HowTo: VMware Server 2 on ReadyNAS 4.2.11

[OLBJAN]

Hi,

based on the guides from jdw99 and chirpa (viewtopic.php?p=155733#p155733 and viewtopic.php?f=35&t=26468) I completed a step-by-step guide to get VMware Server up and running on my NAS. This How-To has been updated for 4.2.11.

This is an updated and extended how-to, in which I will explain how you can install VMware Server 2 on the Netgear ReadyNAS PRO / 3200 / 4200 platform:

It applies to the following versions:

* ReadyNAS firmware version Raidiator 4.2.11
* VMware Server v2.0.2-203138.i386

First of all, let’s prepare:
1. Upgrade your ReadyNAS to the current firmware release using the Frontview control panel -> System -> Update -> Remote -> Reboot.
2. Decide on where you want to put your virtual machines, I decided to put them on a share of their own which I created. I called it “vm”. Create this share via Frontview. This makes sense in so far as VMware will create the files for virtual machines with “root” privileges, meaning only the root user will have access to these files via SMB or other access methods unless you reset share privileges via Frontview.
3. Decide where you want to put the ReadyNAS source code and VMware installation packages. I chose the already existing backup-share.
4. Install the EnableRootSSH addon to gain access to the ReadyNAS via SSH. You can download this add-on here: http://www.readynas.com/download/addons ... .0-x86.bin and install it via Frontview in System -> Update -> Local. Reboot.
5. You will need an ssh client such as putty.
6. You will need to register an account on vmware.com to download the free VMware Server. Get the i386 package, not the 64-bit package. This guide was compiled against version 2.0.2-203138.i386

Now let’s get started:
With putty, connect to your ReadyNAS and login as the “root” user. The password should be the same as your FrontView admin-password. You are now at the command prompt for your NAS.

#Note the following line:
Linux YOURNASNAME 2.6.33.4.RNx86_64.2.1 #1 SMP Wed May 19 19:36:51 PDT 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux
#If you did all the earlier preparation right, your NAS will be running the x86_64 Linux Kernel in version 2.6.33.4. Let’s continue some preparations:

apt-get update && apt-get install build-essential

#This will install the necessary Linux components for compiling your kernel and VMware server. There will be a prompt if you really want to install these packages, as well as a prompt that a few packages could not be authenticated. Answer both with YES.

#Then let’s change into our work directory:
cd /c/backup
#We are now on the backup share. All shares you create via Frontview will be created within the directory /c/. Avoid using other Linux paths as they probably will be on the system partition of the NAS, which is only 5GB. It is not a good idea to have that run out of space.

#Then we will download the ReadyNAS GPL Package for Raidiator 4.2.11:
wget -q http://www.readynas.com/download/GPL/RNDP6xxx_4.2.11_WW_src.zip
#Let’s unpack it:
unzip -q RNDP6xxx_4.2.7_WW_src.zip -d ./GPL
#Now we will have to compile a new kernel to get the modules we need to run VMware Server.
cd GPL/linux-2.6.33.4
make ARCH=x86_64 oldconfig && make ARCH=x86_64
#This is going to take a while. You can go get another cup of coffee.

#We will need to tell Linux that we compiled a new kernel and its associated modules, as well as where to find it. For this we make a symbolic link:

ln -s /c/backup/GPL/linux-2.6.33.4/ /usr/src/linux
KERN_DIR=/usr/src/linux

#There has been a slight change in symlinks with kernel 2.6.32 onward which requires us to create two additional symlinks. Without these, VMware setup won’t work later on:

cd /usr/src/linux/include/linux
ln -s ../generated/utsrelease.h
ln -s ../generated/autoconf.h .

Now on to install the VMware server. First let’s copy the downloaded archive for the VMware server on the backup share.
Back in the ssh session, we’re going to unpack it, but first let’s change back into the backup share directory:

cd /c/backup
#and let’s unpack it:
gzip -d VMware-server-2.0.2-203138.i386.tar.gz
tar –xvf VMware-server-2.0.2-203138.i386.tar.gz

#Now we need to install some patches for VMware server to make it compatible with our kernel version:
wget http://risesecurity.org/~rcvalle/VMware-server-2.0.2-203138-update-2.patch

The following is taken from Ramon de Carvalho Valle at rise security (http://risesecurity.org/2010/04/02/vmware-server-2-0-2-update-patch-2/). Thanks to him for creating the patch.

#Extract VMware Server modules:
# Change working directory to vmware-server-distrib/lib/modules/source/
$ tar -xf vmci.tar
tar -xf vmmon.tar
tar -xf vmnet.tar
tar -xf vsock.tar

#Apply the patch:

#Change working directory to vmware-server-distrib/
patch -p1 < ../VMware-server-2.0.2-203138-update-2.patch

#Archive VMware Server modules again:

#Change working directory to vmware-server-distrib/lib/modules/source/
$ rm -f vmci.tar
rm -f vmmon.tar
rm -f vmnet.tar
rm -f vsock.tar
tar -cf vmci.tar vmci-only/
tar -cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only/
tar -cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only/
tar -cf vsock.tar vsock-only/

#And now let’s go install the VMware server:

cd vmware-server-distrib
./vmware-install.pl

#You will get several prompts now which you can all accept at face value except for one: You *must* change the default value for where to put the storage for virtual machines to a path within the /c/ directory. For this I prepared my “vm” share. Hence, I changed the path to “/c/vm/”. This is to make sure your virtual machines won’t kill the system volume of the ReadyNAS.

End notes and limitations:
Thanks to chirpa at the ReadyNAS forum for helping with my questions about the kernel and GPL package and for supplying me with early access to the GPL resources.
Enjoy.

Known limitations:
- The VMware server webinterface seems to have its issues on browsers other than Internet Explorer. I recommend you install the VMware Infrastructure Client to access the VMware host and its virtualised guests.
- Sometimes if you manually restart the VMware services by running “/etc/init.d/vmware restart”, the virtual network service does not want to properly restart. This requires re-running the configuration script “/usr/bin/vmware-config.pl”.

[chirpa]

Similar install to VirtualBox 🙂 How does it work for you, decent performance?

[OLBJAN]

I haven't done any conclusive performance tests yet. From a purely subjective standpoint, it's slower than what I'm used to (but then those are much higher specced real vm hosts) and it has a noticable impact on NAS performance to boot.

I upgraded to 4GB of RAM btw, so that's not the bottleneck. Could be fragmentation issues though.

-Jan

[chirpa]

The OS I use in a VirtualBox environment has a 30GB VMDK file.

pronto:/c/backup/VirtualBox# filefrag ThinClient.vdi
ThinClient.vdi: 8146 extents found

[slinkydonkey]

does this work on the ReadyNAS Duo?

[lchapuis]

no, not on SPARC Architecture, only on X86 (PRO, NVX and 2100)

[OLBJAN]

Small update on performance: It's not as bad a hit on the usual NAS workload as I originally thought, turns out I was running an app that had really bad memory leaks and was forcing windows to swap on an almost constant basis. Having fixed that, all's back to what I was expecting from the machine.

-Jan

[pywong]

Did you guys get this working on the latest firmware 4.2.9 or even on the 4.2.11 beta?
because i couldn't get vmware-config.pl to finish on 4.2.9, it complained about the driver.o or something.

Thanks,

Peter

[OLBJAN]

I have this running on 4.2.9 currently, I updated my original blog post for 4.2.7 and nothing has changed so far up to 4.2.9. You can find the post here: http://blog.olbrecht.net/2009/11/06/upd ... pro-4-2-7/

I haven't tested on the 4.2.11 beta yet as that seems to have several issues I can't deal with right now as I'm depending on my system to actually run all the time.

Regards,
-Jan

[pywong]

Still waiting for 4.2.11 T9 GPL before i can test it again.

[lchapuis]

apparently same kernel for t6 and t9 :

viewtopic.php?p=227775#p227775

[pywong]

i get this error

What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include] 

The directory of kernel headers (version @@VMWARE@@ UTS_RELEASE) does not match
your running kernel (version 2.6.33.2.RNx86_64.2.1).  Even if the module were 
to compile successfully, it would not load into the running kernel.

when i follow the steps in http://blog.olbrecht.net/2009/11/06/upd ... pro-4-2-7/

does anyone know how to fix this?

thanks

[OLBJAN]

Hi,

I guess you are running a newer firmware than your GPL source, you need to download the correct GPL sources for your firmware.

Regards,

-Jan

[pywong]

OLBJAN wrote:
Hi, I guess you are running a newer firmware than your GPL source, you need to download the correct GPL sources for your firmware. Regards, -Jan

I was using 4.2.11 T9 firmware with 4.2.11 T6 GPL, they should be the same kernel.

Well anyways i have restored my firmware back to 4.2.9 and everything should work again.
Just one questions how does the readynas disk spin down function work if you have vmware installed?

Thanks,

[OLBJAN]

I haven't seen spindown work with VMware running, no. That's not one of my concerns though as I always have load on the NAS anyways... so I wouldn't be able to tell you if that has anything to do with VMware.

-Jan

[pywong]

I got Vmware 2.0.2 installed on 4.2.9 firmware but when i try to load the web portal https://readynas:8333, the web page gets stuck at loading and nothing comes up.
Is there a workaround to fix that?
Thanks

[OLBJAN]

I've seen that a couple of times... usually changing the browser did the trick. Also I use the VMware Infrastructure Client to connect to the VMs.

I can't claim that my solution is bug-free but it works well enough for me.

-Jan

[pywong]

It looks like the VMware web portal only works in Internet Explorer and not in Firefox or Safari, this is too bad for Mac users like me.

and if it hangs in IE run "/etc/init.d/vmware-mgmt restart" to restart the web service.

So everything seems to work now 🙂
The only down side is now the NAS does a lot more read/write on the disks.

I wonder if I put the VM on CF or USB flash drive if it would reduce the read/write to disk, because it's kind of loud in a quiet room.

Thanks everyone for all the help.

[Svekke]

I installed vmware on my Readynas Pro fw 4.2.9
I did that with help of the following link.
But when i surf to the website http://192.168.1.90:8222 ( I get only the Loading ..... in my tab ).
I tried it with ff and ie. Like you can see on the screen there is one service not started. Somebody that can help me?

http://blog.olbrecht.net/2009/11/06/upd ... pro-4-2-7/

http://yfrog.com/b9readynasj

[OLBJAN]

- Does the web access service start when you completely reboot the NAS?
- I have seen the "loading..." issue on my installation as well, usually it could be fixed by using a different browser and/or deleting browser caches.

If none of the above work, just try re-installing vmware server, sometimes that helped me.

Regards,
-Jan

[Svekke]

I have restarted the nas.
Then opened the site with opera and it worked.
Tested it with FF and IE but they doesn't work.

Thx for the help Jan

[Svekke]

The only problem is i can't see the remote console ??
I can start a virtual machine but don't can see it. Or manage it with the remote console

[OLBJAN]

There are known issues with VMware Server 2 and the console add-on for Firefox. I found a reference to this on the VMware forums here: http://communities.vmware.com/message/1517078#1517078

However I work around this by using the VMware Infrastructure Client to connect to the NAS. Also, the VMware Server webinterface only seems to work halfway stable in IE for me but I'll just hand these issues off to VMware... the free server product doesn't seem to get the regular attention it probably needs.

I wouldn't encourage this kind of configuration for any kind of serious setup anyway. At best this can be a testing environment but I wouldn't even use it for that as there's just no way to put enough RAM into the NAS for any kind of serious workload.

One other thing I noticed is that VMware server has worse performance with 64-bit guests than with 32bit guests (this only works after a CPU upgrade to something that supports VTx). All in all, nice to play around with but not made for anything serious.

Regards,
-Jan

[Svekke]

I don't can open the UI in ff. Thats the problem.
Normaly i use always FF, but i get only a loading page.

EDIT: Strange i have another linux machine and there i get the login but only with ff 3.5.7
Strange. The only thing thats different is opening port 902 ? and iptables on that pc

[OLBJAN]

Just wanted to do a quick update, I've finally managed to get VMware Server up and running on 4.2.11 T21. I'll upgrade my how-to tomorrow with the new information.

-Jan