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Re: [PLUG] Virtual Setup Suggestions Wanted- resources used for centOS and vmware server
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> Ron Kaye Jr wrote:
>> default packages installed, or have you determined what is not needed
>> for a most basic centOS insneed
>> after installing vmware server, what resources have been consumed
>> (storage, memory, etc)
Disk and RAM needed are determined by what OS's you want to run and
what you want to do with them. I am able to run 2-3 VMs under VMware
Workstation 5.5 on top of a GUI Ubuntu Hardy install with 2G RAM and
500G disk, but the VMs are mostly 256-512M RAM Linux, Solaris or BSD
with no GUI. I do have some Windows VMs and they are fine too, but I
can't run too much on that machine at once. I also recently upgraded
the machine to 8G RAM because it was dirt cheap. This is for
dev/testing/playing only, not production.
The machine I just set up is using about 1.2G for just the minimal OS,
and VMware Server 1.x, installed as follows. It's also using about 512M
RAM at idle. Compare that with a basic Debian Lenny install + Apache,
BackupPC, Samba and some other stuff (not VMware) at 693M of disk (RAM
comparison is not applicable).
This is expanded from similar message I sent the other day...
For work, I just installed a *minimal* CentOS-5.4 system and VMware
Server 1.0.10 on an 8G/1.2T server that will be both production and
testing (inside a VM that will only run for tests). There are a few tricks.
First, Red Hat removed the "minimal" install option, starting with RHEL5
IIRC. It really sucked anyway, installing far too much cruft. So the
new way is:
At the end of the installer, for package selection:
Uncheck "Desktop - Gnome"
Select "Customize now" radio button
> On the customize screen, uncheck EVERYTHING
(including "Base System: Base")
Install & reboot
That still installed something like 187 packages, but that's way better
than a "stock" install. At that point is just wasn't worth my time to
try and trim it any more. Interestingly, man, Perl, NTP and an MTA are
some of the packages not installed. (Contrast this to a really minimal
Debian install, which doesn't even include SSH. THAT's minimal!)
Next, I install some stuff I just plain want (YMMV):
# yum install man mlocate ntsysv ntp perl screen vim-enhanced wget
You probably want Postfix or some MTA so cron, etc. can send email.
Nullmailer isn't in the repos, but I did find it at a third-party site.
I forget where, Google for it. Postfix is probably easier though.
If using Postfix you'll want to edit /etc/postfix/main.cf and tweak at
least the following:
myhostname =
mydomain =
myorigin =
and maybe:
inet_interfaces = localhost
relayhost =
# yum upgrade
and reboot.
The next trick is installing VMware Server 1.x. (I hate the web-GUI for
2.x and have never gotten it to work right anyway.) For this minimal
install, you'll probably need to install some extra packages or you'll
get a bunch of "The correct version of one or more libraries needed to
run VMware Server may be missing" errors. Basically, the RPM is
*broken* and doesn't list all the correct deps.
Running vmware-config.pl and getting it to compile various modules is a
giant PITA and you have to do it every time you install a new kernel.
Also, a lot of the time something breaks and you have to go figure out
what. That sucks, and is a big argument toward using something better
supported, like VirtualBox, KVM, etc. :-(
# yum install gcc kernel-PAE-devel make xinetd libICE libSM libXt libXtst
### Might also possibly need: libX11 libXau libXdmcp libXrender
### And maybe: glibc zlib
### But those will probably either already be there or be installed per
the other stuff above.
# mkdir /root/Unpackaged & cd $_
# wget
'http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmserver/VMware-server-1.0.10-203137.i386.rpm'
# rpm -ivh VMware-server-1.0.10-203137.i386.rpm
# vmware-config.pl
This broke. Of course. As always. My kernel headers were in
/usr/src/kernels/2.6.18-164.el5PAE-i686/include (note you won't have the
PAE part unless you have >4G of RAM, IIRC). I had to patch the damn
kernel source as Red Hat seems to have released mis-matched kernels and
sources. When I give it the correct path, I'd get:
"The directory of kernel headers (version 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5PAE) does
not match your running kernel (version 2.6.18-164.el5PAE). Even if the
module were to compile successfully, it would not load into the running
kernel." That's crap. I have the correct headers installed
(kernel-PAE-devel).
As you can see, the system is reporting that it is running
2.6.18-164.6.1.el5PAE but the kernel-PAE-devel RPM installed headers for
2.6.18-164.el5PAE. Someone added a '6.1' tweak in the kernel but not
the headers. Grrrrr.
So hack around that:
# cp -av
/usr/src/kernels/2.6.18-164.6.1.el5-PAE-i686/include/linux/utsrelease.h /tmp
# echo '#define UTS_RELEASE "2.6.18-164.el5PAE"' >
/usr/src/kernels/2.6.18-164.6.1.el5-PAE-i686/include/linux/utsrelease.h
# cp -av /tmp/utsrelease.h
/usr/src/kernels/2.6.18-164.6.1.el5-PAE-i686/include/linux/
# rm /tmp/utsrelease.h
This all worked, at least to the extent that I could connect to the
machine using the fat client. I have not actually tried to create or
run a VM yet.
Next trick (sigh) is that VM's can be screwy with time sync (since they
share a CPU without really being aware of that).
Fix time sync settings
# grep '^cpu MHz' /proc/cpuinfo
= e.g.: cpu MHz : 2926.159
# vi /etc/vmware/config
# Fix Guest time sync issues
#
http://jeffrasmussen.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/ubuntu-host-with-windows-guest-time-sync-problem/
#
http://blog.autoedification.com/2006/11/vmware-guest-clock-runs-fast.html
# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq
#
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1591
host.cpukHz = 2926159
host.noTSC = TRUE
ptsc.noTSC = TRUE
# /etc/init.d/vmware restart
Fix slow VMware guests and pegged disk
1) On Linux Host OS
On-the-fly
# sudo -s # if needed
# echo '10' > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
# Permanently
# vi /etc/sysctl.conf
# Speed up VMware a bit, 2009-08-27
#
http://www.phocean.net/2006/12/06/slow-performance-in-vmware-using-ubuntu.html
vm.swappiness = 10
2) Per VM settings:
* VMware, VM Settings, Options, Advanced, check: "Disable memory
page trimming"
# http://communities.vmware.com/thread/26481
# http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_performance_diskio.html
* VMware, VM Settings, Options, Disk, uncheck: "Disable write caching"
And if you get "rtc: lost x interrupts" log messages"
# http://communities.vmware.com/thread/116590
* vi /etc/vmware/config
host.useFastClock = FALSE
* Restart VMware
I hope this giant mess is useful to someone. I'd say it looks worse
than it really is, but...
JP
----------------------------|:::======|-------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP |:::======| http://bashcookbook.com/
My Account, My Opinions |=========| http://www.jpsdomain.org/
----------------------------|=========|-------------------------------
"Microsoft Tax" = the additional hardware & yearly fees for the add-on
software required to protect Windows from its own poorly designed and
implemented self, while the overhead incidentally flattens Moore's Law.
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