VMware Communities: VMware Fusion deployment to 700 computers

Reply Re: VMware Fusion deployment to 700 computers Sep 7, 2008 4:12 PM

etung 10,540 posts since
Oct 15, 2006 VMware

(a) Since I would be imaging VMware Fusion and the Windows XP virtual machine, does this mean that the XP virtual machine on all 700 computers would have the same MAC address? This could obviously create some major issues. If so, is there a way to script (e.g. via command line) VMware Fusion to re-generate the MAC addresses on each virtual machine?

Yes. In the .vmx file is a line defining the MAC address. If you remove it (e.g. before deployment), Fusion should regenerate one the next time the virtual machine is run.

Fusion may prompt you to see if the virtual machine was moved or copied; if so, you want copied. There's another .vmx line which will always answer this as "copied" for you, but I don't remember it off the top of my head.

(b) Assuming that, some way or another, VMware Fusion has to re-generate the MAC addresses on all the virtual machines, since we have 700 computers in the environment how would VMware Fusion know not to generate the same MAC address for two computers (I imagine this would be unlikely, given the large pool of possible MAC addresses, but still a possibility)?

The MAC address is generated based on the hostname and path to the virtual machine, so it should be unique.

(c) About half of our computers have 1 GB RAM and the other have 2 GB RAM. I noticed that the minimum requirements for VMWare Fusion is 512 MB, with 1 GB recommended. Even with 1 GB RAM I have heard some people report that VMWare does run a bit sluggish - has anyone had experience in this regard?

It depends on how much work you'll be doing in the virtual machines, how much RAM you assign them, and what else you're doing on the host at the time. Probably the best way to find out is to try it yourself on a 1 GB machine.

Note that Fusion 2.0 raises the minimum to 1 GB, you may want to test with Fusion 2.0 as well to get a feel for future updates.

(d) Are there any other obstacles which I have not foreseen with this setup which I need to consider?

What's you plan for dealing with virtual machines as students use them? If you're not careful (or even if you are), students might infect them with malware, change settings, delete important files, even delete the entire virtual machine. These aren't specific to running as virtual machines, and hopefully you already have plans from the Boot Camp days to deal with this.

Reply Re: VMware Fusion deployment to 700 computers Sep 7, 2008 5:01 PM

in response to: etung

cbgs 3 posts since
Sep 7, 2008

Hi etung,

Thank you for your very prompt and helpful response - this is the exact information I am looking for.

Regarding your response to question (d), we are running Deep Freeze Mac and Deep Freeze Enterprise (Windows) at the moment, which locks the computers in their state. Using VMware with a virtual instance of Windows we will only need to use Deep Freeze Mac, as this will stop changes in the VMware VM file being carried over between reboots of the computer.

Thanks again,
Matt

Reply Re: VMware Fusion deployment to 700 computers Sep 8, 2008 1:12 PM

in response to: cbgs

Pat Lee 1,090 posts since
Jan 3, 2007 VMware

Matt,

Can you please check your private messages?

Thanks,

Pat Lee
VMware

Reply Re: VMware Fusion deployment to 700 computers Sep 13, 2008 9:39 AM

salexs 2 posts since
Jul 14, 2006

Hi everyone,

I'm in pretty much the same boat as the orginal poster. I'm at a K-12 school, looking to do a somewhat smaller deployment of 100-150 machines. I was going to take the same sysprep path. I think what I'd really like to do is something more like ACE, but since everything is a Mac, I don't think that's an option. Anyways, I was going to use sysprep aas well. I want to be able to use our Mac-based software distribution (Casper from JAMF Software) to push out Fusion, and the disk images. I was thinking of trying to have a setup where there were two virtual disks, a boot disk, and one for data/local stuff. My thinking was I could use Casper to periodically push out new versions of the boot virtual disk, esentially letting me "image" the Windows machines running under Fusion. Has anyone tried this, or done something else to manage the virtual Windows machines? In my environment, they will all be domain members.

Matt, I would be curious to hear how your project is proceeding, and if you can provide any tips. I have many of the same concerns.

Thanks!

Shandor

Reply Re: VMware Fusion deployment to 700 computers Sep 13, 2008 8:19 PM

in response to: salexs

cbgs 3 posts since
Sep 7, 2008

Hi Shandor,

Can you please check your Private Messages?

Thanks,
Matt

This Question is Answered

VMware Fusion deployment to 700 computers

Sep 7, 2008 3:52 PM

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