Topic: SME appliance for VMWare Server?

[spyrule]

Hello,

 I was wondering if anybody knows of a non .torrent link for an SME Appliance for VMWare Server?

 (ie: running SME inside a VMWare server).

 and also, if anybody could make any suggestions on how to setup the network settings to get the server to be
 "seeable" from outside of the immediate pc's network range (ie: the entire network)?

 Thanks in advance,

 Spyrule.

[spyrule]

anybody?

[mmccarn]

I've never seen a SME appliance.

It is simple to install SME under VMWare - just mount your sme .iso to a new vmware host and reboot...

(I guess this approach does skip over the difficulties with clock synchronization...)

[spyrule]

Well I found an appliance here : http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/944

However it's in .torrent file and I cannot download torrents @ work, plus when I try @ home, the
torrent never works for me.

 So I was hoping to find a zip/rar'ed version.  Oh well.

 The problem I am having getting SME to setup properly under VMWare server, is that I cannot get the
 network settings to work correctly. The server is not visible outside the vmware server software.

 I have a specific IP and domain name assigned to the test server, so I have to specify the IP, but I get no response ever!.

 spyrule.

[Bricka]

I run my trial SME sever from within Windows Virtual Machine 2007 without any probems although are you askiong for VM ware that runs on a linux based system ?

[spyrule]

No I run VMWare server on an XP Pro client, and it runs, I just can't seem to get the network devices to connect properly.
So I figured, a network appliance for VMWare, properly setup, would be easier then trial and error for myself.

[Bricka]

Download Microsoft Virtual PC - This allows easy configuration of the NIC cards before the SME is loaded.

I can easily ping, server-manager etc etc to my virtual SME from within XP Pro i.e form my XP machine it simnply looks like another box on my local LAN. 

This is the simplest and dare I say it most relaible VMware I have used from within Windows and is free from Microsoft.  I have also tested it on Red Hat and Mandrake with no problems.

[spyrule]

I didn't realize that the MS Virtual PC 2007 was free. jeez.

 trying it out now... will update with outcome.

[edb]

Bricka

When you installed SME in MS Virtual PC 2007 setup it gives the warning of reformatting all disks .... is this just refering to the VMdisk or the actual hard disks that it wants to format? I don't want to touch my actual physical drives.

edb

[spyrule]

just the virtual disk inside the VM environment, NOT your actual HDD. From what I understand, Virtual Server, won't allow your C: drive to be formatted (plus windows 2k and up won't allow it).

[edb]

Thanks Spyrule

I thought so just but just wanted to make sure is all ... Thanks

edb

[edb]

I'm impressed with this Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, I have used VMWARE but seen this thread and thought I would give it a try.
I'm glad I did ... It really is easy to use.

edb

[Bricka]

I know, Good isn't.

I have used a few VM packages and this even though it is Microsoft is really stable and reliable.

[kryptos]

Hi,

You could also try Virtualbox. I have tried installing it seems no problem with SME. See http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=38326.0

regards,
Kryptos

[christian]

Spurred on by this thread, I have tried vmware, MSVPC2007, and VirtualBox. My main reason was to look for a reasonably stable virtualization environment initially for my main desktop machine but ultimately to consolidate some of my server HW (all home stuff but it is starting to add up). I tested them with CentOS4.5 only though and on a host of Windows XP Home.

All running on Core2 duo 6600 on a high end ASUS Mo Bo and 3GB RAM.

My off the cuff thoughts:

VMWare Server 1.04: Stable, broad support, but the free version at least is slow and poky. Aside from somewhat sluggish response, the audio card stuttered (no matter what mods I did). In my opinion, VMWare 1.04 was barely usable due to the sluggishness.

MS VPC 2007: though officially not support on XP Home it did intall and worked reasonably well. I couldn't get the Tools to install on the guest OS as they all seem to be geared to MS guests only (surprise surprise). For whatever reason with CentOS as guest, it could not see the audio card at all. The other issue was it is 16-bit colour support only so when I installed CentOS (which defaults to 24-bit), the display went haywire. I corrected this by installing CentOS with 16-bit colour option instead. Overall this worked quite well though I wish I could get Audio to work.

VirtualBox 1.5.2: it was a little unstable and crashed intially (but it has stopped doing that). I had to boot CentOS as non-SMP otherwise it hung decompressing the kernel. Other than that it runs quickly and the audio works (as well as other devices). I did have some weird issues with PGP keys on some rpms when I was doing a yum install of vlc. All other VMs had no issues. it is hard to imagine what the VM could have done to affect this but you never know; I chalk it up to bad timing from the repository.

So in conclusion, I will not continue with VMWare unless I find a compelling need for it. The other two I will continue to play with to see how well they work through other scenarios. But at least VirtualBox should be able to run with SME as it's Host OS (in theory).

I hope this helps someone.

I would be curious of other people's experiences.

Christian