VMCI Inter VM / Host communication problem

[MarkWoollard]

I am trying to setup basic VMCI datagram communications between guest OS and the host. I have put together a test harness comprising of a client and server application and these communicate with each other if both are run on the host, or within the same VM. However I cannot get them to communicate between VM and host or inter VM. The socket calls all succeed but no data is received on the server end.

I am running on latest ESX Server under CentOS 5.3 and the VM guest OS is also CentOS 5.3. VMCI seems to be installed and working, as VMSock calls work as do socket calls with socket created for VMCI family.

I can't see any setting for ESX Server to control inter-VM VMCI comms but maybe I have missed something? Failing that is there a piece of example code known to work that I can try?

Thanks

Mark

[svaerke]

Hi Mark,

It sounds like the problem is that VMCI communication to host and VM endpoints hasn't been enabled. If you are using vSphere client, you can enable this by editing the VM settings - selecting the VMCI device will give you a checkbox to do this. Alternatively, adding vmci0.unrestricted = "TRUE" to the .vmx file achieves the same thing.

Thanks,

Jorgen

[MarkWoollard]

Yes, found that in the docs end of last week, and things working as expected now.

Thanks for the input

Mark

[arumon]

Hi Friends,

Please help me to configure VMCI on my oracle vm's. I am not from a background of programming. So it is little bit difficult to understand the API concepts and programming. My senario is given below.

1. Oracle R12 is running in a three tyre architecture.(web node, DB node and Admin node)

2. OEL4 and RHEL5.3 64bit is installed on these vm's.

Please let me know what of all things i need to do to configure the VMCI device to get effected onl these three VM's internal communication.

Thanks & regards,

Arumon

[svaerke]

Hi,

The VMCI device is only used for applications using the VMCI Sockets API. Applications need to be ported to this API. So if your question is whether Oracle R12 can use VMCI directly by installing VMCI support in your guests and enabling VMCI VM to VM communication for the VMs in question, then the answer is no.

Thanks,

Jorgen

[arumon]

Thanks for the reply.

One more question is, What about the guest operating system communication. Will it enhance the tcp/ip communication and IPC communication between the guest operating systems by enabling the vm to vm communication option?

Regards,

Aravind

[svaerke]

Hi,

No - no TCP/IP or IPC communication for the guests will be enhanced by enabling the vm to vm communication option. The option only relates to the VMCI communication, and as this requires modifying applications to use VMCI Sockets, TCP/IP and IPC will not be affected/enhanced.

Thanks,

Jorgen