EasyVMX! Tutorial

This tutorial will tell you what you need to know about creating virtual machines.
It is all for reference, since EasyVMX! will create the virtual machine for you.

EasyVMX!

The basis for this site is EasyVMX!, which will create a fully functional virtual machine for you.

These are the steps for creating and running a virtual machine in VMware Player:

Install VMware Player. (Requires reboot...)
Go through EasyVMX!.
Download the virtual machine created by EasyVMX!.
Unzip the virtual machine to a folder of your choice.
Double-click on the vmx-file to start your virtual machine.

Now you can insert an installation CD into your CDROM drive, and start installing!

EasyVMX! Super Simple Edition

EasyVMX! Super Simple Edition creates a virtual machine in the same way as EasyVMX!
The difference is that Super Simple Edition only uses the four required fields from EasyVMX.

If you are happy with the EasyVMX! defaults, Super Simple Edition is just the thing for you.

Update! LiveCD users:
EasyVMX! Super Simple Edition can create virtual machines with no harddisk, and an ISO-image as CDROM.
This makes it great for creating LiveCD virtual machines!

Expert: All Options

EasyVMX! is designed to be very simple and failsafe.
There are, however, a lot more options you can use to fine tune your virtual machine.

The EasyVMX! Expert Form does this for you.
The trade-off is that it only offers the .vmx config file, and not a complete machine.

If you're after a complete set of options for VMware, this is what you want. (The available options are the ones that do something useful in VMware Workstation and VMware Player.
The special options for VMware ESX, GSX or Server are not included.)

Basics

Now that you have created a virtual machine, you might want to learn a little something about what happens behind the scenes.

Below is a more in-depth description of these steps, and a few tips for troubleshooting.

A virtual machine consists of two parts:

A vmdk image (Virtual Disk).
A config file.

To run your virtual machine, you have to install the free VMware Player.
You will also need the installation media for the operating system you want to install.

You can install the following operating systems in VMware Player:

Any Microsoft operating system, from MS-DOS to Windows Vista!
Any of your favourite Linux distributions, be it Slackware, TurboLinux, Mandrake, Linspire, Ubuntu, Debian, Gentoo, SUSE/Novell or Redhat.
Any version of Novell Netware.
Any version of FreeBSD.
Any version of Sun Solaris for x86.
You can even install Darwin!
Most other operating systems for the x86 platform will also run in VMware Player.

You can also run live CDs like Knoppix inside a virtual machine generated by EasyVMX!.
It's a perfect way to test new stuff, and keep your computer safe at the same time.

Virtual Disk

I have prepared a range of virtual disks for you:

Download disk images.

So, this is what you do:

Create or download a disk image. The downloaded file must be unzipped.
Put it in a folder of your choice, and give it the name of your virtual machine. E.g. "My_Virtual_Machine.vmdk".

You can create the virtual disks yourself, using Qemu.
The tool qemu-img is used for this. If you don't want (or need) to install the complete Qemu software suite, qemu-img is downloadable here:

qemu-img usage: qemu-img[.exe] create -f vmdk <name>.vmdk <size>[M|G]


Example, create a 2GB image named My_Virtual_Machine.vmdk:

qemu-img create -f vmdk My_Virtual_Machine.vmdk 2G

Note: qemu-img creates virtual disks with IDE layout. Choosing SCSI in your configuration will not work.

Qemu is open source software (OSS). Check this page for more info.

Config File

Finally you need to create a config file.
This is very easy, thanks to EasyVMX!, which actually creates a complete downloadable virtual machine.

Go through this simple form, and you get the config file.
If you know what you're doing, you can choose to use the expert form instead.

What you get with EasyVMX!:

Fill in only four fields to create a virtual machine.
All possible choices of guest operating systems.
Fine grained RAM selection, from 4MB to 2GB.
Selection of one or two CPUs.
Free text fields for annotation, long name and URL.
Access to one or two disk images.
Pre-built disk images from 500MB to 100GB.
Choose between SCSI (using LSILogic SCSI controller) or IDE disks.
Disks are now growing, max 2GB parts for better compatibility.
Access to one or two network interface cards.
All choices for network mode and device.
Unique hardware addresses.
Access to physical floppy.
Access to physical CDROM drive.
Optional CDROM ISO-image.
USB support.
Serial port support with hardware flow control.
Parallel port support (bidirectional).
Sound support.
Hide startup hints.
Logging.
Time synchronization between your computer and the virtual machine.
Full interaction between the virtual machine and your computer.
Experimental DirectX support.

Do not:

Select 2 CPUs if your computer has only one.
Select more RAM than you have installed in your computer.
Use a virtual disk created with qemu-img as a SCSI disk.

If you used the expert form, put the resulting config file in the same folder as your virtual disk, and give it the name of your virtual machine. E.g. "My_Virtual_Machine.vmx".

Access and Install your Virtual Machine

If you used the simple config form, you can put the installation CD for your operating system in your CDROM drive.

Now, all you have to do is start your virtual machine through the player.
Either double-click the vmx-file, or select it from the player's menu.

Boot from the CD, install the operating system, and you're ready!

If you used the expert form, you should have sufficient knowledge to know what to do next.

Troubleshooting

Will the virtual machine harm my computer or my network?
VMware Player is not harmful to your computer. The only intrusive thing it might do, is to turn off autorun for your CDROM.

The virtual disk is really a file on your computer's hard drive. Nothing you do in the virtual machine (including formatting and installing stuff) will erase or write over any of the files on your computer.

If you go with the defaults (i.e. choose NAT for your network cards), the virtual machine will be invisible from your network.
Using NAT allows you to do all the things you want to, and the rest of your network will not be aff ected in any way.

Where can I get VMware Player?
Download it for free here.

I need VMware Tools...
These are part of the VMware products, but it's not included with the player.
Get VMware Workstation if you need the tools.

VM Back is an excellent site. It's got some console tools and useful info.

But I only wanted to run a LiveCD...
Well, it couldn't be easier!
EasyVMX! Super Simple Edition will have you running your LiveCD in no time.
It can create virtual machines without disk, and it supports ISO-images as a virtual CDROM.

I get this error message: "File not found .vmdk"...
You forgot to fill in the name of your virtual disk.
Read the tutorial again. ;-)
(This only applies to the Expert form.)

My virtual machine won't start at all...
You can easily make errors in the config file that will render your virtual machine useless.
This can happen if you use the expert form, or if you edit the config file after it was created.

Try creating the virtual machine again, using EasyVMX!.

I insert a CD, but the player won't see it...

If you have more than one CDROM drive, try one of the others.
If you use DaemonTools or some other software to mount ISO-images, disable them.
If all this fails, you can actually select the correct drive letter or device in EasyVMX!.

I have a problem with my virtual disk...

Use one of the provided disk images. They are all tested.

Remember to unzip the image...

Try generating the disk with qemu-img again.
If you generated a disk with qemu-img, remember to use it as an IDE disk.

Why are the virtual disk images so small?
The virtual disks contain almost no data before you create the partitions, and format the disk.
If you zip the disks, they're even smaller!

I want to run a virtual machine to test Live-CDs I found on the net...
VMware provices a safe environment to test Live-CDs.
Just create a default virtual machine with EasyVMX!, and boot your Live-CD in it!

How do I generate my own MAC address?
It's good to know that VMware's vendor ID starts with 00:50:56 and 00:0c:29.
The 00:50:56 range goes from 00:50:56:00:00:00 to 00:50:56:3f:ff:ff.

You should also know that VMware creates it's own random MAC address.
Normally, you won't need to create your own.

To generate MAC addresses for VMware virtual machines, just use our free tool EasyMAC!
See the download page for more info.

What are the Linux device names in an EasyVMX! machine?

IDE disk #1: /dev/hda
IDE disk #2: /dev/hdb
SCSI disk #1: /dev/sda
SCSI disk #2: /dev/sdb
CDROM #1: /dev/hdc
CDROM #2: /dev/hdd
Ethernet #1: /dev/eth0
Ethernet #2: /dev/eth1
Serial #1: /dev/ttyS0
Serial #2: /dev/ttyS1
Parallel: /dev/lp0

Is it possible to reach the virtual disk from my Windows computer?
Actually, it is...
Download VMware Mount from this page, and install this driver.
Now you can hook up the vmdk file as a drive letter in Windows, using VMware mount.

Is it possible to reach the virtual disk from my Linux computer?
Actually, it is...
Just follow VMware's instructions.

Where can I find pre-built virtual machines?
That's easy: Here and here!

I've already got VMware Workstation...
Then you don't really need the information or tools given on these pages.
The virtual machines created with EasyVMX! can of course be used with Workstation if you want to.

And, if you didn't know it: VMware Player is installed along with VMware Workstation 5.5.

VMware Workstation offers me to upgrade my virtual machine...
This is because qemu-img creates disk images in VMware 3 and 4 format.
Don't worry, it will play nicely in both VMware Player and Workstation.
You will not break anything if you upgrade your virtual machine in Workstation.

Update: There are new disk images in place for EasyVMX! This is no longer a problem.

I encountered another problem, and I need help...
EasyVMX! is created to be as simple and failsafe as possible.
But, I find it hard to take every thinkable scenario into consideration. I'm only one person, and I have limited time and resources.
No matter how you see it, using this site still requires more knowledge than using any of VMware's products.

If you like VMware (regardless if you get this working or not), I strongly suggest that you buy VMware Workstation.
Or, if you got the hardware for it, get the free VMware Server.

VMware-forum.de is the place to ask your questions in German.