VMWare Server, WinXP-off-disk on Fedora Core 6

[Ted Roche]

Ben Scott wrote:
>   As another sanity test: Why is a raven like a writing desk?  ;-)

Alice sighed wearily. "I think you might do something better with the
time," she said, "than wasting it in asking riddles that have no
answers."             -- Lewis Caroll, Alice in Wonderland

> On 7/25/07, Ted Roche <tedroche at tedroche.com> wrote:
>> I thought I'd try running VMWare ...
> 
>   Heh.  I just started playing around with VMware Workstation for the
> first *today* (literally).  I must say, it has some impressive
> features.  On my 'doze box at work, it was able to go out on the
> network to another running 'doze box, and import that pre-existing
> computer into a VM, which I can now use for testing against the
> production environment without crashing the production box.

I started with Server, as the VMWare folks make Workstation a little bit
harder to find on their web site, I was in a rush, haste makes waste and
all that. Converting Physical to Virtual only works from one partition
to another and requires a fair amount of disk space, one of my
limitations here.


>> 1. How do I tell Fedora that /dev/hda ought to be read-write for group
>> disk? (Currently owned by root, group disk, permissions brw-r-----)
> 
>   Look under /etc/security/ ... it's one of those, I believe.  There's
> also a method to give permissions just to the user logged in on the
> console (useful for sound devices, etc.).
> 
>   Be warned that by doing this, you're creating a huge exposure in
> terms of system security and stability.  There's a famous story about
> how, in the early days of Linux, Linus didn't think security
> permissions were important until one day he wanted to use his modem
> but tried to dial his hard disk...

Good point. I'll create a new user and give it permissions to the disk
and not my primary login. What was I (not) thinking?

>> 2. Recommended steps for debugging the Windows configuration?
> 
>   When it fails to boot that early, you're in rough shape.  Some shots
> in the dark:
> 
>   VMware does keep some logs with the rest of the VM files; you might
> try looking there.  And there are some "debug logging" options for
> VMware.
> 
>   As a sanity test: Can you create a new, "empty" VM, and install
> Windows on that?  Or at least boot the installer CD?
> 
>   As another sanity test: Can you use the "VMware Converter" to pull
> in the "real" Windows partition into a virtual disk and boot that as a
> VM?
> 
>   As another sanity test: Do you have an open primary partition slot
> and a partition resizer program?  If so, what if you install plain old
> DOS to another partition and attempt to boot that with VMware?

Well, a secondary reason for doing it this was was that I didn't have a
lot of room on the disk, and hoped that booting from an in-place
installation would save time and disk space. Apparently not...

Of course I have a partition resizer! I've got parted! What more could a
geek want ;) ?

-- 
Ted Roche
Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
http://www.tedroche.com