Virtualization Notes

Virtual Disk Files

7zip is able to easily open many virtual disk files. I have used it on a VirtualBox VDI file, super-easy.

P2V migration Notes

See this: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows - tells you how to work around the IDE controller, AGP driver, and other common migration issues (P2V and also restore to new hardware)
Offline registry editing using Bart PE: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/peboot.htm
IDE controllers in registry: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314082 - is it possible to manually insert the ONE controller driver you need?
I'm not able to confirm this, but some articles say Disk2VHD will work for physical to VM migration, and it seems to be able to handle the hardware issues... I'll believe it when I see it.

ACPI Shutdown of Windows

Once in the Group Policy Editor expand “Computer Configuration“, then “Windows Settings“, then “Security Settings“, then “Local Policies” and click on “Security Options”... “Shutdown: Allow system to be shut down without having to log on" - http://ethertubes.com/unattended-acpi-shutdown-of-windows-server/
Untested, Windows 2003 to allow ACPI shutdown - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System shutdownwithoutlogon reg_dword default is 0 = off put 1 to allow shutdown with pressing power button

VirtualBox - see separate note

VMWare Server

I'm really not liking the web orientated VMWare Server 2.
- Log files when GUI is down - see your tomcat settings, mine defaulted to:
  C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Application Data/VMware/VMware Server/tomcat-logs/
- There is a client, buried in the VM Server 2.0.0 download. See: http://aaron-kelley.net/downloads/vmware-viclient/
- The VMWare Infrastructure client works well. This is especially handy if the web server powering the web GUI gets broken. You have to connect to the VMWare Server like this: 192.168.1.1:8333 (default port is 8333)
- Hmm... VMWare Server is discontinued. Only hypervisors in the future.

VMWare Player

VMWare Player is a free (as in beer) VMWare w/o the ability to create images. I originally wondered how they could possibly enforce that limitation... turns out that they can't.

Here are a couple pages on how to work around the "player only" limitation by creating minimally blank images:

http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000153064739/
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/VMwarePlayerAndQemu

XenServer Notes

Templates seem to matter. Windows template allowed me to install Smoothwall. Theory, templates assume kernel support in newer distributions and use different type of virtualization. Scrolling way down, "Other" is an option, that worked too.

tags: virtual, vmware, problem, vm