bac's Posts

If it's not several of us are out in the cold, part of our package system uses and updater for client stations..... Can you explain in any more detail what your constraint is here? The ide... See more...
If it's not several of us are out in the cold, part of our package system uses and updater for client stations..... Can you explain in any more detail what your constraint is here? The idea is for all the packages and everything to be pre-installed inside the appliance VM. It's fine to have an updater, but the updater should be installed inside the VM so that the appliance VM is self-contained. Can you explain why this will be a problem for you?
I don't speak for the official rules, but I'm pretty sure this is not allowed. Your submission has to be in the form of a VM, and indeed the main point of virtual appliances is that they are self... See more...
I don't speak for the official rules, but I'm pretty sure this is not allowed. Your submission has to be in the form of a VM, and indeed the main point of virtual appliances is that they are self-contained in a single VM (just like a physical compute appliance is self-contained in a single physical box). As an analogy, imagine you are assembling a physical mail server appliance. The idea is you can plug it in and give it an IP address, and it will serve your mail with minimal to no configuration. The idea of needing to run a separate daemon process on a different physical machine kind of undermines the whole "appliance" concept. In the case of a virtual appliance in a VM, the host machine is effectively an entirely separate computer from the guest (the fact that the host and guest share hardware is kind of an implementation detail). Bottom line: your virtual appliance should run properly without needing to know anything at all about the host. I don't know what functionality your "client app" adds, but can you run whatever it is inside the appliance VM instead?
As noted by others in this thread, you should be able to trim that down a lot by removing extraneous modules that are not used by your guest distro.
Please see my earlier reply to your message regarding the size issue in the thread "Size of virtual appliance?". As noted in my comment above, including the VMware Tools is not a requirement b... See more...
Please see my earlier reply to your message regarding the size issue in the thread "Size of virtual appliance?". As noted in my comment above, including the VMware Tools is not a requirement but it does offer certain advantages over not including them. There are a number of nice features that the Tools provide, and certain advanced resource management (e.g. memory ballooning in ESX Server) won't work without them. I would in general recommend including them for the same reasons that we in general recommend installing the VMware Tools in all your VMs. But, they're not required and if you feel it's for some reason to your advantage to leave them out, the choice is yours.
That's an awfully big difference, much larger than the amount of useful stuff we install as part of the Tools. Are you sure you don't still have the Tools tar file and/or the vmware-tools-distrib... See more...
That's an awfully big difference, much larger than the amount of useful stuff we install as part of the Tools. Are you sure you don't still have the Tools tar file and/or the vmware-tools-distrib directory wherever you unpacked the tar? The install file is a lot bigger than the stuff you need, because we include kernel modules for a whole bunch of supported guests. Only one set of modules is actually needed for a given guest OS though. The binaries and modules that you actually need shouldn't be more than a handful of megabytes in size, so you can probably figure out what else is being added that you don't actually need and remove it.
Thanks for that feedback, and thanks also for communicating the feedback with the MySQL folks as well. As we've mentioned in some previous posts, we're putting together a process for ensuring tha... See more...
Thanks for that feedback, and thanks also for communicating the feedback with the MySQL folks as well. As we've mentioned in some previous posts, we're putting together a process for ensuring that the 3rd party VMs that we link to meet some uniform standards for documentation and user-friendliness. As you've pointed out, these are good things to watch out for when configuring an appliance VM. BTW since you mentioned the MAC address changing: yes, the MAC is derived from the UUID of the VM, so if you change the VM's UUID the MAC address will also change. There are two ways to get around this. One is that there is a configuration option that suppresses the "do you want to create a new UUID?" question and always keeps the existing UUID. This is fine if no two people who use that appliance VM are on the same Ethernet; otherwise, you will get MAC address conflicts. The other option (which avoids the MAC address conflict issue) is to configure the networking in the guest OS in such a way that it doesn't rely on the NIC's MAC having a certain value. That way, users can copy and move the VM and everything will still work properly when the UUID and MAC change.
However, it sounds like this thread is really trying to discover the interest level in the contest in general, which, from the level of activity on these boards, doesn't seem that high. Of... See more...
However, it sounds like this thread is really trying to discover the interest level in the contest in general, which, from the level of activity on these boards, doesn't seem that high. Of course, potential participants have great incentive to wait to post their entries until just before the deadline, because of the danger of copying/forking. Actually, since submitting your final entry doesn't involve the forum at all (you submit via an FTP server), most participants have no incentive to post their idea to this forum until AFTER the deadline, if at all. I think you've answered your own question as to why activity on these boards is not very high -- not surprisingly, the only people posting ideas here are people who do NOT plan to enter the competition, and the only posts by competitors have been with questions about technical issues or rules, not details of their ideas. The purpose of this thread is what it said it was; to see whether it's worth our time to set up the "office hours". We already know how high the general interest in the competition is based on other information. I'll warn you that if your impression is that interest is low and winning will be easy due to a small number of entries, you are in for disappointment.
What exactly do you mean by "not be able to communicate with the outside world" ? I assume your VM will need to communicate with the outside world in some[/i] way, or it would not be very useful.... See more...
What exactly do you mean by "not be able to communicate with the outside world" ? I assume your VM will need to communicate with the outside world in some[/i] way, or it would not be very useful. As Rob said, the VMware Tools consist of a number of different components, some of which may be very useful to have even if you do not need others. I'm not judging the competition so I can't tell you for sure whether not having Tools would disqualify you, but I expect that at the end of the day the appliances will be judged based on what they do and how well they perform. I don't think that not having Tools would eliminate you outright, but I'd think carefully before doing away with them completely since they do provide some useful functionality. If you are specifically concerned about having your appliance's filesystem isolated from the host's filesystem, then disabling the Shared Folders feature should be enough. You can do that quite easily by disabling the vmhgfs module in the guest. Also, note that the Shared Folders feature currently only works in our Workstation product anyway; it is disabled in every other product (including VMware Server and Player). If you have other specific concerns about the VMware Tools, feel free to post follow up questions and I'll do my best to answer them.
It depends on what product you are running the VM in. What djc49939 is correct, you are probably better off posting this in the forum for the specific product you are using (either Workstation, P... See more...
It depends on what product you are running the VM in. What djc49939 is correct, you are probably better off posting this in the forum for the specific product you are using (either Workstation, Player or VMware Server). Basically, the Shared Folders feature is available only in Workstation at the moment. With any other of our products, you'll need to configure file sharing using some other mechanism (e.g. NFS or SMB), or transfer the file using a USB device or something like that.
Daga, I believe your final submission has to be in the form of a complete VM that is fully redistributable and that does what it is intended to do when powered on. In other words, I don't thin... See more...
Daga, I believe your final submission has to be in the form of a complete VM that is fully redistributable and that does what it is intended to do when powered on. In other words, I don't think you can submit some kind of installer that the user has to install in an existing VM in order to work. Bear in mind that the idea of the contest is Virtual Appliances -- self-contained VMs that perform a specific function with little to no configuration or hassle on the part of the user. I'm not an expert on the contest rules, but it seems to me that an enhancement to the Tools functionality (while potentially cool and useful) would not qualify as an appliance.
We need to know what packages are required for VMWare server... I may be misunderstanding, but I don't see why you need to know what packages are required for VMware Server in order to buil... See more...
We need to know what packages are required for VMWare server... I may be misunderstanding, but I don't see why you need to know what packages are required for VMware Server in order to build a good appliance VM. To build an appliance all you need to worry about is what goes inside the VM. For VMware Server the only thing that matters is what is installed on the host[/i], but that should not affect the VM in any way. If you're just wondering how small a host OS you can get away with having, that's a fair question too. Just wanted to clarify that it has no bearing on this contest.
Ok. so its a 2GB limit. Does that include everything the appliance needs? What if the appliance needs a passthrough lun or a vmdk mounted for storing data? is that to be included in the 2GB... See more...
Ok. so its a 2GB limit. Does that include everything the appliance needs? What if the appliance needs a passthrough lun or a vmdk mounted for storing data? is that to be included in the 2GB as well? Bear in mind that the whole idea of the appliance is that it should be pre-configured; the idea is that you should be able to download the thing and it should do whatever it does without any additional configuration on the part of the end user. Consider in particular that the Appliance should be able to be run in VMware Player, which has no UI for making configuration changes. So your entry should probably not include any instructions like "Download this appliance, then add a new .vmdk file, then...". Anyway I think the rule is that the file limit applies to the compressed size of your entry, period. I.e. whatever it is you upload to our server to be judged (and therefore, whatever a potential user would download to use) has to fit in the size limit. If your VM had a growable .vmdk that started out empty but grew once it was used, I think that would be ok as long as the VM started out under the limit.
To the VMware-guys: if you want to introduce VMs as a standard procedure, accepted by many users and companies post like this http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=3 4937 sho... See more...
To the VMware-guys: if you want to introduce VMs as a standard procedure, accepted by many users and companies post like this http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=3 4937 should never happen. Why don't we find out together about some standards that make sense ? Having to post here because a password is missing is very uncool .... I fully agree, and we're working on a system to have standards in place so that people who download an appliance VM will know what to expect. Please bear with us and stay tuned for more info.
I'm just guessing here, but I think the purpose of those statements in the rules is to prevent people from adding virus/spyware-type programs into the appliciances which would grab the user's... See more...
I'm just guessing here, but I think the purpose of those statements in the rules is to prevent people from adding virus/spyware-type programs into the appliciances which would grab the user's personal info without their knowledge and use or post it somewhere without the user's knowledge. By creating a filtering proxy server appliance, and allowing the user to specify what should or shouldn't be filtered, the rules are not violated. The user knows that they are being blocked and they are deciding what to or not to block - nothing is being done without the user's knowledge. Just my opinion. Any thoughts? (esp from the VMWare people) That's my take on this as well. As far as I can tell, the point is that the VM should not be doing anything sketchy that the user of the VM[/i] doesn't know about. Filtering traffic seems perfectly legitimate and if the VM does what it advertises to do then I see no problem. I'm not the one running the contest so I can't speak officially on this, but that's my interpretation of it.
The VM format for Workstation 5.x is the same as the format for VMware Server and Player, so there's no need to worry about this -- it's all the same thing. However, you can't use VMware Pl... See more...
The VM format for Workstation 5.x is the same as the format for VMware Server and Player, so there's no need to worry about this -- it's all the same thing. However, you can't use VMware Player to create VMs, only to play them. And VMware Server is still in beta, so it is probably not the best choice to use for creating VMs for the contest. For those reasons my recommendation would be to use Workstation 5.5 to create your VM(s).
Unfortunately, the only proprietary software that can be included, is the VMware Tools. Other than that, only open-source software is allowed. I think. I believe the main requirement is th... See more...
Unfortunately, the only proprietary software that can be included, is the VMware Tools. Other than that, only open-source software is allowed. I think. I believe the main requirement is that all the contents of the virtual appliance have to be fully redistributable by VMware. If any of it is your IP, you have to give VMware full license to use and distribute it. Anything else either has to be open source or[/b] has to be fully redistributable.
And I don't think XBox fits under the "Open Source" requirement of the contest... I don't think M$ will like that too much. Same goes for OSX hacking or a virtual DVD library. I assume ... See more...
And I don't think XBox fits under the "Open Source" requirement of the contest... I don't think M$ will like that too much. Same goes for OSX hacking or a virtual DVD library. I assume the poster above was joking, but yeah, anything that involves copyrighted material or anything you don't have distribution rights to is not allowed. XBox and OS X would both definitely be disallowed.
I wouldn't feel comfortable making an "official" statement on VMware's behalf about exactly what would or would not break the rules, but I'll comment on this particular item (my opinion only, of ... See more...
I wouldn't feel comfortable making an "official" statement on VMware's behalf about exactly what would or would not break the rules, but I'll comment on this particular item (my opinion only, of course). The appliance may not, "...surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal information." and The appliance may not be, "...infringing, threatening, invasive of another’s privacy..." IMHO the appliance idea as described above by de8o does not violate these rules. It blocks some content, but it does not intercept personal information or invade privacy. If it sent a list of URLs you tried to visit to the appliance author's email address, that would be a different question. But if it just sits there and blocks certain websites, that doesn't seem like a problem to me. Bear in mind also that you have to configure your network to use this appliance in the first place -- it's not the kind of thing that someone can set up and surreptitiously capture traffic, because you have to replace whatever existing network infrastructure is currently providing web access. Just my opinion.
Why can't you consider making VMware Tools open-source, so then there's nothing to worry about, and it'll make supporting other operating systems much easier. This is something we have di... See more...
Why can't you consider making VMware Tools open-source, so then there's nothing to worry about, and it'll make supporting other operating systems much easier. This is something we have discussed internally. There are a variety of factors that would have to come together in order for it to make sense for us to do this. To date we've not felt that it's the right choice, but that could of course change at some point.
I Am Not A Lawyer, but I think you are reading that quote incorrectly. I think it's just talking about any of your[/i] IP in the appliance. (snip) Participant grants to VMware and all recip... See more...
I Am Not A Lawyer, but I think you are reading that quote incorrectly. I think it's just talking about any of your[/i] IP in the appliance. (snip) Participant grants to VMware and all recipients to whom Participant's virtual appliance entry is distributed, a ...(snip)... license in all of Participant's[/b] intellectual property rights[/b] necessary to allow VMware and any third party to use, make, sell, host, cache, route, transmit, store, copy, distribute for commercial purposes, perform, display, and reformat the object code or content of such component.[/quote] In other words: Anything that is your[/b] IP, you grant a full license to redistribute, etc. But that's only talking about stuff that you created. Third party things like Java Runtime and Flash Player are not your IP. Those just have to be freely redistributable. That's my reading of it anyway, but that's just my opinion.