VM again..
The VirtualBox kernel driver is not accessible to the current user. Make sure that the user has write permissions for /dev/vboxdrv by adding them to the vboxusers groups. You will need to logout for the change to take effect..

I had to add my user to the vboxusers group in order to gain access to the VirtualBox module:
sudo usermod -G vboxusers -a user

Log out and log back in and voila, VM boots.

Slightly irritating, but not too bad.

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Filed under How-Tos / Tips : Comments (3) : Jul 22nd, 2009

Microsoft Embraces GPL?

Satan better invest in a parka and that theoretical pig better invest in a parachute in case its flight is short-lived. Microsoft today released a Linux driver for its Hyper-V virtualization layer under (here’s where it gets interesting) the GNU GPLv2. Yes, the same Microsoft who at one time told us that the GPL was “anti-American”.

By releasing the drivers under the GPL, they’ve not only validated Linux as a value-add to run on top of Hyper-V, but they’ve also validated free software as a whole by contributing the code to the community the way any other open source vendor would. Ironically, Microsoft is actually ahead of several other companies in releasing their drivers under the open source GPL license. The driver is no doubt a move to help boost its Hyper-V market share, but it’s a critical move that Microsoft needs to get customers who would have otherwise chosen a product like VMware, KVM, or Xen. Greg Kroah-Hartman from Novell says that Microsoft will be maintaining and adding new features to the code as well.

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Filed under News : Comments (1) : Jul 21st, 2009

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