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Running VirtualBox VM host on ReadyNAS Pro
What is VirtualBox?
So, I got bored while laundry was going... and decided to see how well a virtual OS would run on the Pro. My first choice of VM was VirtualBox, just cause I'm familiar with it after using it for ages, plus its open and free :) Eventually, I may look into VMWare as well.
After a bit of messing around, got it installed. Since the system is based off of Debian, was easy to get VirtualBox itself there (deb package). The trickiest part was getting the kernel modules required installed (see end of post).
In the end, I've got Windows 2003 R2 running on my Pro, interacting with it via RDP, and I am happy with the performance. I've added an extra 1GB memory (for a total of 2GB). I assigned 1GB of ram to my virtual OS, which still leaves the default configuration of 1GB for the NAS itself (which is more than enough still, 800MB+ is always cached).
I made a 10GB virtual disk to install the OS on. If I need more space later for extra applications, I can just add another virtual drive to that installation. And since I always like a bit extra security, I went a bit beyond the usual, and also have TrueCrypt running full disk encryption in the virtual OS. So no one can even boot and read the data in that OS without my bootup password.
I don't really have any screenshots to show, just a standard Windows installation. Here is a few of the steps I used while creating the VM on the console:
VirtualBox 3.1 has changed the CLI configuration. Until I update this how-to, please reference this: http://www.uhleeka.com/blog/2009/12/vir ... 9-04-host/
With the OS booted up and just sitting at the desktop, top reports:
Ad-hoc installation of VirtualBox. Should work for RAIDiator 4.2.4. Download links for the kernel modules, for those who don't want to go through the mess of compiling them.
So, I got bored while laundry was going... and decided to see how well a virtual OS would run on the Pro. My first choice of VM was VirtualBox, just cause I'm familiar with it after using it for ages, plus its open and free :) Eventually, I may look into VMWare as well.
After a bit of messing around, got it installed. Since the system is based off of Debian, was easy to get VirtualBox itself there (deb package). The trickiest part was getting the kernel modules required installed (see end of post).
In the end, I've got Windows 2003 R2 running on my Pro, interacting with it via RDP, and I am happy with the performance. I've added an extra 1GB memory (for a total of 2GB). I assigned 1GB of ram to my virtual OS, which still leaves the default configuration of 1GB for the NAS itself (which is more than enough still, 800MB+ is always cached).
I made a 10GB virtual disk to install the OS on. If I need more space later for extra applications, I can just add another virtual drive to that installation. And since I always like a bit extra security, I went a bit beyond the usual, and also have TrueCrypt running full disk encryption in the virtual OS. So no one can even boot and read the data in that OS without my bootup password.
I don't really have any screenshots to show, just a standard Windows installation. Here is a few of the steps I used while creating the VM on the console:
VirtualBox 3.1 has changed the CLI configuration. Until I update this how-to, please reference this: http://www.uhleeka.com/blog/2009/12/vir ... 9-04-host/
# Creating the Virtual Machine.
$ VBoxManage createvm -name "Windows2003" -register
$ VBoxManage modifyvm "Windows2003" -memory "1024MB" -acpi on -boot1 dvd -nic1 nat
$ VBoxManage createvdi -filename "/c/backup/VirtualBox/Windows2003.vdi" -size 10000 -register
$ VBoxManage modifyvm "Windows2003" -hda "/c/backup/VirtualBox/Windows2003.vdi"
$ VBoxManage registerimage dvd /c/backup/VirtualBox/Windows2003Ent.iso
$ VBoxManage modifyvm "Windows2003" -dvd /c/backup/VirtualBox/Windows2003Ent.iso
$ VBoxHeadless -startvm "Windows2003" &
# Connected via Remote Desktop at this point.
# After the installation, first page requires Ctrl-Alt-Del, so I sent the keycodes.
$ VBoxManage controlvm "Windows2003" keyboardputscancode 1d 38 53
# System is up and running, time to install GuestAdditions for better video, etc.
$ wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/2.2.2/VBoxGuestAdditions_2.2.2.iso
$ VBoxManage registerimage dvd /c/backup/VirtualBox/VBoxGuestAdditions_2.2.2.iso
$ VBoxManage controlvm "Windows2003" dvdattach /c/backup/VirtualBox/VBoxGuestAdditions_2.2.2.iso
With the OS booted up and just sitting at the desktop, top reports:
top - 16:17:10 up 1 day, 17:58, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00
Tasks: 93 total, 1 running, 92 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 0.7%us, 0.2%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.2%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 2072432k total, 2020100k used, 52332k free, 6120k buffers
Swap: 1048536k total, 144k used, 1048392k free, 784620k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
10297 root 20 0 1104m 1.0g 4720 S 4 52.5 57:31.53 VBoxHeadless
12792 root 20 0 46092 9520 1720 S 1 0.5 59:54.51 motion
12196 root 20 0 9196 7688 980 S 0 0.4 0:57.72 wastesrv
1 root 20 0 1948 600 508 S 0 0.0 0:01.30 init
Ad-hoc installation of VirtualBox. Should work for RAIDiator 4.2.4. Download links for the kernel modules, for those who don't want to go through the mess of compiling them.
$ mkdir /lib/modules/`uname -r`/miscOr, if you want to compile the kernel modules yourself:
$ cd /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc
$ wget http://www.readynas.com/contributed/chirpa/modules/virtualbox/pro/vboxdrv.ko
$ wget http://www.readynas.com/contributed/chirpa/modules/virtualbox/pro/vboxnetflt.ko
$ echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian etch non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
$ wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | apt-key add -
$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install virtualbox-2.1
$ /etc/init.d/vboxdrv start
envyious:/c/backup# echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian etch non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.listInstall of VirtualBox 2.2.2, before Sun updates the Debian Repository...
envyious:/c/backup# wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | apt-key add -
envyious:/c/backup# apt-get update && apt-get install build-essential
...
Setting up build-essential (11.3) ...
envyious:/c/backup# wget -q http://www.readynas.com/download/GPL/RNDP6xxx_4.2.4_WW_src.zip
envyious:/c/backup# unzip -q RNDP6xxx_4.2.4_WW_src.zip -d ./GPL
envyious:/c/backup# cd GPL/linux-x86-2.6/
envyious:/c/backup/GPL/linux-x86-2.6# make && make prepare
...
envyious:/c/backup/GPL/linux-x86-2.6# ln -s /c/backup/GPL/linux-x86-2.6/ /usr/src/linux
envyious:/c/backup/GPL/linux-x86-2.6# KERN_DIR=/usr/src/linux
envyious:/c/backup/GPL/linux-x86-2.6# apt-get install virtualbox-2.1
...
Setting up virtualbox-2.1 (2.1.4-42893_Debian_etch) ...
Adding group `vboxusers' (GID 101) ...
Done.
Messages emitted during module compilation will be logged to /var/log/vbox-install.log.
Success!
Starting VirtualBox kernel module: done.
envyious:/c/backup/GPL/linux-x86-2.6# cd
envyious:/c/backup/GPL/linux-x86-2.6# VBoxManage list vms
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 2.1.4
(C) 2005-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.
# wget -q http://www.readynas.com/download/GPL/RNDP6xxx_4.2.4_WW_src.zip
# unzip -q RNDP6xxx_4.2.4_WW_src.zip -d ./GPL
# cd GPL/linux-x86-2.6/
# make && make prepare
# ln -s /c/backup/GPL/linux-x86-2.6/ /usr/src/linux
# export KERN_DIR=/usr/src/linux
# apt-get install libfontconfig1 libglib2.0-0 libice6 libsdl1.2debian libsm6 libx11-6 libxcursor1 libxext6 libxi6 libxmu6 libxrandr2 libxrender1 libxslt1.1 libxt6 python2.4
# wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/2.2.2/virtualbox-2.2_2.2.2-46594_Debian_etch_i386.deb
# dpkg -i virtualbox-2.2_2.2.2-46594_Debian_etch_i386.deb
Setting up virtualbox-2.2 (2.2.2-46594_Debian_etch) ...
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel module: done.
Starting VirtualBox kernel module: done.
441 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- Well...It does not seem like the 4.2.3 works.
I do the
insmod vboxdrv.ko
insmod vboxnetflt.ko
with no errors
and then I do the/etc/init.d/vboxdrv start
and gettingmodprobe vboxnetflt failed. Please use 'dmesg' to find out why
dmesg only shows:
vboxdrv: Trying to deactivate the NMI watchdog permanently...
vboxdrv: Successfully done.
vboxdrv: Found 2 processor cores.
vboxdrv: fAsync=0 offMin=0x1b0 offMax=0x8c1
vboxdrv: TSC mode is 'synchronous', kernel timer mode is 'normal'.
vboxdrv: Successfully loaded version 2.1.4 (interface 0x000a0009). - Touch-Down!
With an upgrade to 4.2.4, I'm up and running. THIS IS SO COOL!
Now...if only iSCSI worked as good.. :slap: - When I was running an earlier kernel, this is what happened:
Prometheus:~# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv start
Starting VirtualBox kernel module:
* modprobe vboxdrv failed. Please use 'dmesg' to find out why
dmesg reports:vboxdrv: disagrees about version of symbol struct_module
A quick google led me to http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/233Your error message usually means that your kernel headers and your current running kernel do not match
When I ran `uname -r` with an older kernel I got:2.6.27.6.RNx86.1.1
After upgrading to 4.2.4-T43, uname reported:2.6.27.6.RNx86.2.1
So, I think you need to upgrade to 4.2.4 and then re-download the modules into the new directory.
mkdir /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc
cd /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc
wget http://www.readynas.com/download/modules/vboxdrv.ko
wget http://www.readynas.com/download/modules/vboxnetflt.ko - Yes, you need 4.2.4 for the modules I've supplied, they won't work with the kernel from 4.2.3.
- With 2.1.4 Windows 7 is ok . You will only need to run the GuestAddon in Vista compatibility mode (right click properties ...)
- Thanks, updated to 2.1.4 Guest Additions.
So for the last few days, I've been using the VM as my daily machine. My laptop is just a thin-client, loading the RDP connection. At first, I was using the built in VRDP of VirtualBox. But I switched to using the virtual machine (Windows 2003) RDP server, this way I could send audio and stuff over the connection, and take full use of ClearType fonts, etc. I am very happy with the performance, it feels like it is the local machine (but lot faster than my laptop). Only thing that struggles is playing video in it, which is to be expected. But otherwise, having it run my daily needs (email, IM, web browsing), it exceeds my expectations. The roaming option is nice too, but I've always had that going via SSH+VNC before.
Next thing I am going to try is, converting the virtual guest from being an IDE drive to a SATA drive. Looks to fairly simple to do, and apparently the virtual SATA uses less CPU resouces, so should make the performance even better (http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... 289#p36289). - Any chance this will be a package soon? I'd love to have a VM up and running on the Pro all the time... Perhaps more than one... (I'm thinking of appliance VMs - Ones that run in 256M to 512M, such as a ZeroShell VM to handle Radius Authentication for a wireless network)
- So, what is GuestAddition 2.1.4? I have never used Virtual Box before, but I have been using VMWare on various platforms. Can you make some kind of illustration of how GuestAddition relates to VMWare? I have tried to install VMWare Server for Linux 2.x on the Pro, but was not successful due to an issue with linux headers, which was never resolved. My goal is to run Cisco VoIP servers in virtual machines on the Pro. If I cannot do it in VMWare, I would like to try Virtual Box.
If a Virtual Box plugin is not forthcoming, can we have step-by-step instructions on how to install Virtual Box on the Pro?
Also, how much RAM do you recommend? What's the maximum that can be installed on the Pro? Four Gigabytes?
Can Virtual Box take advantage of up to 3 Gigabytes if I decide to install 4 Gigabytes in the Pro and allocate 3 Gigabytes to Virtual Box?
Is it safe to run Virtual Box on the Pro that also hosts user data? - If you put 4GB in, the Pro will currently allow you to see 3GB.
The GuestAdditions is a software package for VirtualBox VMs that provides a few things. First it installs better Video and Mouse drivers, also allows you to share guest/host folders together.VirtualBox’s guest additions provide better display drivers, mouse pointer integration, seamless windows, and more. If you’re doing much work in a virtual machine you should have them installed.
Page 1 of this thread already gives a quick step-by-step on getting it installed, which worked for a few people already.
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