RAIDiator-x86 4.2.28 | VirtualBox image #notsupported

Updated with 4.2.23 release.

Hey,
I don't suppose anyone has a VMWare bootable version of this?

I tried to import the OVA into ESX, but it refuses claiming that VirtualBox 2.2 is a hard requirement. I'm not quite sure why that would be the case - unless VirtualBox can emulate some hardware (flash memory?) that VMWare can't?

I want to do some testing/development of an add-on or two, but really don't want to run VirtualBox inside a VM running on ESX just to do that. All my dev work is done in virtual machines, so I have no intention of installing VirtualBox on my Linux desktop, and running as i've described above seems a bit of a malarky to me.

Hope someone can help - cheers :)

I don't think it could be made to work in ESX without a fair bit of work. The code that would need to be changed would probably include stuff in stripped binaries.

mdgm wrote:
I don't think it could be made to work in ESX without a fair bit of work. The code that would need to be changed would probably include stuff in stripped binaries.

Thanks for your reply.

I don't believe that is the case here. Since the x86 version clearly runs in VirtualBox without any modification of the underlying binaries for that particular virtualisation platform, I can't see any reason it won't run under any other virtualisation platform that emulates x86 hardware, including ESX.

Sure, there will be missing "hardware" (the LCD screen for example), but that is also true in VirtualBox. But given that the firmware will run in VB despite the missing hardware that would be found on a real ReadyNAS product, it should also run in ESX (assuming VB doesn't emulate some specific bit of hardware that is absolutely required for it to work - like the flash memory).

If there is specific hardware that VB can emulate that ESX cannot, then I can understand the OVA having a 'requirement' on VirtualBox hard coded into it. But if it's bog standard stuff, i'd really appreciate a 'generic' OVA that can be run on *any* virtualisation product - hence my post :)

Cheers.

If you follow the steps to make a ReadyNAS OS 6 VM, can you make that run in ESX? If so, then a 4.2.x VM should also be doable.

I think that code is hard-coded in to do things differently if the OS detects it is running in Virtualbox. I'm not sure if the same is true for other forms of Virtualisation.

Edit: Install Virtualbox on a machine, restore the 4.2.23 VM from the .ova and then try following a procedure such as this: http://it.ctsi.ufl.edu/howto-convert-from-virtualbox-to-vmware-esx/

Not sure if chirpa will read any of this vis-a-vis maintaining the RAIDiator 4.x and RNSOS 6.x stuff here... though just throwing it out there to ease my own transition from 4.x to 6.x. I want to do:

1) Image the current RAIDiator 4.x HDDs in order.
2) Plug imaged HDDs into a desktop PC, running VirtualBox on a Linux host.
3) Get RAIDiator running in VirtualBox accessing the existing said HDDs via raw harddisk access.
4) Confirm it working
5) Transfer data on Virtual NAS to real NAS (having blitzed it and running RNSOS6)

Any reason why the above won't work and/or is there a step (or 6!) I'm missing?

I'm not sure if the VM would recognise more than a couple of hard drives.

You do realise that you don't need to use RAIDiator 4.2.x to mount an array taken from e.g. a ReadyNAS Pro ?

mdgm wrote:
You do realise that you don't need to use RAIDiator 4.2.x to mount an array taken from e.g. a ReadyNAS Pro ?

I'm clearly having a brain-fart! Can't use search as it's load limited right now... though I guess just needs kernel support for ext4 and software RAID right?

Any chance that we can get a VBox image for 4.2.24? I'm still trying to get VBox running on my Pro, and I'd like to do my testing on the current version. Thanks!