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nutzer
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Virutal Machine Image of Free BSD for VMWare

Hello everyone

This is my very first post in any VMWare community forum and I would like advice to leverage ready-made virtual machines available from the FreeBSD site:

     ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/VM-IMAGES/10.2-RELEASE/amd64/Latest/

This page of the same site says the .vmdk image is for VMWare, but my latest copy of VMWare Workstation 12 Player accepts .vmx or .vmc files - not .vmdk:

     ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/VM-IMAGES/README.txt

Does this mean that .vmdk images can only be loaded into other paid VMWare products?

I am looking forward to receiving some tips.

Thank you in advance

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schepp
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Ah, you use the player, I just read the Workstation part :smileygrin:

Ok, so here we need a workaround. Create a VM, at the disk part select to store the disk in a single file and not to split it.

When created, delete the newly created .vmdk.

copy the VMDK you downloaded from the bsd site into the VM-folder and rename the .vmdk to the name of the deleted vmdk.

Tim

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schepp
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Hi and welcome to the VMware Communities.

.vmx-files is a VMs configuration file.

.vmdk files are VMwares Virtual disk files where actual data of the Virtual Machine is stored

So FreeBSD only offers you the VMDK file.

What you have to do is:

Create a new VM, select FreeBSD as OS, etc.

Click the VM creation wizard until you come to the point where it asks if you want to create a new virtual disk.

Here you can select to use an existing disk. Select the Free BSD disk, finish the wizard and power on the VM.

Tim

nutzer
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Thank you, that explains why.

Could you please also tell me what stage the .vmdk file could be used at in building a VM with an installation DVD?

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schepp
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When you use the downloaded VMDK you don't need an installation CD, as the OS should already be installed and ready to go on the VMDK.

Tim

nutzer
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Thanks for the reply. I am using the checksum verified .vmdk file from: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/VM-IMAGES/10.2-RELEASE/amd64/Latest/

Despite that when I select the file by clicking Open a Virtual Machine, I get the following error:

vm-error.jpg

The odd point about the error message is it says 'VMX' instead of .vmdk.

Does it indicate that .vmdk cannot be loaded in VMWare Workstation Player?

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schepp
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Hi,

you cannot directly open it. You need to create a new VM and use the existing VMDK for it.

Here's how it's done in Workstation:

VMware KB: Creating a Workstation virtual machine using existing VMDK virtual disks

Tim

nutzer
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I watched the tutorial video and figured that VMWare Workstation 12 Player does not give you the Select a disk menu.

The tutorial uses VMWare Workstation not the Player which probably means the Player cannot use an existing virtual machine.

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schepp
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Ah, you use the player, I just read the Workstation part :smileygrin:

Ok, so here we need a workaround. Create a VM, at the disk part select to store the disk in a single file and not to split it.

When created, delete the newly created .vmdk.

copy the VMDK you downloaded from the bsd site into the VM-folder and rename the .vmdk to the name of the deleted vmdk.

Tim

nutzer
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Great! The renaming and replacing the vmdk file launched the VM successfully.

Problem solved.

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