What is VirtualBox?

[dolmandj]

Has anyone used VirtualBox on a cc3 network

 

someone has told me about it being good but i dont what it is?,what it does?. also can this be put on a cc3 network

 

cheers

 

 

darren

[big_nath]

Virtualbox is a virtualisation product similar to VMware and Microsoft virtual server/PC, a key differance is that it is open source.

 

look here

Edited March 24, 2009 by big_nath

[dolmandj]

Could this be installed onto a cc3 network

 

cheers

 

darren

[big_nath]

Could this be installed onto a cc3 network

 

cheers

 

darren

 

yes probably, you could create a package. do you have a need for it? Ifso, what do you plan to use it for?

[dolmandj]

Maybe if pos to use it on the application wizard computer. so after each package i make i dont have to reimage the computer. Would this work?

 

darren

[K.C.Leblanc]

yes probably, you could create a package. do you have a need for it? Ifso, what do you plan to use it for?

 

It depends how you want to use the software for, if you need the virtual machines to talk to your network you need to install aditional drivers and possibly alter some of the network configuration on your target computers.

 

Have you been asked to install this?

 

EDIT: I'm completly baffled as to why you want to deploy software if you don't know know what it does. Virtual box on it's own isn't very useful till you've built some virtual machines. If you just deploy virtual box without providing virtual machines a class of students would have to run through windows setup before they could use virtual box.

Edited March 24, 2009 by K.C.Leblanc

[big_nath]

a better option would be to ghost the package builder machine.

[dolmandj]

does anyone no of a free ghost program which i could use

 

the school where i am at dont have alot of money so need a free piece of software

[Ric_]

Install VirtualBox on your machine, snapshot before installing your app and then revert to the snapshort... piece of the preverbial!

 

I use VirtualBox a lot for testing, playing about and package creation. Many of the VMWare Workstation features without the pricetag.

 

http://www.virtualbox.org/

[dolmandj]

how long does it take to rebuild the computer from a snapshop

 

and would it work on a cc3 network

 

darren

[K.C.Leblanc]

Sorry Dolman, I think we're going round in circles here.

 

Sit down, spend a good 5 minutes clearly describing what you're trying to achieve, then someone will be able to help you.

[tmcd35]

I agree with Ric. Use a XP only base install VM snapshot to build your packages and then undo the snapshot once your package is successfuly built.

 

WPKG is worth a look for a free package manager/creator

 

Clonezilla is more than worth a look as a free alternative to ghost

 

Clonezilla + RIS is a dream. network boot any machine and bring down a new image in situe. nice

[Ric_]

how long does it take to rebuild the computer from a snapshop

 

maybe 30 seconds

 

and would it work on a cc3 network

 

Yes... you would install it on your machine and then install a basic install of XP in it (fully patched). You then take a snapshot at this point and call it something like 'clean install'.

 

Now create your package in the virtual machine (i.e. this new XP installation) as you normally would on your build machine. Prceed with all your usual RM faffing.

 

Once you have finished your faffing, hit 'revert', select your snapshot and a few seconds later it's back to the state it was before you started building your package.

 

EASY!

[dolmandj]

Hi

sorry about the confussion

 

the problem is that i work within a school which has a cc3 network. the problem i am having is when i want to create a package with the RM application wizard, it takes forever to reimage the computer back to a clean state to create another image.

[Hightower]

Maybe if pos to use it on the application wizard computer. so after each package i make i dont have to reimage the computer. Would this work?

 

darren

 

Or an easier solution would be to build the package machine, and create a restore point. Then you just need to restore the machine which is about a 2-3 minute process, and the best part is, RM already provide you with the tools to do this meaning you don't have to fork out extra cash or use extra software.

[Ric_]

Or an easier solution would be to build the package machine, and create a restore point. Then you just need to restore the machine which is about a 2-3 minute process, and the best part is, RM already provide you with the tools to do this meaning you don't have to fork out extra cash or use extra software.

 

Why not use VirtualBox which is open source, can create multiple snapshots and produce 'portable' VMs that you can revert to a previous state in seconds rather than minutes? You also don't need an additional physical machine.

[sparkeh]

I used to use Virtualbox under Ubuntu 8.04 for my clean CC3 machine but unfortunately I cant seem to successfully build one under 8.10, stalls at scanning for drivers phase. Could be lots of things, Ubuntu updated, VB updated, HSPs applied to build area but for the life of me can't figure it out. Shame as using virtual machine for this is perfect.

 

Anyway, using a decent spec machine you can restore a clean machine in under 2mins. Either way is good.

[linescanner]

Once you have your base image you can also clone the system with

 

VBoxManage clonehd VM1.vdi VM2.vdi

 

that way you can test all kinds of stuff from 1 base image

[Batman]

That's a very useful tip Mr T!

 

I use Sun Virtualbox for exactly the reasons being discussed here. It's brilliant... I'm really impressed with the latest version. Wouldn't touch the "virtualbox.org" version with a bargepole though, what's the point of it anyway?

 

For a CC3 network, yes it works brilliantly to build a clean machine in Virtualbox. Once it's built you take a snapshot and then whenever you have built a package you can simply revert to the snapshot... which literally takes a second to do! It's made building packages (especially tricky ones that take a few attempts) very easy.

 

I've also got a virtual CC3 workstation (useful as I prefer to run linux on my computer) and a virtual webserver. It's immense fun, if you want to try something out... you can just do it!

 

sparkeh, I'm running the latest Virtualbox on Ubuntu 8.10 (64bit) and it's never been more stable. I'm lucky enough to have a Core2Duo and 2Gb of Ram... Are you using older hardware?

 

If you are running on older hardware it might be worth going into settings > general > advanced and unticking the "Enable VT-x/AMD-V" tick box. I've found that the "Nested Paging" option can cause some pretty crazy errors on most of the virtual machines I've used too so even if you have a new system it's probably worth disabling it.

Edited March 27, 2009 by Batman

[sparkeh]

sparkeh, I'm running the latest Virtualbox on Ubuntu 8.10 (64bit) and it's never been more stable. I'm lucky enough to have a Core2Duo and 2Gb of Ram... Are you using older hardware?

 

If you are running on older hardware it might be worth going into settings > general > advanced and unticking the "Enable VT-x/AMD-V" tick box. I've found that the "Nested Paging" option can cause some pretty crazy errors on most of the virtual machines I've used too so even if you have a new system it's probably worth disabling it.

 

Hardware is fine - Using Core2 Duo T5670 (doesn't do VT ) and 2Gb RAM. Worked brilliantly on that spec until I upgraded to 8.10 - when 9.04 comes out, might do a clean install and try again.

 

Just out of interest, are you using Host Networking or NAT? At one point I had a suspicion that it was a network problem.

[Batman]

Just out of interest, are you using Host Networking or NAT? At one point I had a suspicion that it was a network problem.

 

I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was a network problem. I'm using Host Networking. You'll never get a CC3 workstation to build/smartclient properly through NAT because it needs a direct connection to the network.

 

Used to have some weird problems with setting up host networking. I'd set up a bridge and create the virtual network interfaces and it would work great, I'd get a great connection on the host pc and the virtual machine, but as soon as I rebooted everything would work on the virtual machine but I'd loose my internet connection (despite being able to access any local network resource) on the host machine. Whilst playing around with it I set up a local proxy server and I could get internet on the host by going through this. So for some reason I think EMBC were rejecting me (if anyone can tell me why this happened I'd be interested to know)!

 

They've really improved this feature now and host interface works with no configuration, no need to set up bridges and I get the internet on the host machine without problems. A breath of fresh air.

[sparkeh]

Yes, thinking about it, in 8.04 you had to setup a bridge to get this to work, just been using native host networking in 8.10.

 

Might clean install 9.04 and try again.

[Batman]

Are you using the Sun version or the version from the Ubuntu repositories (ose version)?

 

I've found the Sun version works much much better.