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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
- The kernel zip of T51 would still work fine with T78.
Here is a 4.2.7 GPL bundle anyways with all the other junk in it: RAIDiator x86 4.2.7 GPL - Here is my desk Pro that was running 4.2.5, updated to 4.2.7, installing VirtualBox for the first time...
# apt-get update;apt-get install build-essential amd64-libs lib64stdc++6 bzip2
...
Setting up build-essential (11.3) ...
Setting up amd64-libs (1.4) ...
Setting up bzip2 (1.0.3-6) ...
Setting up lib64stdc++6 (4.1.1-21) ...
# cd /c/backup/
# wget http://www.readynas.com/download/GPL/RNDP6xxx_4.2.7_WW_src.zip
2009-11-04 18:27:41 (2.97 MB/s) - `RNDP6xxx_4.2.7_WW_src.zip' saved [605547954/605547954]
# unzip -q RNDP6xxx_4.2.7_WW_src.zip -d ./GPL
# cd GPL/linux-x86-2.6/
# make oldconfig; make all
... ... (this takes a long time)
# ln -s /c/backup/GPL/linux-x86-2.6/ /usr/src/linux
# cd; wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.0.10/VirtualBox-3.0.10-54097-Linux_amd64.run
2009-11-04 18:40:10 (4.21 MB/s) - `VirtualBox-3.0.10-54097-Linux_amd64.run?e=1257389097&h=da6ad1eb269ffcef8eb694d85ef1cab4' saved [50677201/50677201]
# mv VirtualBox-3.0.10-54097-Linux_amd64.run\?e\=1257389097\&h\=da6ad1eb269ffcef8eb694d85ef1cab4 VirtualBox-3.0.10-54097-Linux_amd64.run
# chmod +x VirtualBox-3.0.10-54097-Linux_amd64.run
# ./VirtualBox-3.0.10-54097-Linux_amd64.run
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing VirtualBox for Linux installation.........
VirtualBox Version 3.0.10 r54097 (2009-10-29T13:31:14Z) installer
Installing VirtualBox to /opt/VirtualBox
Python found: python, installing bindings...
/bin/bash: python: command not found
Building the VirtualBox vboxdrv kernel module
Building the VirtualBox netflt kernel module
Building the VirtualBox netadp kernel module
VirtualBox has been installed successfully.
# VBoxManage list hostinfo
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.0.10
(C) 2005-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Host Information:
Host time: 2009-11-05T02:56:21.269000000Z
Processor online count: 2
Processor count: 2
Processor#0 speed: 1800 MHz
Processor#1 speed: 1800 MHz
Memory size: 494 MByte
Memory available: 390 MByte
Operating system: Linux
Operating system version: 2.6.30.9.RNx86_64.2.1 - If VirtualBox is installed, will it need to be removed before each RAIDiator upgrade and then re-installed afterwards?
Any plans for a community add-on to install VirtualBox? - No, unless the kernel tree changes, not very often. And then, doesn't need re-installing, just re-compiling the kernel modules.
Its files will remain through firmware upgrades otherwise. - @chirpa.
Thanks for the update. I will update firmware and try it tonight and post results.
BigBearf - Thanks Chirpa! Your instructions worked perfectly on T55.
- hello
Thanks you chirpas for your tutorial
but i have an other problem
I following your tuto for start VB in same time of readynas but vb don't start automaticly?
Why
I try change VIRTUALBOX!!VirtualBox!!2.1.4!!/root/vboxctrl.sh start!!/root/vboxctrl.sh stop by VIRTUALBOX!!VirtualBox!!3.0.1!!/root/vboxctrl.sh start!!/root/vboxctrl.sh stop
not effect
Thanks by advance for your answer. - @chirpa
Success!! VB 3.0.10 installed. I have got it installed now I just need to access it remotely and install XP3. Has anyone tried MS Home Server under VB on the RNP and if so any advantages or disadvantages? Any quick suggestions on how to access remotely anyone? A quick how to would be great. I have the VB User Manual that I will study this weekend and I have used it on my MBP just not remotely.
More to be learned and revealed.
BigBearf - hello
Problem resolved for start VB in same time of readynas
First adapt the script provide by chirpa sheet 5 this forum
and use this process
1) create a script
sudo nano /etc/init.d/vboxctrl.sh
3) executable script
chmod 700 /etc/init.d/vboxctrl.sh
4) create a link in /etc/rc2.d/ to put on /etc/rc2.d/ :
ln -s ../init.d/vboxctrl.sh S99vboxctrl.sh - hello
vb is ok
But I don't arrive to put a password for remote desktop
Thanks by advance for your answers
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