Running VirtualBox VM host on ReadyNAS Pro

[chirpa]

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/

#  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`/misc
$ 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

Or, if you want to compile the kernel modules yourself:

envyious:/c/backup# echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian etch non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
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.

Install of VirtualBox 2.2.2, before Sun updates the Debian Repository...

# 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.

[rogard]

Ooo I like it 😎

[chirpa]

Added a quick 'this should sorta work' installation for VirtualBox to end of the first post.

[yoh-dah]

Sounds like a readynas.com how-to waiting to happen 😎

[sirozha]

Chirpa,

I am glad you are trying virtualization on the Pro. I PM'ed you a couple months ago the steps I undertook to try to install VMWare server for Linux on the Pro, and the problems I ran into.

I hope you are going to try VMWare Server on the Pro soon. Please PM me if you need me to re-send the steps I took before I ran into the problem with Linux headers.

Thanks!

[dbott67]

All hail Chirpa!

[dbott67]

I'll post my full details a little later... I had a lot of help from Chirpa to get things working.

-Dave

[chirpa]

Ubuntu running inside Debian 🙂

[yoh-dah]

Cool! How about Windows 7 and Mac?

😎

[super_poussin]

count me in if you need help 🙂

[beisser1]

Messages emitted during module compilation will be logged to /var/log/vbox-install.log.
Starting VirtualBox kernel module:
* No suitable module for running kernel found

ok what am i doing wrong?

i followed chirpas steps.

[beisser1]

for some reason the vboxdrv.ko file disappears all the time..

anyway i got a little further:

ReadyNAS-Pro:/lib/modules/2.6.27.6.RNx86.2.1/misc# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv start
Starting VirtualBox kernel module:
* modprobe vboxdrv failed. Please use 'dmesg' to find out why

and

vboxdrv: Trying to deactivate the NMI watchdog permanently...
vboxdrv: Successfully done.
vboxdrv: Found 2 processor cores.
vboxdrv: fAsync=0 offMin=0x1b0 offMax=0xce7
vboxdrv: TSC mode is 'synchronous', kernel timer mode is 'normal'.
vboxdrv: Successfully loaded version 2.1.4 (interface 0x000a0009).

[beisser1]

ReadyNAS-Pro:/lib/modules/2.6.27.6.RNx86.2.1/misc# VBoxHeadless -startvm "Windows2003"
WARNING: The vboxdrv kernel module is not loaded. Either there is no module
         available for the current kernel (2.6.27.6.RNx86.2.1) or it failed to
         load. Please recompile the kernel module and install it by

           sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

         You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed.
WARNING: The compilation of the vboxdrv.ko kernel module failed during the
         installation for some reason. Starting a VM will not be possible.
         Please consult the User Manual for build instructions.
VBoxHeadless: Error -1908 in suplibOsInit!
VBoxHeadless: VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_INSTALLED

VBoxHeadless: Tip! Make sure the kernel module is loaded. It may also help to reinstall VirtualBox.

hmmm 😞

[dbott67]

beisser wrote:
for some reason the vboxdrv.ko file disappears all the time..

It happened to me too.

I redownloaded the .ko files and inserted them into the kernel (you need to insert vboxdrv.ko before vboxnetflt.ko):

insmod vboxdrv.ko
insmod vboxnetflt.ko

I also updated to Raidiator T43 (you can probably just upgrade to 4.2.4 now that it's been released).

If you look very carefully, you can see in my screenshot above that there is an error message:

WARNING: The compilation of the vboxdrv.ko module failed during the installation for some reason.  Starting a VM will not be possible.  Please consult the User Manual for build instructions.

Obviously, we can see the VM is actually running, so I don't quite know what to make of the error.

The screen shots show a "Live CD" of Ubuntu 8.10 (everything working, albeit a bit sluggish --- only 1 GB RAM on the Pro). I also did not install the VBoxGuestAdditions_2.1.0.iso yet. Next, I performed the actual HD install of Ubuntu --- again, everything worked as expected.

I'll check my notes at home tonight to see if I've neglected to add any other pertinent details.

-Dave

[beisser1]

that did it 🙂 thanx

now installing server 2003 just for fun..

[beisser1]

the insmod-stuff was nmentioned nowhere in chirpas text.. that was the missing link.

[chirpa]

My bad, missed a step in my ad-hoc installation 😉 Like I said, it was not tested. This will do the same thing as the insmod steps:

/etc/init.d/vboxdrv start

Haven't rebooted yet to see if that runs on bootup properly.

[super_poussin]

do you know if there's a php interface or so we can add in a add-on ?

[chirpa]

PHP interface to VirtualBox?

[beisser1]

chirpa wrote:
PHP interface to VirtualBox?

that would actually rock.. an interface where you can easily create new vms, new disks or modify existing ones.

[super_poussin]

I do a quick test :

if we want an add-on will all the deb files in it , the size will be 59 MB 😞

[beisser1]

super-poussin wrote:
I do a quick test : if we want an add-on will all the deb files in it , the size will be 59 MB 😞

so what? its about the same size as a firmware upgrade 🙂

[super_poussin]

yep 🙂

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[chirpa]

Or drop the .deb file in your /contributed folder, and make the addon wget the file on install.

[super_poussin]

do you mean I can do a echo 'y' | apt-get install 😛