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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
- I've been running two, but not continuously. I start and steop them as needed so that are not always running. The interesting thing is that twice when I left one running for a couple of days it got into a bad state. When it did I tried to stop/start the services I was using and the stop command was giving me errors so, as you reported too, I just restarted the vbox and was back again. It happened twice. For what I'm doing I don't mind this behavior that much, but if I see it again I'll check IO waits. Could be a compatibility with the network drivers on the NAS or something.
steve - Anyone successfull with getting this to work on a new 516?
- Would like to update to 4.2.23 but I don't want to bollix virtualbox. Anyone tried it yet?
steve dsm1212 wrote: Would like to update to 4.2.23 but I don't want to bollix virtualbox. Anyone tried it yet?
steve
.23 T6 Beta didn't affect my Vbox setup, but I haven't gone final yet... I try it later on, all being well.- Hi Matty,
great tutorial I tried it on my 4.2.23 and its working(readynas ultra2). I think you should make a new topic to keep your poston the top of the topic.
Concerning the apache step, I have to add manually addtype php for apache to recognise php file . - I updated my system to 4.2.24 and there were a couple of things I learned:
1. You need to remove the links /etc/apache and /etc/apache2 to do a FW upgrade. The upgrade will fail every time with these links place. Just remove the links, do the FW update, remove the /etc/apache and /etc/apache2 directories, and restore the links. The files laid down by the fw upgrade were identical to ones you already have (if you follow Matty's instructions).
2. The GPL source locations for netgear have changed. This seems to be the right page: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detai ... mmers-(gpl). I used the 4.2.24 GPL sources and had no problems.
3. I used the latest Virtualbox (4.2.16) and it works fine.
4. Not sure why but the phpvboxmgr config.php user/password did not take. Logged in with admin/admin and then used the UI to add vbox as a user. Maybe there were changes in phpvboxmgr?
Kudo's to mdgm for helping me figure out the apache link problem!
steve dsm1212 wrote: I updated my system to 4.2.24 and there were a couple of things I learned:
1. You need to remove the links /etc/apache and /etc/apache2 to do a FW upgrade. The upgrade will fail every time with these links place. Just remove the links, do the FW update, remove the /etc/apache and /etc/apache2 directories, and restore the links. The files laid down by the fw upgrade were identical to ones you already have (if you follow Matty's instructions).
2. The GPL source locations for netgear have changed. This seems to be the right page: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detai ... mmers-(gpl). I used the 4.2.24 GPL sources and had no problems.
3. I used the latest Virtualbox (4.2.16) and it works fine.
4. Not sure why but the phpvboxmgr config.php user/password did not take. Logged in with admin/admin and then used the UI to add vbox as a user. Maybe there were changes in phpvboxmgr?
Kudo's to mdgm for helping me figure out the apache link problem!
steve
I upgraded to x.24 a few weeks ago, and had no problems upgrading the NAS (Ultra2+) firmware, and VBox is still working bang on, and exactly as it was before, (Including the error of not seeing all ISO's in my ISO folder. But this error has been present for ages I just haven't done any troubleshooting on it yet.)- That's strange. Are /etc/apache and /etc/apache2 softlinks links on your NAS? Matty's instructions said to create those. If they are there then I don't see how it worked. The tar command to extract the new image fails every time. Unless an ultra2+ has a different install image that doesn't include those directories? The Pro-6 uses the x86 image. I thought the atom based systems would use the same one, but maybe that's not the case or for some reason those files don't get laid down on the ultra2+. The files it lays down did not change with the release. I believe they were these three in /etc/apache2/mods-available: apreq.load, auth_sys_group.load, and perl.load.
steve dsm1212 wrote: That's strange. Are /etc/apache and /etc/apache2 softlinks links on your NAS? Matty's instructions said to create those. If they are there then I don't see how it worked. The tar command to extract the new image fails every time. Unless an ultra2+ has a different install image that doesn't include those directories? The Pro-6 uses the x86 image. I thought the atom based systems would use the same one, but maybe that's not the case or for some reason those files don't get laid down on the ultra2+. The files it lays down did not change with the release. I believe they were these three in /etc/apache2/mods-available: apreq.load, auth_sys_group.load, and perl.load.
steve
Well, IIRC the only tinkering I did prior to installing VBox was to load up Python2.7, PHP5.3, PHPMyAdmin, and NZBGET8.0/NZBGETWeb1.5. (Inc' WhoCares? prepped LIbsigc++2.0.0 and LibPar2.0) My etc/apt would have tweaked and run apt-get update etc.
- Oh, I think his original instructions had the linking inside the php install instructions so if you already had php then maybe you didn't have the links. I'm not sure what the consequences are of not consolidating the apache locations. Maybe it's not necessary if you haven't had problems.
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