Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

fusion

Running vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 in Fusion

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I am doing some simple tests at home and I am running the vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 in Fusion. In order to get it working there are a couple of tricks I have to perform, I find myself resorting to the same blogs over and over again so I figured I would just put it all on my own blog in a single location so I can simply copy/past where needed and don’t need to hit multiple sources.

First, deployment of vCenter Server in Fusion:

  • Download the vCenter Server Appliance ISO
  • Mount the appliance in OSX
  • Copy the file “vmware-vcsa” from the folder “vcsa”
  • Add “.ova” to the file by renaming it
  • Open fusion go to “File” and “Import” the OVA but don’t start it
  • Edit the “vmx” file of the VM you just created
    • Typically stored under Documents –> Virtual Machines
    • I edit them using vi through the terminal as that is what I’ve used for the last decade or so. The path for me looks something like this:
    • /Users/depping/Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/vmware-vcsa-2800571.vmwarevm
  • You will need to add a bunch of entries, I lifted these from William’s site of course… Thanks William
    guestinfo.cis.deployment.node.type = “embedded”
    guestinfo.cis.vmdir.domain-name = “vsphere.local”
    guestinfo.cis.vmdir.site-name = “vsphere”
    guestinfo.cis.vmdir.password = “VMware1!”
    guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.addr.family = “ipv4”
    guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.addr = “192.168.1.5”
    guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.pnid = “192.168.1.5”
    guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.prefix = “24”
    guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.mode = “static”
    guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.dns.servers = “192.168.1.1”
    guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.gateway = “192.168.1.1”
    guestinfo.cis.appliance.root.passwd = “VMware1!”
    guestinfo.cis.appliance.ssh.enabled = “true”

Now I want to update vCenter Server, 6.0 in this instance, was described by Ryan Johnson recently, I tweaked it to meet my own needs

  • Download the patch: https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/patch#search
    • Note that this isn’t the regular ISO file, the filename should look something like this: VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-6.0.0.10000-3018521-patch-FP.iso (6.0U1)
  • Mount the ISO through Fusion
  • SSH in to the vCenter Server:
  • Now from the command run the “software-packages” command and let it use the ISO you just mounted
    • software-packages install –iso  –acceptEulas
  • This upgrade  will take a couple of minutes usually, in my case it took about 7 minutes to complete, next you will need to reboot the vCenter Server:
    • shutdown reboot -r updates

That’s it… easy right.

Running CoreOS on Fusion

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I wanted to play around with CoreOs and Docker a bit so I went to the CoreOS website but unfortunately they do not provide an OVF or OVA download. The CoreOS website doesn’t really explain how to do this, they do show how to do it for ESXi where they show how to create an OVF/OVA. I figured I would do a quick write-up on how to get the latest version up and running quickly in Fusion, without jumping through hoops.

  • Download the latest version here: coreos_production_vmware_insecure.zip (~180MB)
  • Unzip the file after downloading
  • If you look in the folder you will see a “.vmx” file and a “.vmdk” file
  • Move the whole folder in to the “Virtual Machines” folder under “Documents”
  • Now simply right click the VMX file and “open” it
  • You may be asked if you want to upgrade the hardware, I recommend doing this
  • Boot

After you are done booting you can “simply” connect to is as follows:

  • Look at the VM console for the IP Address
  • Now change your directory to the folder where the virtual machine is stored as there should be a key in that folder
  • Now run the following command, where 192.168.1.19 is the IP of the VM in my environment:
    ssh -i insecure_ssh_key [email protected]

Note that the key is highly insecure and you should replace it of course. More details can be found here.

PS: Dear CoreOS, please create an OVA or OVF… It will make life even easier for your customers.

Warning: Latest OS X updates causes issues with Fusion 5.0.x!

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On the VMware VMTN Forums it is reported that VMware Fusion 5.0.x in combination with the latest OS X updates (MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Update 2.0) causes virtual machines to crash. This is reported in the following threads:

The error encountered is:

VMware Fusion has encountered an error and has shut down the virtual machine.

You can simply solve this as mentioned by Darius:

In the meantime, please try this: With your VM powered off, go into the Virtual Machine > Settings, then choose Display, and turn off the Accelerate 3D Graphics option.  Then close the Settings window and try to power on your VM.

Workstation and Fusion Tech Previews!

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Both VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion just release tech preview versions. You can find them here:

What’s new for Workstation?

  • Installation and operation of VMware Workstation on Windows 8 and Windows Server 8
  • Installation and operation of Windows 8 consumer preview and Windows Server 8 in a virtual machine
  • Rendering and graphics correctness issues on all platforms and applications
  • Linux 3D desktop experience, particularly when using the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Beta
  • Linux 3D application graphics correctness and performance
  • Stability in real-world scenarios including suspend/resume and display and device support
  • Nested Virtualization – running ESX and even trying Hyper-V* as a guest OS
  • VNC connection performance and stability

What’s new for Fusion?

  • Installation and operation of Windows 8 previews in a virtual machine
  • Running Mac OS X (Mountain Lion) in a virtual machine
  • Rendering and graphics correctness issues on all platforms and applications
  • Linux 3D desktop experience, particularly Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and recent OpenSUSE releases, which should work out-of-the-box
  • Linux 3D application graphics correctness and performance
  • Changing boot devices in Mac OS X virtual machines
  • Performance and stability of virtual machine power operations including suspend, resume, pause and restart
  • Stability in real-world scenarios including suspend/resume and display and device plugging on the Mac

The coolest new feature though of these two releases is what is now known as “WSX” and part of Workstation. This enables you to access your virtual machine in a regular browser… What? Yes indeed, access it in a regular browser window! How cool is that?! One of the Workstation developers wrote a nice blog article about it. I suggest reading it and providing him with direct feedback on use cases etc!

If I have some time on my hands next week I will definitely install the Tech Preview on my Linux desktop and enable WSX!

Converting Open Virtualization Format (OVF) -Virtual Machines to VMware Fusion

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I needed to run an appliance inside VMware Fusion on my Mac, the appliance was in OVF format. VMware Fusion currently does not support this format and requires you to convert the image with a tool called ovftool which can be downloaded at the following location: http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vsphere/automationtools/ovf

Conversion is as simple as:

./ovftool "source.ovf" "target"

Optionally you could use parameters that are described in full detail when running ovftool –help. What remains is importing the created .vmx into Fusion, that’s it.

-ray