Open Source Virtualization: Oracle VM enters the Virtualization arena

November 23, 2007

Brief intro

Oracle OpenWorld was exciting. The virtualization arena is getting hotter than ever. Oracle unveiled its Oracle VM hypervisor, which is based on Xen open source hypervisor. As of 14 November 2007, SUN’s CEO Jonathan Schwartz unveiled their virtualization strategy with xVM platform; this too is based on Xen, the open source hypervisor from XenSource, the commercial company behind Xen. They originated in Cambridge University, UK and Microsoft backed them back then. In August of this year, they were acquired by Citrix for $500 million. The Xen developers are dedicated to developing the Xen hypervisor and thanks to them, we have yet another option to try out, this time being Oracle’s VM and Sun’s xVM.

Getting the Oracle VMServer, VM Manager and VM Source Files

To get the Oracle VM files do to the following:

• Go to http://www.oracle.com/oraclevm and click on download; you will be taken to the edelivery site of Oracle, where Oracle distributes its Oracle Enterprise Linux and now also the Oracle VM.
• Follow the prompts on the screen.

I also ended up getting the 64-bit files.

Converting the Oracle VM files into ISO files, Creating ESX compatible skeleton

This is a simple procedure, since we are using our ESX compatible VM on our VMware workstation, all we have to do is to unzip or unrar the files. You will be left with the following files “OracleVM-Server-2.1.iso” and “OracleVM-Manager-2.1.iso”. Also, make sure that you create your new machine as per the following instructions:

• Create a new VM with the workstation. Choose WorkStation 5 from the dropdown menu and check the ESX Server compatible check box.

• Add the following features to make the machine talk directly to your CPU. I typically add 3 NICs for XenMotion, HA and other testing scenarios.

#############################################
# ESX e1000 cards and Intel VT 32 Settings  #
#############################################

ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = "FALSE"
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
ethernet0.connectionType = "bridged"
ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
ethernet1.present = "TRUE"
ethernet1.wakeOnPcktRcv = "FALSE"
ethernet1.virtualDev = "e1000"
ethernet1.connectionType = "bridged"
ethernet1.addressType = "generated"
ethernet2.present = "TRUE"
ethernet2.wakeOnPcktRcv = "FALSE"
ethernet2.virtualDev = "e1000"
ethernet2.connectionType = "bridged"
ethernet2.addressType = "generated"
monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "TRUE"
monitor_control.vt32 = "TRUE"

#############################################

That’s it! You’re done and ready to install your first, shiny Oracle VM in your VMware workstation.

• Keep the disk space to 20G and do not allocate it all. Obviously, allocating will be best for performance but for a quick install experience, I’d suggest you to go with the unallocated disk space.
• Choose “any other 2.6 linux kernel” and keep it 64 bit! Why? I got an error even though I had used a 32-bit binary.
• Close the skeleton out of the workstation and edit the file to add the above-mentioned settings.
• Open the machine in the workstation and point it to the ISO files as in the diagram below:



• Start the VM