VMware Communities : Thread List - VMware Studio

VMWare Studio 1.0 Appliance needs a reboot during firstboot script.

draygen — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:47:44 GMT

Hi Everyone,

I'm having a strange issue with autostarting Apache Tomcat 5.5.26 on Ubuntu 8.04 created using VMWare Studio 1.0.

Since I am unable to get Apache Tomcat to stay started when the autostart init.d script is placed into /etc/rc2.d/ (It only starts when its run from /etc/rcS.d/ , which is too early since other initial first-boot configuration scripts run) I've decided that I just want to reboot the VM after the first boot.

The problem is , when I put a "reboot now" in the first boot script, the VMWare Console Interface comes up during the reboot process. Functionality wise this is OK, but its very messy .. You can see the reboot taking place as the VMWare Management Console is displayed.

Does anyone know an answer to either of these questions:

A) Has anyone had any luck getting Apache Tomcat to stay started when the /etc/init.d/tomcat (The default start script that comes with tomcat) is run from rc2.d rather than rcS.d?

B) Has anyone been able to force a reboot after the firstboot script runs, without showing the VMWare Console login screen while the reboot is taking place?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

draygen

ERROR: Unable to parse vm customization options

tennisned — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:13:01 GMT

I am getting this after I deploy my VA. This error shows up at the Blue Login screen and I am not sure how to fix it. Any ideas would be great.

Guest type and Cannot configure the source image errors

NickelNetworks — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:27:58 GMT

When creating a VM using a CentOS ISO the system creates the VM OK. During import to ESX 3.5 I get several errors with "Cannot configure the source image". Then after importing it does not recognize the guest OS type and have to manually change it to be Other Linux 32 bit (it is a CentOS 5.3. Is this a bug or something missing in the configuration?

Regards,

Paul Aviles
www.nickelnetworks.com

What is the minimum licensed version of vSphere/ESX to run Studio?

blainek — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:34:21 GMT

Purchasing is ordering a license for our hardware so we can run Studio. What is the minimum version of vSphere required to run Studio? I looked at the comparison chart http://blogs.vmware.com/esxi/2009/06/esxi-vs-esx-a-comparison-of-features.html but it doesn't reference Studio requirements.

It's not specifically mentioned in the Studio docs either other than mentioning you need a licensed version of ESX.

Would I be fine with vSphere Essentials?

Management Services customizations

NickelNetworks — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:26:25 GMT

I would like to be able to add entries to the existing management web interface for a VM we are creating in order to be able to setup and configure the application we are installing in the similar way you change the IP address of the applicance for example. Is there any documentation on how this can be done? I think this is called Management Services..

I am curently using a shell script on first boot which works fine, but would like to integrate that into the web management console app.

Regards,

Paul Aviles
www.nickelnetworks.com

Simple Q: Can I create Windows XP (x64) Virtual Appliance w VMWare Studio?

mattyche — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:42:04 GMT

I've been trying for days to figure out the best way to create a VA based on Windows XP 64-Bit. No luck. All templates in VMWare studio are for Linux or Windows Server. Does anyone know if this can be done in Studio? If so, how? If not, what can be used to do this? Thanks in advance.

Error installing the Eclipse plugin

GoVikes — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:25:51 GMT

Hi, I am trying to install the Eclipse plugin for VMware Studio. I first downloaded Eclipse 3.5, and when that didn't work I downloaded 3.4, but I am having the same problem with 3.4 that I had with 3.5. I am following the instructions posted here:

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/studio/studio20/eclipse_plugin.html

I am successful through step 3, when I click Install in step 4 I get a warning:

"The software you selected may not be valid with your current installation. Do you want to open the wizard anyway to review the selections?"

I click Yes and a new window opens which says "Cannot complete the request. See the details".

Details:

Cannot complete the request. See the details.
Unsatisfied dependency: http://com.vmware.studio.eclipse.feature.group 2.0.0.1017-185256 requiredCapability: org.eclipse.equinox.p2.iu/org.eclipse.wst.xml_ui.feature.feature.group/0.0.0
Unsatisfied dependency: http://com.vmware.studio.eclipse.feature.group 2.0.0.1017-185256 requiredCapability: org.eclipse.equinox.p2.iu/org.eclipse.wst.xml_ui.feature.feature.group/0.0.0

Does anyone know what this dependency is and how I can resolve this?

Thanks!!

International character support

NickelNetworks — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:20:51 GMT

Hello, is there a way to have support for international character support for example German. The word "Anschließend" is not properly displayed in the Welcome Text box and it also seems to have problems if the text is too wide or too long, it does not even include scroll bars.

Also, any way of selecting the language for the installation to be other than English? In my case I am trying to create a German VM.

Any pointers will be appreciated.

Regards,

Paul Aviles
www.nickelnetworks.com

IP address not set at VM boot

blainek — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:50:07 GMT

Environment: ESX 4 Server, hosting VMware Studio 2.0 (released version), will deploy created appliance into same ESX host.

I still haven't been able to figure out if my expectation is wrong, but I expected that when my VM would start up that it would have an IP address already assigned if I complete the Network Settings section in Build Settings. But when I start my VM, it boots up with IP = 0.0.0.0.

I'm setting Network Type = Static, and filling in all the details for IP, Netmask, Gateway, DNS 1 & 2. It seems that these are used when the VM is being "built" on the host, but I'm not entirely sure about that.

In OVF IP Assignment settings, I've tried selecting OVF Environment, but haven't defined any OVF Properties (I don't think this should be required if I'm already setting the address in Build Settings).

After building, in my vSphere Client (ESX4), I choose File > Deploy OVF Template... > Deploy from URL and paste the URL from the recently built VM. I start the VM and watch the console screen boot and load the OS. IP address never gets assigned and the appliance console screen appears with IP=0.0.0.0.

I then have to login to the image, manually assign the IP settings and then everything works. I expected this to be done at boot time so that my firstbootscript can take advantage of the IP address already being assigned.

Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way, but my usecase is as follows:

Build VM > Distribute VM to end user > end user deploys to ESX and chooses IP address > end user boots VM for first time > firstbootscript is automatically run

Am I missing something? Do I have different expectations about how IP assignment is supposed to work? I've read about IP Pools, but that's not an option in my vSphere Client.

Is there a way to reduce VMWare Tools dependencies?

MrMarkW — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:56:12 GMT

Host: VMWare Studio 2.0, running on VMWare Server 2.0 on Windows 2008 R2 x64

Guest: CentOS 5.3 x64

Hi,

I've been tasked with building a virtual appliance for my company's software product, a fairly straightforward daemon that's written in C with virtually no dependencies. VMWare Studio seems like the ideal solution for us--it's easy to use, and we're attracted to the "Just enough Operating Systems (JeOS)" concept VMWare is pushing since we want to keep our download small. But then I built my first test appliance on CentOS 5.3 x64, and the disk image was huge, hundreds of megabytes. It's a very slick and manageable appliance, just big.

I started looking through VMWare Studio's build log (/opt/vmware/www/build/MyApp/status/postinstall.log) to try and figure out why, and I saw it doing the following:

Setting up Install Process
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package vmware-open-vm-tools-kmod.x86_64 0:8.0.0-164009.165940.el5 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: redhat-lsb for package: vmware-open-vm-tools-kmod
--> Running transaction check
---> Package redhat-lsb.x86_64 0:3.1-12.3.EL.el5.centos set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/patch for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/make for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/m4 for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/strip for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/ar for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/man for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/bc for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/sbin/sendmail for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/time for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/lpr for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/lp for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/at for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /bin/gettext for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/msgfmt for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/crontab for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/pax for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/batch for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: libXext.so.6()(64bit) for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: libXi.so.6()(64bit) for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: libICE.so.6()(64bit) for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: libGL.so.1()(64bit) for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: libXt.so.6()(64bit) for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: libSM.so.6()(64bit) for package: redhat-lsb
--> Processing Dependency: libX11.so.6()(64bit) for package: redhat-lsb
--> Running transaction check
---> Package make.x86_64 1:3.81-3.el5 set to be updated
---> Package at.x86_64 0:3.1.8-82.fc6 set to be updated
---> Package vixie-cron.x86_64 4:4.1-76.el5 set to be updated
---> Package libSM.x86_64 0:1.0.1-3.1 set to be updated
---> Package libX11.x86_64 0:1.0.3-9.el5 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: xorg-x11-filesystem >= 0.99.2-3 for package: libX11
--> Processing Dependency: libXdmcp.so.6()(64bit) for package: libX11
--> Processing Dependency: libXau.so.6()(64bit) for package: libX11
---> Package libICE.x86_64 0:1.0.1-2.1 set to be updated
---> Package mesa-libGL.x86_64 0:6.5.1-7.7.el5 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: libdrm.so.2()(64bit) for package: mesa-libGL
--> Processing Dependency: libXxf86vm.so.1()(64bit) for package: mesa-libGL
---> Package gettext.x86_64 0:0.14.6-4.el5 set to be updated
---> Package bc.x86_64 0:1.06-21 set to be updated
---> Package time.x86_64 0:1.7-27.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package pax.x86_64 0:3.4-1.2.2 set to be updated
---> Package libXext.x86_64 0:1.0.1-2.1 set to be updated
---> Package man.x86_64 0:1.6d-1.1 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: groff >= 1.18 for package: man
--> Processing Dependency: bzip2 for package: man
--> Processing Dependency: nroff-i18n for package: man
---> Package exim.x86_64 0:4.63-3.el5 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: perl(POSIX) for package: exim
--> Processing Dependency: perl(vars) for package: exim
--> Processing Dependency: perl(Getopt::Long) for package: exim
--> Processing Dependency: /usr/bin/perl for package: exim
--> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.15(libmysqlclient_15)(64bit) for package: exim
--> Processing Dependency: perl(integer) for package: exim
--> Processing Dependency: perl(Getopt::Std) for package: exim
--> Processing Dependency: perl(strict) for package: exim
--> Processing Dependency: perl(IO::File) for package: exim
--> Processing Dependency: libperl.so()(64bit) for package: exim
--> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.15()(64bit) for package: exim
--> Processing Dependency: libpq.so.4()(64bit) for package: exim
---> Package patch.x86_64 0:2.5.4-29.2.3.el5 set to be updated
---> Package cups.x86_64 1:1.3.7-8.el5 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: cups-libs = 1:1.3.7-8.el5 for package: cups
--> Processing Dependency: paps >= 0.6.6-9 for package: cups
--> Processing Dependency: libgnutls.so.13(GNUTLS_1_3)(64bit) for package: cups
--> Processing Dependency: libcupsimage.so.2()(64bit) for package: cups
--> Processing Dependency: libdns_sd.so.1()(64bit) for package: cups
--> Processing Dependency: libcups.so.2()(64bit) for package: cups
--> Processing Dependency: libgnutls.so.13()(64bit) for package: cups
---> Package binutils.x86_64 0:2.17.50.0.6-9.el5 set to be updated
---> Package libXt.x86_64 0:1.0.2-3.1.fc6 set to be updated
---> Package libXi.x86_64 0:1.0.1-3.1 set to be updated
---> Package m4.x86_64 0:1.4.5-3.el5.1 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
---> Package perl.x86_64 4:5.8.8-18.el5 set to be updated
---> Package libdrm.x86_64 0:2.0.2-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package paps.x86_64 0:0.6.6-18.el5 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: libpango-1.0.so.0()(64bit) for package: paps
--> Processing Dependency: libpangoft2-1.0.so.0()(64bit) for package: paps
--> Processing Dependency: libfreetype.so.6()(64bit) for package: paps
---> Package groff.x86_64 0:1.18.1.1-11.1 set to be updated
---> Package mysql.x86_64 0:5.0.45-7.el5 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: perl(DBI) for package: mysql
---> Package postgresql-libs.x86_64 0:8.1.11-1.el5_1.1 set to be updated
---> Package gnutls.x86_64 0:1.4.1-3.el5_2.1 set to be updated
---> Package libXdmcp.x86_64 0:1.0.1-2.1 set to be updated
---> Package xorg-x11-filesystem.noarch 0:7.1-2.fc6 set to be updated
---> Package bzip2.x86_64 0:1.0.3-4.el5_2 set to be updated
---> Package avahi-compat-libdns_sd.x86_64 0:0.6.16-1.el5 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: avahi = 0.6.16 for package: avahi-compat-libdns_sd
--> Processing Dependency: libavahi-common.so.3()(64bit) for package: avahi-compat-libdns_sd
--> Processing Dependency: libavahi-client.so.3()(64bit) for package: avahi-compat-libdns_sd
---> Package libXau.x86_64 0:1.0.1-3.1 set to be updated
---> Package libXxf86vm.x86_64 0:1.0.1-3.1 set to be updated
---> Package cups-libs.x86_64 1:1.3.7-8.el5 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: libpng12.so.0(PNG12_0)(64bit) for package: cups-libs
--> Processing Dependency: libpng12.so.0()(64bit) for package: cups-libs
--> Processing Dependency: libtiff.so.3()(64bit) for package: cups-libs
--> Processing Dependency: libjpeg.so.62()(64bit) for package: cups-libs
--> Running transaction check
---> Package libpng.x86_64 2:1.2.10-7.1.el5_0.1 set to be updated
---> Package libtiff.x86_64 0:3.8.2-7.el5_2.2 set to be updated
---> Package pango.x86_64 0:1.14.9-3.el5.centos set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: cairo >= 1.2.2 for package: pango
--> Processing Dependency: libXrender for package: pango
--> Processing Dependency: libXft for package: pango
--> Processing Dependency: libcairo.so.2()(64bit) for package: pango
--> Processing Dependency: libXrender.so.1()(64bit) for package: pango
--> Processing Dependency: libXft.so.2()(64bit) for package: pango
--> Processing Dependency: libfontconfig.so.1()(64bit) for package: pango
---> Package perl-DBI.x86_64 0:1.52-2.el5 set to be updated
---> Package freetype.x86_64 0:2.2.1-20.el5_2 set to be updated
---> Package avahi.x86_64 0:0.6.16-1.el5 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: dbus-python for package: avahi
--> Processing Dependency: libdaemon for package: avahi
--> Processing Dependency: libdaemon.so.0()(64bit) for package: avahi
---> Package libjpeg.x86_64 0:6b-37 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
---> Package libdaemon.x86_64 0:0.10-5.el5 set to be updated
---> Package cairo.x86_64 0:1.2.4-5.el5 set to be updated
---> Package libXft.x86_64 0:2.1.10-1.1 set to be updated
---> Package libXrender.x86_64 0:0.9.1-3.1 set to be updated
---> Package dbus-python.x86_64 0:0.70-7.el5 set to be updated
---> Package fontconfig.x86_64 0:2.4.1-7.el5 set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Dependencies Resolved
================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository
Size
================================================================================
Installing:
vmware-open-vm-tools-kmod x86_64 8.0.0-164009.165940.el5 isv 484 k
Installing for dependencies:
at x86_64 3.1.8-82.fc6 iso 57 k
avahi x86_64 0.6.16-1.el5 iso 256 k
avahi-compat-libdns_sd x86_64 0.6.16-1.el5 iso 23 k
bc x86_64 1.06-21 iso 110 k
binutils x86_64 2.17.50.0.6-9.el5 iso 2.9 M
bzip2 x86_64 1.0.3-4.el5_2 iso 49 k
cairo x86_64 1.2.4-5.el5 iso 386 k
cups x86_64 1:1.3.7-8.el5 iso 3.4 M
cups-libs x86_64 1:1.3.7-8.el5 iso 189 k
dbus-python x86_64 0.70-7.el5 iso 187 k
exim x86_64 4.63-3.el5 iso 1.2 M
fontconfig x86_64 2.4.1-7.el5 iso 175 k
freetype x86_64 2.2.1-20.el5_2 iso 311 k
gettext x86_64 0.14.6-4.el5 iso 1.4 M
gnutls x86_64 1.4.1-3.el5_2.1 iso 364 k
groff x86_64 1.18.1.1-11.1 iso 1.9 M
libICE x86_64 1.0.1-2.1 iso 54 k
libSM x86_64 1.0.1-3.1 iso 28 k
libX11 x86_64 1.0.3-9.el5 iso 795 k
libXau x86_64 1.0.1-3.1 iso 18 k
libXdmcp x86_64 1.0.1-2.1 iso 19 k
libXext x86_64 1.0.1-2.1 iso 37 k
libXft x86_64 2.1.10-1.1 iso 44 k
libXi x86_64 1.0.1-3.1 iso 25 k
libXrender x86_64 0.9.1-3.1 iso 28 k
libXt x86_64 1.0.2-3.1.fc6 iso 181 k
libXxf86vm x86_64 1.0.1-3.1 iso 14 k
libdaemon x86_64 0.10-5.el5 iso 24 k
libdrm x86_64 2.0.2-1.1 iso 19 k
libjpeg x86_64 6b-37 iso 139 k
libpng x86_64 2:1.2.10-7.1.el5_0.1 iso 235 k
libtiff x86_64 3.8.2-7.el5_2.2 iso 314 k
m4 x86_64 1.4.5-3.el5.1 iso 171 k
make x86_64 1:3.81-3.el5 iso 470 k
man x86_64 1.6d-1.1 iso 265 k
mesa-libGL x86_64 6.5.1-7.7.el5 iso 8.7 M
mysql x86_64 5.0.45-7.el5 iso 4.2 M
pango x86_64 1.14.9-3.el5.centos iso 334 k
paps x86_64 0.6.6-18.el5 iso 33 k
patch x86_64 2.5.4-29.2.3.el5 iso 63 k
pax x86_64 3.4-1.2.2 iso 63 k
perl x86_64 4:5.8.8-18.el5 iso 12 M
perl-DBI x86_64 1.52-2.el5 iso 600 k
postgresql-libs x86_64 8.1.11-1.el5_1.1 iso 195 k
redhat-lsb x86_64 3.1-12.3.EL.el5.centos iso 21 k
time x86_64 1.7-27.2.2 iso 17 k
vixie-cron x86_64 4:4.1-76.el5 iso 80 k
xorg-x11-filesystem noarch 7.1-2.fc6 iso 5.4 k
Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install 49 Package(s)
Update 0 Package(s)
Remove 0 Package(s)
Total download size: 43 M

I'm the first to admit that I'm not a very sophisticated Linux user, but libX11? cups? exim? Holy cow, I don't need or want any of this stuff, and I can't imagine why VMWare Tools would need it. Seeing as how it's just making my virtual disk file much larger than it needs to be, is there any way I can trim some of this? It looks like the redhat-lsb package is the worst offender in terms of dependencies...would I be better off using a different OS, or is this common for VMWare Studio builds? Ideally I'd like a VM that weighs in under 100MB.

Thanks!

Mark

Studio bug? Disk capacity truncated to two digits

AlanJS — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:22:01 GMT

Not sure if I am running into a bug or some limitation I was unaware of.

Seems that Studio will truncate the disk size to two digits when you open a profile. For example the profile states that disk should be 200GB

<Section xsi:type="ovf:DiskSection_Type">
<Info>List of the virtual disks and partitions needed</Info>
<Disk ovf:diskId="system" ovf:capacity="204800" ovf:capacityAllocationUnits="MegaBytes" ovf:format="http://www.vmware.com/specifications/vmdk.html#sparse" ovf:fileRef="system.vmdk"/>
</Section>

When I open that profile in Studio the disk size displayed on the hardware tab is 20 GB. If I then save and build, the disk size in the profile is saved as 20 GB.

<Section xsi:type="ovf:DiskSection_Type">
<Info>List of the virtual disks and partitions needed</Info>
<Disk ovf:diskId="system" ovf:capacity="20480" ovf:capacityAllocationUnits="MegaBytes" ovf:format="http://www.vmware.com/specifications/vmdk.html#sparse" ovf:fileRef="system.vmdk"/>
</Section>

The issue does not appear to be in the save operation, if I configure the disk size to 200 GB in Studio and save the profile the capacity is indeed 200 GB in the profile.

The issue occurs when a profile is opened and brought into Studio.

Error validating VM's Disk configuration

jobless8 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:10:10 GMT

Hey,

I am trying out Visual Studio 2.0 to build a basic appliance. I chose all the default options and when I try and validate the profile, I get the following error

Failure: Aborted by user or system intervention (signal Can't call method "getAttribute" on an undefined value at /opt/vmware/lib/build/VADK/Test.pm line 1567.

Has anybody seen this error? And what do you guys recommend I try out to get my build going?

The full log for the validation is below ...

VMware Studio Version - 2.0.0.1017 Build 185256
Description - VMware Studio 2.0.0
Validating profile schema...
Validating VM configuration and build settings.
Validating profile version...
Validating the VM's version formatting...
Validating the VM's basic memory requirements...
Validating all file/directory names in profile...
Validating the VM's usernames and passwords...
Validating the VM's logo path...
Validating the VM's disk configurations...
Failure: Aborted by user or system intervention (signal Can't call method "getAttribute" on an undefined value at /opt/vmware/lib/build/VADK/Test.pm line 1567.
was caught).
Cleaning up ...Removing temporary files.
Build/Validation process has successfully aborted.

ESXi 4.0 as a build server doesn't work

Jogarem — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:09:20 GMT

I have installed the latest build of ESXi 4 (171294) and the latest release of Vmware Studio (2.0.0.1017 Build 185256) running on a different server.

When I want to build a VM on the ESXi 4 Server I get the following error:

17/10/2009 16:54:25 info VMware Studio Version - 2.0.0.1017 Build 185256
Description - VMware Studio 2.0.0
17/10/2009 16:54:25 info Validating profile schema...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating profile version...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating the VM's version formatting...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating the VM's basic memory requirements...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating all file/directory names in profile...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating the VM's usernames and passwords...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating the VM's logo path...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating the VM's disk configurations...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating provisioning host's entry...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating provisioning timers...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating ApplicationPackages URL...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating non-empty ISO path...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating non-duplicate OS package elements...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating management services' availability...
17/10/2009 16:54:26 info Validating provisioning engine connection...
17/10/2009 16:54:27 info Validating the basic capabilities of provisioning engine...
17/10/2009 16:54:29 info Validating network address' availability for provisioning...
17/10/2009 16:54:34 info Validating available disk space...
17/10/2009 16:54:34 info Scanning for conflicting VM on provisioning host.
17/10/2009 16:54:34 warn Unable to locate VM. VIM error: Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at /opt/vmware/lib/build/VADK/VIM.pm line 287.
17/10/2009 16:54:34 info Preparing the OS installation files.
17/10/2009 16:54:34 info Looking for /opt/vmware/itcs/ISO/ubuntu-8.04.1-dvd-i386.iso
17/10/2009 16:54:44 info Checking application package repositories for packages to be installed...
17/10/2009 16:54:45 info Creating the template vm.
17/10/2009 16:54:46 info Transporting VM from Studio to provisioning host; this may take a few minutes...
17/10/2009 16:55:05 info Checking if the ESX connection is still active...
17/10/2009 16:55:07 info Powering on transient VM on <ESX> at <10.14.19.66>.
17/10/2009 16:55:07 warn PowerOn error:
SOAP Fault:

Fault string: fault.RestrictedVersion.summary
Fault detail: RestrictedVersionFault
17/10/2009 16:55:07 error Encountered a fatal build error!
17/10/2009 16:55:07 info
17/10/2009 16:55:07 info
17/10/2009 16:55:07 info Cleaning up ...
17/10/2009 16:55:07 info Cleaning up provisioning host...
17/10/2009 16:55:07 info Checking if provisioning session is still alive and the transient VM is still powered on.
17/10/2009 16:55:27 info Unregistering transient VM from provisioning host.
17/10/2009 16:55:37 info Removing transient VM from provisioning host.
17/10/2009 16:55:37 warn Failed to delete <datastore1 10.14.19.44_TEST.3> from <10.14.19.66>: fault.RestrictedVersion.summary
17/10/2009 16:55:47 warn Failed to delete <datastore1 10.14.19.44_TEST.3> from <10.14.19.66>: fault.RestrictedVersion.summary
17/10/2009 16:55:57 info Removing temporary files.
17/10/2009 16:55:58 info Build/Validation process has successfully aborted.

The VM is pushed to the ESXi but then can't be powered on ?!

Anyone here who could help me?

Thanks in advance
Thomas

VMware Studio: Unable to connect to server. Please try again.

tennisned — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:24:42 GMT

After I deploy VMware Studio and try to login via the web browser, I get the following error: "Unable to connect to server. Please try again."

I'm not really sure where to go from here? Any help would be great.

Cannot create Ubuntu profile

shreyasshinde — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:49:56 GMT

Hello,

I am using VMWare Studio 2.0 to create a VM profile based on Ubuntu 8.04-desktop-i386.iso. The build fails at this step:

07/10/2009 18:45:00 info Scanning for conflicting VM on provisioning host.

07/10/2009 18:45:06 info Preparing the OS installation files.

07/10/2009 18:45:06 info Looking for /opt/vmware/www/ISV/ISO/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso

07/10/2009 18:45:06 error /mnt/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso/install/netboot not found!

07/10/2009 18:45:06 info

07/10/2009 18:45:06 info Cleaning up ...

I checked the location /mnt/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso/install/netboot and it does not exist. The install location contains only these files "mt86plus", "README.sbm" and "sbm.bin".

What could I be missing here? Is this a supported configuration?

Thanks,

Shreyas

Validate or Build failing to find application packages

blainek — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:14:32 GMT

Whenever I add an appliance package to my build profile, the validation test fails to find the package directories or packages.

I enter the following location:
http://[VADK.localIP]/ISV/appliancePackages

My profile contents looks like:

<vadk:ApplicationPackages>
<vadk:url>http://[VADK.localIP]/ISV/appliancePackages</vadk:url>
</vadk:ApplicationPackages>

My test validation always fails with the following:

Validating ApplicationPackages URL...
Warning: Bad url: http://10.4.xx.xx/ISV/appliancePackages; please first make sure that you can access it from web browser
Failure: Encountered a fatal test error!

There is no problem accessing the directory from a web browser as you can see below:

Index of /ISV/appliancePackages

Name	Last modified	Size	Description

-----
Parent Directory		-

README	14-Aug-2009 04:25	88

I'm not sure why Studio isn't finding the packages. Possibly an outbound proxy connection problem to the 10.4.xx.xx address rather than just looking locally?

Doubts in Using VMware Studio..

Cloudzzz — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:56:26 GMT

Hi all,

Im new to this VMware Studio,

I got a copy of Windowsxp workstation, But I dono how to convert into a OS BOOTABLE DVD for my installation procedure??..

Can anyone help me to sort this out??

Im having VMware Workstation 6.5.2 version.

PLz.. waiting for your help

Chao..

Connection Wizard to ESX4 machine fails with "Connection refused"

blainek — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:43:04 GMT

Environment: ESX 4 Server, hosting VMware Studio 2.0 (released version), will deploy created appliance into same ESX host.

In my build profile, Build Settings section, I selected VMware ESX/ESXi 4.x, and entered the Connection Wizard...

Host, Port, user, password fields are completed.

Testing the connection fails with the following message:

Failure: Error connecting to server at 'https://x.x.x.x:443/sdk/vimService': Connection refused

My initial inspection is that it is likely caused by the proxy/ISA server on our network. It is know to cause some problems with https connections and certain browsers. I'm not certain that this is the root cause, but it's my first guess.**

Are there any logs which can confirm?

Is it possible to force a http connection rather than secure?

Building OVF Based Appliances

ddw — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:41:17 GMT

i'm trying to build an ovf based appliance that prompts for settingts on install.

I've used the PropertiesSection_Type but on import this gets ignorted, so either it;s not supported by VI or I've defined it incorrectly.

Are there any samples that show how to prompt for properties on import and then pass them to the various virtual machines in the ovf appliance set?

This is a copy of my properties section.

<Section ovf:required="false" xsi:type="ovf:PropertySection_Type" transport="...">
<Info>Defines properties used by the appliance</Info>
<Property ovf:key="app.email" ovf:type="string">
<Description>Email address for root email to be sent to</Description>
</Property>
<Property ovf:key="app.base" ovf:type="stringBI,RO,KEP,HA,JCR,ES">
<Description>Location at whicn this appliance is being installed.</Description>
</Property>
</Section>

Network Interface types on Studio-authored appliances

HMVM123 — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:21:27 GMT

I've just started using Studio to create appliances, instead of releasing installers to our users, who are typically vSphere users. One thing I'd like to know is whether there's a way to specify types on Network Interfaces? I'm installing the vmware tool packages in my appliance, but every interface I specify in the ovf is of type E1000. I'd like to have them come up with vmxnet2 by default. On the appliances that get deployed, I have to ask my users to delete their interfaces and add them again (where you can indeed specify the type). How do I configure this when I'm editing my appliance profile?

Assistance is much appreciated!

EULA on import and startup

mkolcun — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:03:54 GMT

The studio 2.0 GA web interface says

How is the EULA displayed and accepted by the user?

EULAs are shown when an OVF is deployed and must be accepted by the user. In
platforms other than vCenter, the EULAs are displayed during first boot
of the VM, and must be accepted by the user at that time.

When I deploy the appliance via OVF to a vSphere setup, I must accept the EULA on import, AND on first boot.

I thought this double EULA issue was going to be fixed in the GA? Any ideas?

Thanks

/Mike

Protect virtual appliances from duplication

nsolop — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:35:03 GMT

Hi all, is there any way to protect my virtual appliances from duplication?. What I mean is that I want to protect myself (and others) from finding our work published on emule and torrents sites.

Thanks in advance.

Saludos/Regards
Nicolas Solop
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Mi empresa
Mi perfil en LinkedIn
Grupo de Virtualizacion en español de Linkedin

Running studiocli via ssh -o using authorized_keys results in Epic Build Fail

hoWarD aLlen tReEsong — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:03:36 GMT

Preface: I am using authorized_host ssh keys to set up my non-interactive ssh sessions.

Doing this command in shell from my build machine:
ssh -o 'StrictHostKeyChecking no' root@myip 'studiocli --createbuild --profile /opt/vmware/var/lib/build/profiles/Build.xml --debug --verbose'

Results in the following output and (*epic fail* of my build attempt):
Failure: Unable to reset process group id

I tracked this down to the following python code in studiocli ( which I commented out.)

## change vabs into a different process group different than sfcb
## avoid sfcb process is killed during canceling build
# try:
# os.setpgid( 0, 0)
# except OSError:
# failure("Unable to reset process group id")
# return ret

What impact will this have on my builds if I comment it out?
Is there a better way to call studiocli from ssh?
Thanks,

H. Alan Treesong

Attempting to change the Guest NIC drivers with a VIM Sh script HELP !

brikeyes — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:58:07 GMT

i am trying to change the Guest nic drivers accross a large amount of servers , i have some intel drivers and want the VMX NET drivers instead , what is the command to do this , where are these parameters strored int he .vmx files???????

How can I access VMware Studio via Eclipse through a proxy?

JVRDT — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:58:43 GMT

Hi guys,

my VMware Studio instance is an a separated network. I can access the browser gui pretty fair via the networks proxy and I could install the Eclipse plug-in with configuring the separate proxy. But I am not able to connect from the plug-in to my Studio instance.
Any idea or tweak I can use?

Thx.
Cheers

Jose

Debugging application install

AlanJS — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:37:06 GMT

I am having an issue installing my appliacation using Studio 2. The install hangs during the install of the RPM onesign-chroot. It is not Studio that is hanging it the chroot RPM itself which is waiting for a process to come alive.

The issue is that Studio is installing the RPMs in a differnt order than I have specified in the profile. None of these RPMs has a Requires: directive , so I was thinking the install order is defined by the list in the profile.

I am hoping someone either knows what I am doing wrong or can think of a way to further debug.

I have two pieces of information that seem to indicate the order in the profile is not the same as the order of the actual install:

1. Section from my profile:

<SNIP>

2. A grep of YAST2/zypper.log from the virtual appliance that Studio attempted to provision.

2009-09-04 17:13:42 <1> s-aaron-02(7181) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/vmware-studio-init_2.0.0.1017-185256_i386.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:13:43 <1> s-aaron-02(7181) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/vmware-studio-vami_2.0.0.1017-185256_i386.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:13:48 <1> s-aaron-02(7181) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/vmware-studio-vami-servicebase_2.0.0.1017-185256_i386.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:13:50 <1> s-aaron-02(7181) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/vmware-studio-vami-core_2.0.0.0-1251905424-0_i386.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:13:51 <1> s-aaron-02(7181) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/vmware-studio-vami-network_2.0.0.0-1251905426-0_i386.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:14:05 <1> s-aaron-02(7392) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/vmware-studio-vami-system_2.0.0.0-1251905425-0_i386.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:14:13 <1> s-aaron-02(7489) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/vmware-studio-vami-update_2.0.0.0-1251905427-0_i386.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:14:21 <1> s-aaron-02(7586) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/vmware-studio-appliance-config_2.0.0.0-090904210214_i386.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:15:40 <1> s-aaron-02(7860) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/3rdparty-oracleSoftware-1.0-1.i586.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:16:39 <1> s-aaron-02(7920) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/onesign-paradius-4.2-99.i586.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:16:53 <1> s-aaron-02(7980) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/onesign-httpd-4.2-99.i586.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:17:07 <1> s-aaron-02(8062) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/3rdparty-php4-4.2-99.i586.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:17:17 <1> s-aaron-02(8124) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/onesign-libs-4.2-99.i586.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:17:23 <1> s-aaron-02(8185) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/onesign-ui-4.2-99.i586.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:17:33 <1> s-aaron-02(8252) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/onesign-tycoradius-4.2-99.i586.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:17:44 <1> s-aaron-02(8312) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/3rdparty-apache2-4.2-99.i586.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:17:52 <1> s-aaron-02(8373) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/onesign-kerberos-4.2-99.i586.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:18:00 <1> s-aaron-02(8473) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/onesign-chroot1-4.2-99.i586.rpm,0)
2009-09-04 17:21:29 <1> s-aaron-02(8646) rpm RpmDb.cc(doInstallPackage):1825 RpmDb::installPackage(/var/adm/mount/AP_0x00000005/onesign-chroot-4.2-99.i586.rpm,0)

Thanks

Alan Sonnenberg

getting Virtual Disk state - persistent / non persistent

Yossian — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:15:07 GMT

Hi.

I need to check whether a virtual disk is in persistent mode or not.

no need to change it, just get the current state.

code is in C#.

I know how to get the power state and so, but never gone too deep.

if anyone can help with a sample or so, i'll be very happy.

Thanks !!

Jo.

MOVED TO vSphere C# SDK forum

Create OVA file as part of build

J8kel — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:53:55 GMT

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this question.

I work on a product that is sold on a physical appliance. One of the things that our build does is to produce a bootable ISO that will partition, format, install an OS (not one supported by VMWare Studio), and install our application code. We are now considering the implications of a Virtual Appliance. I have successfully created a new VM, booted it from our ISO, ran the install, and then exported the VM as an OVA file.

I would like to know if there is any way that I can use VMWare Studio or any other VMWare product to automate that process as part of our build.

I understand that VMWare Studio limits the OS's that it supports in order to be able to customize the resulting VM's, but I already have a complete install script that supports silent install. So I don't need any of the OS control that VMWare Studio offers. I would simply like to create a VM, load it with my own ISO, and create an OVA from that, without having to do all the steps manually.

Any information or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Communication with the virtual machine may have been interrupted

NickelNetworks — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:47:01 GMT

I have a Vmware Studio 1.0.0 Build 620 running under ESX 3.5 at 10.5.36.15 and a Vmware server running on Centos 5.0 on 10.5.36.16 on a separate physical server. I can ssh from either one to each other without any issues, there are no firewalls in between the hosts, still when I try to do a simple test for creating an appliance I keep getting the error"

"Failure: An error occured while connecting to the VMware Server at 10.5.36.16: The system returned an error. Communication with the virtual machine may have been interrupted".

I initially tried with Vmware server running in windows, installed OpenSSH and got either similar errors or completely inconsistent errors, meaning that I will hit the validate button and will get one error, waited a few seconds and selected validate again and got another different error. I then switched to vmware under centos and I am stuck at this.

There are no errors on "/opt/vmware/www/build"

Any hints will be appreciated..

Regards,

Paul Aviles

Technology Exchange Developer Day - VMware Studio - Enabling Creation and Deployment of vApps

navadavuluri — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:39:53 GMT

Hello,

We are happy to announce about our hands-on demo at Technology Exchange Developer Day 2009, VMware Studio - Enabling Creation and Deployment of vApps

Presenter: Komal Mangtani

Demo ID: DS-10

Time: 12:30 - 1:30 PM

Abstract:

This demo shows how to package your application into a VM using Eclipse for easy distribution as a VM or vApp.
You will also learn how to use standard build profiles and an Eclipse plugin to push just-compiled software bits
onto a VM and package it as a VM/vApp for testing. This mechanism simplifies the dev/test environment and shortens test /bugfix cycles.

Studio Session @ Technology Exchange - Developer Day - VMworld 2009 - August 31, 2009

heyitspablo — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:06:31 GMT

Folks,

Did we mention event registration is only $249 + you get a vSphere Standard License, access to Solution Fair, hands on demos !

More information, registration at event: http://communities.vmware.com/community/developer/techexchange
{youtube} http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsALf004pq0 {youtube}

vApps, virtual appliances, what should I be developing? This session does a deep dive into various technologies and the product that enables creating them - VMware Studio 2.0. The 2.0 version of VMware Studio is primarily focused for developers. Studio 2.0 provides guided flows for users to create vApps and VAs. The Eclipse Plugin for Studio 2.0 enables integrated dev/test environment for developing complex applications. With Cloud, mobility of applications is very critical. This session will cover some best practices around creating location-independent applications. It will touch upon various aspects of creating applications that are suitable for cloud deployments.

Level Intermediate

Speaker
Komal Mangtani is Sr. R&D Manager for vApps and Virtual Appliances at VMware. She leads VMware Studio team and has taken the product from concept to delivery. Prior to VMware, she was Development Manager in Server Technologies Group at Oracle and was one of the lead developers for Weblogic Platform Product at BEA Systems.

OS Hard Disk size

kix1979 — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:08:40 GMT

Any change up in size results in a failure for me on my VA's. I've got 20G on a SLES 10.2 machine and if I try to make it 30, 50 or more it always fails. Any thoughts as to why?

Thomas H. Bryant III
Director, Advanced Technology & Products
Vizioncore, Inc.
VMware Communities User Moderator

cant create or validate virtual appliance

morehead21 — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:20:35 GMT

i get the following output when i try to validate the profile of a virtual appliance im trying to create

studiocli -vvv --debug --validateprofile -p /opt/vmware/var/lib/build/profiles/test.xml
Ran system shell command "mkdir -p /opt/vmware/www/build/test_11/status 2>/tmp/vfex4ldjKN"
system shell command returned: $VAR1 = { 'exit_value' => 0, 'stderr' => '', 'dumped_core' => 0, 'stdout' => '', 'signal_num' => 0, 'return' => '0' };
Using build instance name: test_11
Invoked as: /opt/vmware/share/build/vabs.pl /opt/vmware/bin/studiocli -vvv --debug --validateprofile -p /opt/vmware/var/lib/build/profiles/test.xml
/opt/vmware/share/build/vabs.pl Start Time: Mon Jan 12 15:22:27 2009
Validating Virtual Appliance configuration and build settings.
Validating profile schema...
Validating /opt/vmware/var/lib/build/profiles/test.xml using /opt/vmware/etc/build/schemas/vadk.xsd
Validating Appliance Version formatting...
Validating Appliance Memory Size...
Validating non-empty ISO path...
Validating Appliance usernames and passwords...
Validating Appliance logo path...
Validating ovf:DiskSection_Type...
Validating ApplicationPackages URL...
Ran system shell command "wget -t 1 --timeout=5 -nd --no-parent -A .html -P /tmp/XInJmBNboO http://localhost/ISV/appliancePackages 2>/tmp/Uw3s5xsD61"
system shell command returned: $VAR1 = { 'exit_value' => 0, 'stderr' => '--15:22:27-- http://localhost/ISV/appliancePackages ', 'dumped_core' => 0, 'stdout' => '', 'signal_num' => 0, 'return' => '0' };
Ran system shell command "rm -rf /tmp/XInJmBNboO 2>/tmp/BZkjsMOmpl"
system shell command returned: $VAR1 = { 'exit_value' => 0, 'stderr' => '', 'dumped_core' => 0, 'stdout' => '', 'signal_num' => 0, 'return' => '0' };
Validating OS Package elements...
Validating controllers and disks...
Validating file transfer for ProvisioningEngine...
Validating file transfer to root@xxx.xxx.xxx.163:/tmp
VADK::System::ssh(xxx.xxx.xxx.163, root, xxxxxxx, echo, 5)
Response from xxx.xxx.xxx.163:
Response from xxx.xxx.xxx.163:
Executed "echo" xxx.xxx.xxx.163 (nopassword).
VADK::System::scp(xxx.xxx.xxx.163, root, xxxxxxx, /tmp/cuF2iRFZf2, :/tmp/cuF2iRFZf2, 0)
VADK::System::scp (nopassword):
VADK::System::ssh(xxx.xxx.xxx.163, root, xxxxxxx, rm "/tmp/cuF2iRFZf2", 5)
Response from xxx.xxx.xxx.163:
Response from xxx.xxx.xxx.163:
Executed "rm "/tmp/cuF2iRFZf2"" on xxx.xxx.xxx.163 (nopassword).
Validating provisioning engine connection...
Making a test connection to xxx.xxx.xxx.163 using the VMware VIX protocol
VIX host: 6xxx.xxx.xxx.163, VIX port: 902
VIX username: root
VIX_API_VERSION: 1
VIX_SERVICEPROVIDER_VMWARE_SERVER: 2
VIX_INVALID_HANDLE: 0
$VAR1 = 16;
Failure: An error occured while connecting to the VMware Server at xxx.xxx.xxx.163: The system returned an error. Communication with the virtual machine may have been interrupted
Ran system shell command "rm -rf "/opt/vmware/www/build/test_11" 2>/tmp/e9rvtA8yI5"
system shell command returned: $VAR1 = { 'exit_value' => 0, 'stderr' => '', 'dumped_core' => 0, 'stdout' => '', 'signal_num' => 0, 'return' => '0' };

im unsure what the issue is at this point it appears to be something to do with the VIX communicaton?

vmware studio (.162) can communicate with the vmware server (.163) via ssh and port 902 when i test w/ telnet , and all firewalls are off.

this really has me stumped any input appreciated.

OVF inside the guest use

kix1979 — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:11:57 GMT

Is there any example of taking an the OVF xml inside a linux guest, parsing it for IP or anything and then doing something like change the IP? I'm struggling with this part for Linux.

Thomas H. Bryant III
Director, Advanced Technology & Products
Vizioncore, Inc.
VMware Communities User Moderator

vApp, ovf-en.xml - Samples?

Mike_Laverick — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:36:35 GMT

I understand the new vApp OVF standard allows you to assign a pool of IP address to a vApp.

VMs grab the IP address by having CD attached to the VM during boot process from which they read a .XML file - (ovf-en.xml?)

Can the Studio assist in making these XML files?

Does anyone have a sample .XML file - and tried this method - to give me some detail on how it all works?

Regards
Mike Laverick
RTFM Education
http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk
Author of the SRM Book: http://www.lulu.com/content/4343147

change credentials in repository

Jogarem — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:30:10 GMT

Hi everybody.

I want to change the username or/and password for the update repository on the deployed vmware machine.

I know that this has to be done in: "/opt/vmware/var/lib/vami/update/service-deploy.xml"
But what I need is to activate this without a reboot.

Anyone here who could help? Which service has to be restarted to activate this?

Is it possbile to mount /proc to /target/proc?

Jogarem — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:26:30 GMT

Hi,

first of all the idea of VMware Studio is soooo great ;o))) I like it really!

But now to my problem..
I want to install some software with the preinstallation script of VMware Studio. The problem is
that the software (Postfix and MySQL Server) needs the /proc system because of start/stop scripts.

I don't want to build my own Postfix debian package or compile it by myself during install. This is
too much work and very unhandy for maintenance.

To troubleshoot I had inserted a "sleep 1h" command in the preinstall code and when I connect to the console of the appliance
while it is in building process (the sleep command pauses the build) I can mount /proc with "mount -o bind /proc /target/proc".
Then I use "chroot /target " to go into the installation and now I can install Postfix and MySQL without any problems!

I have tried to insert this mount command in my ubuntu.xsl file (/opt/vmware/etc/build/templates/ubuntu/08/ubuntu.xsl)
but either at the wrong place (the latest line and before the chroot command) or it is the wrong file..

Can anyone help?

Regards
Thomas

1. EDIT
Ok now I got it.. I get /proc mounted now :o)

The line is:
d-i preseed/late_command string cp /var/log/syslog /target/tmp/; mount -o bind /proc /target/proc/; chroot /target wget <value-of select="/ovf:Envelope/Section~~@xsi:type='vadk:JEOSSection_Type'~~/vadk:PostInstallScript/@vadk:path"/> -O /tmp/vp.sh; chroot /target /bin/bash /tmp/vp.sh; /sbin/ifconfig eth0 down; halt

But one problem still left. When I install postfix via the pre install script It stops working while preconfiguring packages.
I have to mention that I use the DEBIAN_FRONTEND=interactive command before AND also I copy all postfix configuration under /etc/postfix to the installation
before i run "aptitude -y install postfix"... When I run it via the vmware studio preinstall script it stops but when I do it by hand (manually) it works..

I try to figure that out but when anyone has an idea would be great..

2. EDIT
Ok the main problem is that variables are not expanded. When I use a script which should install something and within this script are
variables they will not expanded. Thats only when using the pre/post inst function in the studio profile (I call a bash script from here).
When I execute the same script on the console it works like a charme..

is this a bug? Any workarounds other than to do it manually by hand?

New info

Problem with creating a virtual appliance with Ubuntu 8.0.4

usolcew — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:01:54 GMT

Good day

I'm trying to create a virtual appliance with Ubuntu 8.0.4 using VMware Studio 1.0 and VMware Server 1.0.6

And every time my virtual appliance first boot stops after message "Loadinf tftp://192.168.0.1/pxelinux.0...(PXE)...done"

I've tried static bridged IP and host-only IP - results are the same as described. When I've used DHCP my virt.appliance cannot find the DHCP server

What am I doing wrong? How may I diagnose the problem?

Thanks in advance,

Igor, Kaliningrad

vmware studio not cancelling a build

jrokicki — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:25:57 GMT

Hello folks,

I tried creating my first appliance, and it ran into a disk full condition. I tried cancelling the build, but it would cancel.

So, I rebooted the studio appliance,

Now the studio GUI still sees the build as running.

When I try to cancel it, I get an error that it cannot kill a process.

Is there a way I can clear this?

Thanks in advance.

john

Virtual Appliance Timezone

kolcun — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:14:11 GMT

All of our servers are in EST.

When I build and deploy a virtual appliance it's set to PST.

More generally, I'd like for the users of my virtual machine to have it's timezone set to whatever their local environment is.

For example, in my case when I started up the virtual appliance for the first time, it would automatically be set to work in EST.

(I know that the configuration option exits on the appliance startup screen, but if it works automatically, all the better)

Is this possible?

VMware Coffee Talk - VMware Studio 2.0 Live Webinar - June 24th 2009 - 9:00 - 10:00 AM PST

heyitspablo — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:29:41 GMT

Folks,

PDF slides available - please see attachment.

All recordings and pdfs will be available on our VMware Coffee Talk Blog

Link to Coffee Talk Blog
http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/DeveloperCenter/2009/07/01/announcing-the-vmware-coffee-talk-live-webinars-first-wed-of-the-month-900-am-1000-am-pst

Title: Studio 2.0: Build vApps and virtual appliances for the cloud
Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Time: 9:00 am, Pacific Daylight Time (GMT -07:00, San Francisco)
Meeting Number: 929 034 081
Meeting Password: (This meeting does not require a password.)
More registration details below.

Abstract: VMware Studio 2.0 helps configure, build, deploy, customize and maintain vApps and virtual appliances. These solution stacks can be deployed on VMware vSphere 4.0 or in the cloud and can be managed from the VMware Studio web console or from VMware vCenter Server. In this webinar, software vendors, application developers and IT administrators will get an overview of vApps and virtual appliances followed by what's new in Studio 2.0. We will walk you through the entire build process by starting with an application created in Eclipse (via the Eclipse plug-in in Studio) and demonstrating how it can be packaged as either a vApp or virtual appliance in OVF format. The process will also reveal various automated tools available, for creating a clean out-of-box experience, such as specifying exact OS requirements, building an update repository, adding custom management services and adding existing VM builds as input.VMware Studio 2.0 is going to be available as a public beta starting June 29, 2009

Level: Beginner with basic understanding of Eclipse and Virtualization concepts.

Speaker Matthew Ford Sr. Member Technical Staff BIO

Build fails

A.Mikkelsen — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:31:54 GMT

Evertime I try to build i get
build error Could not upload files to /cygdrive/c/tmp/172.29.67.124_6/ on the host 172.29.67.222

Debug Log:

24/06/2009 12:29:00 build debug VMhost API base path: c:\tmp\, sub path: c:\tmp\172.29.67.124_6|

24/06/2009 12:29:00 build debug VMhost File xfer base path: /cygdrive/c/tmp/, sub path: /cygdrive/c/tmp/172.29.67.124_6/

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug Ran system shell command "/etc/init.d/tftpd-hpa restart 2>/tmp/ghZFgtVpaF"

24/06/2009
12:29:01 build debug system shell command returned: $VAR1 = {
'exit_value' => 0, 'stderr' => '', 'dumped_core' => 0,
'stdout' => 'Restarting HPA\'s tftpd: in.tftpd. ', 'signal_num'
=> 0, 'return' => '0' };

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug Connecting to 172.29.67.222 using the VMware VIX protocol

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug VIX host: 172.29.67.222, VIX port: 902

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug VIX username: administrator

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug VIX_API_VERSION: 1

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug VIX_SERVICEPROVIDER_VMWARE_SERVER: 2

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug VIX_INVALID_HANDLE: 0

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug $VAR1 = 0;

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug Scanning 172.29.67.222 for running VMs...

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug $VAR1 = '0';

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug Copying skeletal virtual machine to 172.29.67.222 at /cygdrive/c/tmp/172.29.67.124_6/

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug Using protocol scp, login administrator

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug File transfer initiated to /cygdrive/c/tmp/, /cygdrive/c/tmp/172.29.67.124_6/

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug Using protocol scp, login administrator, password xxxxxxx

24/06/2009 12:29:01 build debug VADK::System::ssh(172.29.67.222, administrator, xxxxxxx, mkdir /cygdrive/c/tmp/, 5)

24/06/2009
12:29:02 build debug Response from 172.29.67.222: ****USAGE
WARNING**** This is a private computer system. This computer system,
including all related equipment, networks, and network devices
(specifically including Internet access) are provided only for
authorized use. This computer system may be monitored for all lawful
purposes, including to ensure that its use is authorized, for
management of the system, to facilitate protection against unauthorized
access, and to verify security procedures, survivability, and
operational security. Monitoring includes active attacks by authorized
entities to test or verify the security of this system. During
monitoring, information may be examined, recorded, copied and used for
authorized purposes. All information, including personal information,
placed or sent over this system may be monitored. Use of this computer
system, authorized or unauthorized, constitutes consent to monitoring
of this system. Unauthorized use may subject you to criminal

prosecution.
Evidence of unauthorized use collected during monitoring may be used
for administrative, criminal, or other adverse action. Use of this
system constitutes consent to monitoring for these purposes.

24/06/2009 12:29:02 build debug Executed "mkdir /cygdrive/c/tmp/" on 172.29.67.222 (nopassword).

24/06/2009
12:29:02 build debug VADK::System::ssh(172.29.67.222, administrator,
xxxxxxx, mkdir /cygdrive/c/tmp/172.29.67.124_6/, 5)

24/06/2009
12:29:03 build debug Response from 172.29.67.222: ****USAGE
WARNING**** This is a private computer system. This computer system,
including all related equipment, networks, and network devices
(specifically including Internet access) are provided only for
authorized use. This computer system may be monitored for all lawful
purposes, including to ensure that its use is authorized, for
management of the system, to facilitate protection against unauthorized
access, and to verify security procedures, survivability, and
operational security. Monitoring includes active attacks by authorized
entities to test or verify the security of this system. During
monitoring, information may be examined, recorded, copied and used for
authorized purposes. All information, including personal information,
placed or sent over this system may be monitored. Use of this computer
system, authorized or unauthorized, constitutes consent to monitoring
of this system. Unauthorized use may subject you to criminal

24/06/2009 12:29:03 build debug Executed "mkdir /cygdrive/c/tmp/172.29.67.124_6/" on 172.29.67.222 (nopassword).

24/06/2009 12:29:03 build debug Uploading system-s002.vmdk

24/06/2009
12:29:03 build debug VADK::System::scp(172.29.67.222, administrator,
xxxxxxx, system-s002.vmdk, :/cygdrive/c/tmp/172.29.67.124_6/, 0)

24/06/2009 12:29:03 build debug VADK::System::scp (nopassword):

24/06/2009 12:29:03 build debug scp (nopassword) returned: Read from socket failed: Connection reset by peer lost connection

24/06/2009 12:29:03 build debug VADK::System::scp (withpassword):

24/06/2009
12:29:14 build debug Could not scp to or from 172.29.67.222: scp
timed out while trying to connect to 172.29.67.222 at
/opt/vmware/lib/build/VADK/System.pm line 282

24/06/2009 12:29:14 build debug Uploading system-s001.vmdk

24/06/2009
12:29:14 build debug VADK::System::scp(172.29.67.222, administrator,
xxxxxxx, system-s001.vmdk, :/cygdrive/c/tmp/172.29.67.124_6/, 0)

24/06/2009 12:29:14 build debug VADK::System::scp (nopassword):

24/06/2009 12:29:15 build debug scp (nopassword) returned: Read from socket failed: Connection reset by peer lost connection

24/06/2009 12:29:15 build debug VADK::System::scp (withpassword):

24/06/2009
12:29:16 build debug Error copying files to, or from, remote system:
Read from socket failed: Connection reset by peer lost connection

24/06/2009
12:29:16 build debug Could not scp to or from 172.29.67.222: Problem
performing scp: Read from socket failed: Connection reset by peer lost
connection at /opt/vmware/lib/build/VADK/System.pm line 282

24/06/2009 12:29:16 build error Could not upload files to /cygdrive/c/tmp/172.29.67.124_6/ on the host 172.29.67.222

24/06/2009 12:29:16 build debug Deleting the file tree /opt/vmware/www/build/6/repo

24/06/2009 12:29:19 build debug Ran system shell command "rm -rf /opt/vmware/www/build/6/repo 2>/tmp/zQAxSQuHxR"

24/06/2009
12:29:19 build debug system shell command returned: $VAR1 = {
'exit_value' => 0, 'stderr' => '', 'dumped_core' => 0,
'stdout' => '', 'signal_num' => 0, 'return' => '0' };

24/06/2009 12:29:19 build debug Deleting the file tree /opt/vmware/www/build/6/va

24/06/2009 12:29:19 build debug Ran system shell command "rm -rf /opt/vmware/www/build/6/va 2>/tmp/2PZopxvUlx"

24/06/2009
12:29:19 build debug system shell command returned: $VAR1 = {
'exit_value' => 0, 'stderr' => '', 'dumped_core' => 0,
'stdout' => '', 'signal_num' => 0, 'return' => '0' };

24/06/2009 12:29:19 build debug Deleting the file tree /opt/vmware/www/build/6/customize

24/06/2009 12:29:19 build debug Ran system shell command "rm -rf /opt/vmware/www/build/6/customize 2>/tmp/R0sDLK51Rf"

24/06/2009
12:29:19 build debug system shell command returned: $VAR1 = {
'exit_value' => 0, 'stderr' => '', 'dumped_core' => 0,
'stdout' => '', 'signal_num' => 0, 'return' => '0' };

Does anyone know to fix?

I'm running Win2003 Server / Server 1.0.6 and Openssh 4.2p1-1

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points.

Regards
A. Mikkelsen

Deploying appliance on vSphere, warnings

mkolcun — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:45:49 GMT

When I deploy a OVF appliance on vSphere I get the following warning when I choose which ESX server to deploy the appliance to

*" The operating system has been mapped to 'Other Linux (32-bit)' from 'CentOS Linux 5.0' (id:88) "
*

I am using CentOS for my appliance, specfically file:///opt/vmware/www/ISV/ISO/CentOS-5.2-i386-bin-DVD.iso

Any ideas on why it seems that CentOS is causing this warning?

Thanks

appliance built with studio not working in VMware Workstation

mkolcun — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:47:46 GMT

When I try to import a ovf appliance built with vmware studio using vmware workstation I get this error "The OVF descriptor file could not be parsed"

The log proivides a bit more information, but I'm still not sure what is wrong

Workstation version 6.5.2 build 156735 running on windows xp 5.1.2600 sp3

Anyone else had similar issues?

Thanks

LOG below ---

3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:24.864 'App' 2920 info~~ vmImporter,140 Entering UFAD at QuerySourceInfo
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:24.864 'App' 2920 verbose~~ vmImporter,141 source:
3 (sysimage.OvfSourceVMSpec) {
3 dynamicType = <unset>,
3 ovfFilePath = "http://10.1.1.119/build/189/exports/ovf/up.time.ovf",
3 }
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:24.864 'App' 2920 verbose~~ ufaConnection,94 Creating local adapter...
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:24.864 'App' 2920 verbose~~ disposable,69 Registering disposable session object id=VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task{2}
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:24.864 'App' 2920 verbose~~ disposable,80 Associating disposable session object id=VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task{2} with session id=5B0A9570-E849-4DA3-A349-F870AA4C452A
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:24.880 'App' 4772 verbose~~ imageProcessingTaskImpl,504 VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task{2}: Starting execution of an image processing task
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:24.880 'App' 4772 verbose~~ imageProcessingTaskImpl,154 VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task{2}: SetState to running
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:24.880 'App' 4772 info~~ vmiQuerySourceInfoTask,79 VmiQuerySourceInfoTask initialized
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:24.880 'App' 4772 verbose~~ ufaConnection,94 Creating local adapter...
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:24.896 'App' 4772 info~~ ufaUtils,670 Using temp dir C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\vmware-temp\vmware-mkolcun-1125\ova-dir.0
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:25.302 'App' 4772 info~~ [urlStreamWin32,72] Size of the url file is 6804
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:25.365 'App' 4772 error~~ ovfImportSource,314 Ovf file could not be parsed
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:25.365 'App' 4772 info~~ ufaUtils,697 Cleaning up temp directory C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\vmware-temp\vmware-mkolcun-1125\ova-dir.0 ...
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:25.365 'App' 4772 error~~ imageProcessingTaskImpl,552 VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task{2}: Image processing task has failed with MethodFault::Exception: sysimage.fault.IncompatibilityFault
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:25.365 'App' 4772 verbose~~ imageProcessingTaskImpl,154 VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task{2}: SetState to error
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:25.380 'App' 4772 verbose~~ disposable,122 object explicitly disposed: VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task{2}
3 ~~2009-06-02 08:42:25.380 'App' 4772 verbose~~ imageProcessingTaskImpl,123 VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task{2} being destroyed

Problem installing PostgreSQL-8.3 on Ubuntu 8.04 VMWare Studio generated VM

draygen — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:21:13 GMT

Hello Everyone,

I'm running into an installation issue for PostgreSQL-8.3 while building a 32bit Virtual Appliance using VMWare Studio 1.0.

I've downloaded all of the required .DEB packages for PostgreSQL ontoo a staging Ubuntu 8.04 server, and placed them into the /opt/vmware/www/ISV/appliancePackages repository , the packages that I got are:

libpq5_8.3.7-0ubuntu8.04.1_i386.deb

postgresql-8.3_8.3.7-0ubuntu8.04.1_i386.deb

postgresql-client-8.3_8.3.7-0ubuntu8.04.1_i386.deb

postgresql-client-common-8.3_8.3.7-0ubuntu8.04.1_i386.deb

postgresql-common_87_all.deb

The problem appears to be with locales , I keep on getting this error in the postinstall.org during the postgresql-8.3 package installs:

perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
LANGUAGE = (unset),
LC_ALL = (unset),
LANG = "en_US.UTF-8"
are supported and installed on your system.

The postgresql files get extracted, but the setup scripts that are supposed to run after extraction do not run because of this error - so postgresql isnt fully installed onto the generated VM.

I've found a few solutions on web, however; all of the solutions appear to assume that I am booted into the OS and can run several commands to regenerate the locales.

1) Set the LC_ALL environment variable to LC_ALL = en_US.UTF-8; export LC_ALL -- If I place this into the "Pre-installation shell script" the environment variable is lost by the time the postgresql .DEB files are being installed.

2) Before installing postgresql, run: locale_gen en_US.UTF-8 ..This will also fail in the "Pre-installation shell script" probably because VMWare studio hasnt yet gotten to install the locales package.

Has anyone ran into this before? Or has anyone successfully installed postgresql into a VMWare Studio generated Ubuntu 8.04 VM?

Thanks,

Brian

Screen displayed after appliance startup.

mkolcun — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:53:28 GMT

I've created our appliance with the vmware studio.

On the first boot of the appliance, the last thing I'm presented with is a blue screen telling me to go to https://ip.address:5480 to configure the appliance.

Is it possible to change the text on the page - I'd like to provide some information about our appliance defaults.

ie, where the user should go, default application login and password, etc.

I don't see any spot in the vmware studio web interface where this might go - am I missing something?

We're using Centos as our appliance OS

Thanks

VM EULA on import and boot

mkolcun — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:00:48 GMT

I've got our EULA added to the description page when creating my appliance using vmware studio.

After creating my virtual appliance I impot it using File->Virtual Appliance->Import in the Infrastructure Client.

As part of the import I need to accept the EULA, which is what I want. However on first boot, I have to accept the EULA again.

Is it possible to disable the EULA check on first boot?

Thanks

Cygwin/OpenSSH

drewlenz — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:45:22 GMT

I Installed Cygwin (and openssh) on my VMServer maching (VM server 1.0.5). Other ssh clients can connect just fine to my server. VMware Studio ssh or scp will not connect. ssh -vvv ... will stop at:

start ----

debug:3 send_pubkey_test

debug2: we sent a publickey packet, wait for reply

Connect closed by <ip>

lost connection

--- end ---

but I can use PuTTY from another computer and it connects just fine. This happens for me with both Cygwin and OpenSSH for windows. This is happening on two system VMware Studio installs.

Any ideas?

Thank you!!

Andrew

creating first vmware appliance

boarder428 — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:04:39 GMT

I'm looking to create a virtual appliance but not sure how to go about doing so. I don't seem to understand how to install VMware studio. From what I read I need to have Workstation or vmware server installed first and then download VMware studio? Is one of these a free application I can use for experimenting? What I need to do is create a VM container I can run Fedora 10 out of!

Any links or help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Corey

How to create Red Hat 4 AS x64 bit Virtual Appliance via VMware Studio?

EnnisMac — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:14:00 GMT

Has anyone created a Red Hat 4 AS x64 bit based virtual appliance suing VMware Studio?

It seems VMware Studio only supports Red Hat 5 out of the box.

Thanks!

-Ennis

Writing your own operating system

PeterJ1983 — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:32:40 GMT

Hi All,

I have used vmware for various development purposes at companies throughout my career.

I have a few questions that I've often wondered if they would be possible.

1. Is it possible to write your own operating system and use vmware as the test bed for the new OS?

2. if yes to 1, Is it possible to write in both 32bit and 64bit?

3. Again if yes to 1, is there a specific sdk that I should use? and version of vmware to enable this? or reading materials for the vmware part not the OS part

Many thanks for your time

Pete

p.s. If this is the wrong place to post this question let me know and I'll move it to the correct place.

File permission

barrowkwan — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:04:09 GMT

After I create the applicance ( in zip format ), I have moved it to a VM server and extract it but it can't run. The problem is the file permission for all the vmdk and vmx doesn't have write permission. I have to chmod 777 *. any one has the same problem? how can I fix that when I create the applicance through VMware Studio?

VMware vSphere 4 has been announced ... what about VMware Studio compatibility?

JMills — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:45:13 GMT

Now that VMware vSphere 4 (vCenter Server 4 + ESX / ESXi 4) can be discussed without NDA, the next question of course is "What about VMware Studio compatibility?"

The answer is two-fold, because vSphere 4 has support for both OVF 0.9 (VMware draft implementations) and OVF 1.0 (DMTF ratified standard DSP0243 1.0.0) bundles:

VMware Studio 1.0

Out of the box, virtual appliances created with VMware Studio 1.0 (build 620) as OVF bundles can be imported ("deployed" in vSphere 4 parlance) without modification to a vSphere 4 host* using the vSphere 4 client.

HOWEVER...

If the import occurs via a vCenter Server 4 instance, the "Product" data within that OVF bundle will be used to add vApp properties to that virtual appliance, and the vApp bit will be set to "true".

If the import occurs via an ESX / ESXi 4 host directly (whether managed or standalone), the "Product" data will be silently discarded, and the vApp bit will be left set to "false".

Several additional "Product" data elements are capable of being parsed into vApp properties, but I will reserve that for a separate post which delves into further detail on vApp properties exclusively.

VMware Studio 2.0

VMware Studio 2.0 (as mentioned in message 1207318 in this thread http://communities.vmware.com/message/1207318 ) will incorporate support for OVF 1.0, officially known as DMTF DSP0243 1.0.0 -- which adds a number of extensibility options necessary for more complex vApp constructs.

(*) "vSphere 4 host" == A VMware vCenter Server 4 managed ESX / ESXi host, or an ESX / ESXi 4 host in "Single Server" mode

How to specify machine ID in OVF

msuchoff — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:29:07 GMT

A VMware host can send the machine id located in the *.vmx file to the guest.

This is a useful feature.

However, I don't see how the machine ID can be specified in an OVF file.

There doesn't appear to be a field for in in VMware studio, and I can't find reference to it in DMTF OVF specification.

Welcome Text...

barrowkwan — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:01:32 GMT

Is is possible to display the VM's IP in the welcome text at run time?

Welcom - you can access XXX application at http://<$ipaddress>:9999

and at runtime, $ipaddress will be replaced as the VM's IP

OVF - How much does VMware support?

msuchoff — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:16:58 GMT

We want to package our appliances using OVF.

I've tried using the ovftool and vmware studio.

Both packages produce ovf with version .9

No info on OVF v0.9 - current standard is 1.0

I tried creating manfest files to see if content verification and itegrity works.

Esx 3.5 said ovf file had bad xml - so I don't think it is supported.

Where can we get more information on what is/is-not supported?

Error on web access - 'Toolbar' is null or not an object.

Yossian — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:50:08 GMT

I've developed a tool allowing users access hosts thru the vmware web access.

Sometimes, they get this error: "'toolbar' is null or not an object" (seems like a javascript error...)

any ideas ?

attached a print screen...

Thanx !!

Where to download latest vmware tools?

wesleyd — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:27:31 GMT

Hi,

We build linux-based appliances. Debian, since you ask. We'd like to be sure that we're shipping the latest version of vmware tools every time we ship a new image.

Do you know if it's possible to download the latest vmware tools iso from vmware? (I've never found a link, so I assume it's not possible.)

Failing that, how do I find out what the latest version is? And what virtualization product it's in? (The latest vmware workstation? ESXi? etc)

I know how to install it into a running virtual appliance, but that only installs the iso version that's embedded in the host.
It seems that every version of ESXi has a different vmware tools. (At least, I get warnings about it being out of date in the VI client often enough.)
I assume that every version of vmware server, or vmware workstation also has different version of vmware tools.
(Do I just have to keep up to date with the latest version of every vmware product that provides vmware tools? That seems crazy!!)

Suggestions welcome. What we're doing right now is using whatever vmware tools is in the latest ESXi. It just seems like we're missing a trick.

Thanks,
Wesley.

Post-install script debugging for Virtual Appliance

Hrits — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:10:40 GMT

How to debug the post-install script during building Virtual Appliance?

Installing sun java packages - Ubuntu

asaf000 — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:06:04 GMT

Hello,

I'm trying to create an appliance using Ubuntu 8.04 ISO,

Seems like it works fine and the appliance is created as expected,

But it fails when I'm trying to add Ubuntu Sun JDK packages, (sun-java6-bin_6-10-0ubuntu2_i386.deb, sun-java6-jdk_6-10-0ubuntu2_i386.deb, sun-java6-jre_6-10-0ubuntu2_all.deb)

I think the reason is that on the .deb packages of Sun JDK there is a preinst file which popsup a license agreement box,

I think this is the reason but Im not really sure, Studio only notify that the packages were not successfully installed but does not show the failure message so I can't be sure,

I have verified that it is not a dependency problem, after building the appliance (without the Java packages), executing "dpkg -i sun-java6-bin_6-10-0ubuntu2_i386.deb, sun-java6-jdk_6-10-0ubuntu2_i386.deb, sun-java6-jre_6-10-0ubuntu2_all.deb" raises an greement box, after agreeing the license, the packages were successfully installed

Btw,since there are packages that are dependent on each other, I hope that during provisioning, Vmware studio installs all the packages all al once by one 'dpkg' command,

Otherwise a dependency failure will occur,

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advanced,

Asaf.

Creation of virtual appliance using VMware Studio

shaii — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:24:58 GMT

Hi,

I'm interested in experimenting with VMware Studio by creating a virtual appliance using the most baskic application. I've downloaded the Studio and found out it is a virtual software by itself which requires a virtualization platform.

After reading the product's release notes, I got confused, and I have few questions regarding the workflow of the virtual appliance creation and about the required VM platform.

Based on the following extract from the Studio release notes:

Virtual appliances created with VMware Studio 1.0 can run on:

VMware Server 1.0.4, 1.0.5, 1.0.6, or 2.0.
VMware ESX 3.0.3 or 3.5 Update 2.
VMware ESXi Installable Update 2.
VMware Workstation 6.0.4.
VMware Player 2.0.4.
VMware Fusion 1.1.3.

To deploy virtual appliances created by VMware Studio 1.0 (including the VMware Studio 1.0 virtual appliance) in:

VMware ESX 3.5: Use the VI Client that comes with ESX 3.5 to import the OVF format of the appliance into the ESX host.
VMware ESX 3.0.x: Use VMware Converter 3.0.3 to import the VMX format of the appliance into the ESX host.

VMware Studio 1.0 supports the following versions of VMware Server for virtual appliance provisioning:

VMware Server 1.0.4, 1.0.5, or 1.0.6.

Can someone please explain what is the exact meaning of these 3 terms used in the paragraphs above: run \ deploy \ provision.

"run on" offers all the options: ESX\Server\Workstation, while "deploy" refers only to ESX and the "provisioning" requires VMware Server.

Some clarifications on what exactly is required would be very helpful.

My goal, as I mentioned, is to create a basic virtual appliance using the VMware studio.

It would be greatly appreciated if you can highlight the steps I should follow, and the required OS\VM platform for these steps.

Thanks a lot,

Shai

unable to load pxelinux.0 file

srikanthchouta — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:43:10 GMT

!file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/luser/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg!Hi folks,

i am facing different/diffucult issue. I configured virtual studio and i set it up properly.(validate shows correct and everything is fine).But on vmware server i could see its waiting for

loading tftp://10.0.132.130/pxelinux.0 ..................

it goes on and try for 600 times and quits...

I strongly suspect the problem with pcnet32.dsk file. Did anyone face same issue. I could see tftpserver has been configured without any issues and running fine. i tried nearly 10 times..but in vain.

helping hand is appreicated.

Studio 1.0 Feature Requests

kix1979 — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:30:04 GMT

Add new versions of VMware tools - just adding in our own doesn't fly as they seem to be slimmed down versions.
Add ability to create custom Templates
Add support for x86_64 - I don't like having to manually fix everything
Remove the limitation of having swap and / on the first disk and allow for other formats, like ReiserFS.
Fully document all of the vadk specification, I'm still looking for it and cannot find it on here, in the TAP site or anywhere else with a complete listing of VADK.
Support ESX as a build instead of VMware Server, this is killing me. If it has to be VMware server make it 2.0 ASAP please!!!!

Thanks and happy holidays,
Thomas

PS. Good to see you again this year at VMworld Jason and others

Thomas H. Bryant III
Director, Advanced Technology & Products
Vizioncore, Inc.
VMware Communities User Moderator

Creation of appliance from an existing VM

satishkn — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 06:01:46 GMT

Hello,

I have created a Virtual Machine (a simple web based application) based on UBUNTU in the following environment:

VMware Infrastructure Web AccessVersion 2.0.0Build 122589
VMware ServerVersion 2.0.0Build 122956

Here is my real question:

How do I convert the existing VM to the appliance? Based on my understanding of VMWARE Studio, studio helps in creating the appliance from scratch but nowhere there is any mention of converting the existing VM to an appliance. Also, using the OVF tool, I was able to convert a VM to an appliance but the OVF tool has been replaced by the studio.

Would really appreciate if you can shed some light on this and also assist me in the conversion.

-Satish Krishnaraj

Create a signed OVA from Studio's OVF files?

Will DeHaan — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:10:03 GMT

Hi,

I'm wondering if there's a supported method of creating an OVA from the .ovf + .vmdk's that Studio creates?

There's open-ovf on sourceforge but I'd rather avoid that bleeding edge.

Thanks,

/Will

Duplicate disk names

kix1979 — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:46:35 GMT

I'm getting the following error when I build my VM.

15/12/2008 20:27:42 build error Duplicate disk names are not allowed: HostResource is used more than once.

I've checked the XML file and ensured that each disk has a /disk/NAME associated with each instance and that they are all unique, yet I still get this. I've got three disks I'm creating.

Thomas H. Bryant III
Director, Advanced Technology & Products
Vizioncore, Inc.
VMware Communities User Moderator

Installing openjdk on ubuntu? Please help!!!!!

brent_ski — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:59:32 GMT

After finally satisfying all dependencies, I have now seem to have hit a well known bug..

/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/bin/java: error while loading shared libraries: libjli.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I have successfully installed the jdk using apt-get but using vmware studio and dpkg it seems to fail everytime? Any ideas? I've been at this for a week and am at the point of giving up and moving on.

thanks

I did forget to mention this from the error log.

/proc is not mounted; some java apps may fail
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/bin/java: error while loading shared libraries: libjli.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

These are the versions of the jdk:

Setting up openjdk-6-jre-lib (6b09-0ubuntu2) ...
Setting up openjdk-6-jre-headless (6b09-0ubuntu2) ...

SLES 10 SP1 support

stefaanv — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:48:54 GMT

Hi there,

I have been playing with the VMware studio to create my first virtual appliance. I have been testing with SLES 10 SP2 64bit. I'm currently looking for support for SLES 10 SP1 64bit.

I have noticed there is no template available for that. Is this currently supported?

As an alternative I was looking around on this forum and found some interesing blogs by Will DeHaan (thanks for that! http://vmwstudio.blogspot.com/) . I was wondering if his method for creating your own template will be sufficient enough to support this SLES 10 SP1 in the meantime? Wil there be anything I'm missing if I do it this way?

Thanks,

Stefaan V.

VMware Studio with VMware Server 2.0

pinootto — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 23:09:37 GMT

I'm trying to build a VA based on Ubuntu 8.04.

When I validate the VA, I get the following error:

Validating Virtual Appliance configuration and build settings.

Validating profile schema...

Validating Appliance Version formatting...

Validating Appliance Memory Size...

Validating non-empty ISO path...

Validating Appliance usernames and passwords...

Validating Appliance logo path...

Validating ovf:DiskSection_Type...

Validating ApplicationPackages URL...

Validating OS Package elements...

Validating controllers and disks...

Validating file transfer for ProvisioningEngine...

Validating provisioning engine connection...

Failure:
An error occured while connecting to the VMware Server at 192.168.0.10:
The system returned an error. Communication with the virtual machine
may have been interrupted

According to the manual, I should have the following services on the VMware Studio virtual machine:

22 ssh tcp
69 tftp udp
80 http tcp
5480 https tcp

Doing nmap on the VMware Studio virtual machine, I found that the port 69 (tftp udp) is closed.

Can this be a problem? If so, how can I solve it?

What else can I check?

From inside the VMware Studio virtual machine I can connect to the host (192.168.0.10) by ssh.

MD5 and custom ISOs to use as the OS

satishkn — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:56:27 GMT

Hi,

I downloaded VMWare Studio and configured the same to work with VMWARE Server (1.0.6).

Here is my observation:

In the OS tab (of the appliance I am trying to create), there is a field to specify the ISO for the OS. There is another corresponding field for MD5 (this happens to be a readonly field).

Here are my questions:

1) Why is the MD5 made made read only?

2) If I choose to change the OS ISO as indicated in the 'ISO URL', then I should be able to change the corresponding MD5. If I am unable to edit the MD5, that means I am being restricted to use just the OSs as per the template(s) provided by Studio.

I would like to understand the reasoning behind it.

Would appreciate if you could suggest alternate ways to modify the fields.

Thanks,

-Satish Krishnaraj.

VMWARE studio with VMWARE server

satishkn — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 07:21:16 GMT

Hi,

Setup details:

1) Have installed VMWARE Server 1.0.6 on Windows XP Professional.

2) VMWARE Studio 1.0 vm is configured on the vmware server indicated in 1) above.

After having gone through the user guide and the administration guide, I am getting the following error (during validation under setup tab).

Please correct the following error(s) before you proceed with the build.

Validating Virtual Appliance configuration and build settings.
Validating profile schema...
Validating Appliance Version formatting...
Validating Appliance Memory Size...
Validating non-empty ISO path...
Validating Appliance usernames and passwords...
Validating Appliance logo path...
Validating ovf:DiskSection_Type...
Validating ApplicationPackages URL...
Validating OS Package elements...
Validating controllers and disks...
Validating file transfer for ProvisioningEngine...
Validating provisioning engine connection...
Failure: An error occured while connecting to the VMware Server at localhost: The system returned an error. Communication with the virtual machine may have been interrupted

OK

The connectivity to the host is fine.

Any help in resolving this issue is appreciated in advance.

-Satish

Could not find kernel image: ubuntu-installer/i386/linux

itguybri — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:09:27 GMT

After much consternation I finally have VMware Studio and VMware Server 1.0.6 on Ubuntu 8.04.1 running together.

I have build a custom profile to use the Ubuntu general download for ubuntu-8.04.1-desktop-i386.iso (since I got nothing attempting to download fromt eh links included in the administration guide).

To create a custom profile I copied the included Ubuntu build template into a custom one, I replaced the ISO location with my correct ISO (on the Studio server), and created a new appliance from that.

Everything validates and the appliance begins to build.

If I look at the console of the appliance as it is building on VMware Server I see the following message just scrolling by constantly:

boot:

Could not find kernel image: ubuntu-installer/i386/linux

It just keeps rolling by until the log comes back and returns the network communication error (I got past that with a static IP).

Any ideas?

module vmxnet not found

brent_ski — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:39:48 GMT

This is the first I have seen this, but I finally downloaded the correct Ubuntu dist because of other issues I am having getting openjdk installed (that's another thread all together). Now using this dist I am getting nowhere. I get the following error:

Setting up vmware-tools (3.5.0-103908-for-2.6.24-16-generic-080820113129) ...
FATAL: Module vmxnet not found.

I don't see any dependency issues, just looks like the module is not there. Sort of strange considering this is a vmware product. Any ideas? I was getting a lot farther using a different ubuntu dist, the problem there was a dependency loop between ca-certificates and jre-headless.

build [error] ISO image checksum match failed for CentOS-5.2-i386-bin-DVD.iso

NickDG — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:15:32 GMT

I am getting a checksum error when trying to build an appliance with CentOS 5.2. When I run md5sum on the DVD iso it shows the correct checksum.

For some reason VMware studio thinks it's a different checksum.

10/11/2008 20:56:26 build verbose Validating CentOS-5.2-i386-bin-DVD.iso

10/11/2008
20:56:41 build error ISO image checksum match failed for
CentOS-5.2-i386-bin-DVD.iso: b6847af1199fd3ce8cb36dc710b00c63 found
1539bad48e984ae1441052dc074c0995 was expected.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Communication with the virtual machine may have been interrupted

asaf000 — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:11:38 GMT

Hey,

I am trying to use Vmware studio with no luck,

I have an Ubuntu server with Vmware server installed and another machine that is running the vmware studio image,

Both can communicate fine, when I start the build, I can see that the files are starting to be copied from the studio machine to the targeted directory in the Vmware Server machine but then I get

the following error:

"Failure: The VMware Server at 10.0.0.12 is unable to start the virtual machine at this location: "/tmp/10.0.0.9_9/mybuild.vmx: The system returned an error. Communication with the virtual machine may have been interrupted"

What could be the reason for that? 'Validate' works fine, and the build stars to create the files, that means I guess SCP/Vmware servers are up and running,

Thanks in advanced,

Asaf.

Windows appliances for intra-company use

CoolFriday — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:57:53 GMT

I have 2 questions...

Although Windows is not a supported OS for Studio, would it work? I understand that these appliances can't be distributed generally because of the licensing that goes along with the OS. However, if I wanted to create an appliance for use only within a corporation using the corporate enterprise license for Windows, this issue goes away.

Could I make an appliance for IIS or SQL Server? Within a large corporation, there is more than one datacenter and it would be desirable to share standard setups across all of them. Today, VirtualCenter has templates, but those only span a single cluster, much less an entire datacenter and certainly not across different datacenters. Basically, could I get Windows installed and create an appliance that would take some input (IP, machine name, etc.) and then perform a silent install of IIS, SQL Server leveraging the enterprise key for that program -- then package it up in an OVF file that it could be shared within the corporation?

Studio Network Configuration, Server Requirement

nick.couchman — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:35:05 GMT

This is a great concept and a great product. I'm already thinking of ways I may be able to use it across my organization. Two complaints/questions that I have, though:

VMware has made an effort to push people over to the VI-style products, like ESX, ESXi, and Server 2.0. Now they come out with this great product that requires Server 1.x?? What's the deal? Maybe there's a new version upcoming that will work with the VI products??

The network configuration on the appliance build is very, very limited. The ONLY Server 1.x machine that I have here does not have it's bridged network interface set up on vmnet0, which causes all of the builds to fail because the newly built appliance can't communicate with the Studio server. Maybe someone knows a way to edit the XML file and put in parameters that will allow me to use interfaces other than vmnet0 and vmnet1? This would be great - I don't really want to reconfigure my entire server around the fact that I'm missing the ability for a more granular network configuration. This makes Studio pretty useless to me right now, as I can't build anything at all!

Getting Started with VMWare Studio

breisner — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:56:23 GMT

I'm looking into publishing an application I developed as a virtual appliance using VMWare Studio.

Trying to get started, I installed VMWare Server 2.0 and told it to run the VMware_Studio-1.0.0.620 appliance I downloaded.

I can run the VMWare appliance, and I began specifying setting to make my appliance and I am stymied on the 'Setup' tab. It is asking for 'VMWare Server Settings'. I have supplied hostname and credentials for both my host machine and the VMWare Studio appliance. Judging by the documentation i'm not sure which it is looking for. Also the host environment seems to imply that if I don't use Linux as the host environment I must use scp as a file transfer protocol. Is this correct and if so can someone recommend a SCP server for Windows?

Validation fails not finding bootable partition

Paul_Chen — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:39:00 GMT

We're using VMware Studio and have been pretty happy with it so far. However, after adding a post-install script and boot scripts, validation starts failing with the following error:

Failure: Required bootable partition was not found on the root disk (drive 0 (rasd:AddressOnParent) on controller 0 (rasd:BusNumber)).

I am perplexed since I've never changed the disk layout since creating the appliance. I can't find anything anywhere else in either VMware Server's logs nor anywhere inside the VMware Studio VM to find out more about this problem.

I've been able to have validation succeed by removing my virtual disk and recreating it, but now even that trick isn't working.

So my question is what exactly is validation doing to determine if the bootable partition is there? Is it scanning the build profile and looking for a partition with the vadk:bootable="1" attribute? Are there certain expressions and or characters (like '%' for instance) inside the post-install and boot scripts that can screw up the validation?

VMware Studio 1.0.0 is running under VMware Server 1.0.7 on Fedora 9. I have also reproduced this problem using the same VMware Studio VM under VMware Server 1.0.6 running on Windows 2008.

I can't publicly post the build profile but would be willing to send it to someone at VMware to help debug if necessary.

Thanks in advance.

Paul

Hacking VMware Studio

Will DeHaan — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:47:36 GMT

Hey folks I've been using VMware Studio with great success at work.

At present I'm integrating Studio's command line interfaces into an automated build and test system and have modified appliance payloads, built with custom ISO images and more.

I'm documenting some of the tweaks I've made over on a blog site and am soliciting questions about using Studio. It's really flexible just by modifying XML and XSL configuration and template files--I'm impressed.

Blog is here: http://vmwstudio.blogspot.com/

Best,

Will

VMWare Studio in VMware Fusion?

VVLSystems — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:11:30 GMT

Can you run VMWare Fusion with VMWare Studio to provision/create VMWare Appliances?

Any insight is appreciated.

centos 4 support ?

icontender — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:51:58 GMT

Does vmware studio not support centos 4 or rhel 4 versions. I don't see them as a selectable template.