[CentOS] Xen or VMWARE on CentOS 5

Mon Mar 24 05:46:56 UTC 2008
Bill Campbell <centos at celestial.com>

On Wed, Feb 27, 2008, Les Mikesell wrote:
>Ern jura wrote:
>>Does anyone out there have a comprehensive tutorial on installing VMware 
>>and
>>successfully managing virtual machines with either xen or vmware?
>
>VMware is pretty simple: download the server rpm, install it, run the 
>vmware-config.pl setup script to set the options and install your (free) 
>license key.  Then run vmware locally or from some other machine to 
>access the console where you can create and start the virtual machines. 
> Once created, you can treat the virtual machines like they were 
>separate physical boxes except that they contend for host resources (and 
>once they are up on the network I prefer to connect directly to them 
>with ssh, X, freenx, or vnc instead of using the VMware console.  You'll 
>want plenty of RAM on the host machine and if you run several VM's they 
>will perform better if you can spread them over different disk drives.

I just started playing with VMware-server-1.0.5-80187 on a 64-bit
CentOS 5 system system, and am having some issues with the hotkey
switching.  Running the vmware-server-console via an ssh
connection from a PPC Mac Mini, it doesn't recognize the ctrl-alt
sequences, which isn't totally surprising as I'm using a PS/2
Microsoft Natural keyboard on a KVM switch with a USB->PS/2
adapter.  When I try running it directly on the CentOS system's
console through the same KVM switch, it doesn't respond either.

I have installed SCO Openserver 5.0.6a on a virtual image, and
that seems to be working OK (my primary object now with VMware is
to have a fall-back when customer's OSR5 system's hardware goes
south).  I have had at least one situation where it didn't
recognize the CTRL-RightButton sequence in an xterm running on
the OSR5 image.

This is a CentOS 5 system with ``yum update'' reporting that
everything is current.

The system has 2GB RAM.

uname -a returns:
Linux atramax2.mi.celestial.com 2.6.18-53.1.14.el5 #1 SMP Wed Mar 5 11:37:38 EST 2008 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 15
model name	: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU          4400  @ 2.00GHz
stepping	: 2
cpu MHz		: 1999.939
cache size	: 2048 KB
physical id	: 0
siblings	: 2
core id		: 0
cpu cores	: 2
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 10
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm syscall lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl est tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips	: 4002.81
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor	: 1
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 15
model name	: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU          4400  @ 2.00GHz
stepping	: 2
cpu MHz		: 1999.939
cache size	: 2048 KB
physical id	: 0
siblings	: 2
core id		: 1
cpu cores	: 2
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 10
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm syscall lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl est tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips	: 3999.96
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

Bill
--
INTERNET:   bill at celestial.com  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
URL: http://www.celestial.com/  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
FAX:            (206) 232-9186  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206) 236-1676

Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, I predict,
Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease.
Disraeli replied, "That all depends upon whether I embrace your
principles or your mistress".