Re: [PLUG] vmplayer and browser

["Aaron Mulder" <ammulder@alumni.princeton.edu>]

We use VMware Server on a SuSE 10 host and it works quite well.  I can
come up with a few issues, but they're not showstoppers:

- If you ssh to the machine over the Internet and the run the full
VMware+Guest OS GUI via X forwarding, it's horribly slow.  There is a
remote admin tool that may be better, and connections on the same LAN
are fine (though Mac clients need to ssh -Y).

- The guest OS seems a bit more vulnerable to unexpected power
outages than a native OS -- I assume because data can be "in cache"
both in the host and guest OS's.  (One Windows guest refused to boot
after such a problem.)  We ended up with a script that suspends,
copies, and resumes each VM each night.

- With a number of VMs running (including 2 running databases), the
disk access seems to be a limiting factor (and a guest doesn't get the
same disk performance as it would from a native install on the same
hardware).  I would be wary of putting a production or high-load DB in
a VM.

- For Opteron machines, you may or may not be able to run 64-bit
Guest VMs depending on the chip revision.  No idea how it works for
Intel.  You can run a 64-bit host in any case and we haven't had
trouble using more than 4 GB total across all the guests.

- Note that every time your kernel changes (e.g. due to a kernel
security update) on either the host or the guest, you'll have to run a
script on that OS to rebuild various VMware modules.

I've noticed that VMware Server now lets you select 1 or 2 virtual
CPUs for each VM, but I haven't tried setting any guests to 2 yet.

Thanks,
    Aaron

On 10/19/06, Mark Baker <mrkbkr@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone I am new to list and wanted to get my first topic in.
>
>
>
> Has anyone been using the free Vmware server and player?  I have been using
> the player on my windows xp machine to run ubuntu and the stripped down
> browser appliance.   I have been impressed with its functionality with the
> full ubuntu vm and the added security the browser vm provides is nice change
> of pace from worrying about having my xp machine infected by spyware etc.
>
>
>
> I need to implement a virtual server project before the end of the year
> running windows and a linux distro on a dell and wanted to see if any one
> had some advice on which products that are out there are most solid.  I have
> been looking at the xensource project and the Vmware server.
>
>
>
>
>
> Links:
>
> Vm player:
> http://www.vmware.com/products/free_virtualization.html
>
> Vm browser app:
> http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/browserapp.html
>
> Xensource:
> http://www.xensource.com/xen/xen/index.html
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Mark
>
>
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