Hello all,
I recently created a VM running CentOS 5.1 x86-64 for development
purposes. Along the way, I found a number of fixes to various issues
one can experience under VMware and decided to turn my documentation
into a general guide that others might benefit from. I have not found
any guides for VMware Fusion on OS X, so I figured it is a worthwhile
endeavor. It is likely that most or all of this guide applies to
VMware Workstation as well.
I welcome any additions or corrections. I am open to reposting on the wiki.
Look forward to your replies... Cheers.
Bradley~
(See the attached text document.)
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Setup guide for CentOS 5.1 64-bit on VMware Fusion OS X
=======================================================
author: Bradley Sepos <bradleysepos@gmail.com>
created: 17 February 2007
modified: 17 February 2007
centos version: CentOS 5.1 x86-64
vmware version: VMware Fusion 1.1.1
=======================================================
This guide assumes a configuration for development, not deployment. As such,
use care when deploying any VM based on this guide. For one, you may wish to
enable SELinux contrary to this guide's recommendation.
This article assumes you know a bit about what you're doing. For instance,
it assumes you know how to insert characters (a), write files (:w), and quit
vi (:q). Please do not e-mail the author with questions about such tasks.
Google and IRC are your friends.
Lastly, if you do have a meaningful update to this guide, feel free to contact
the author.
Initial setup (netinstall)
----------------------------
1) Download netinstall ISO from http://centos.org/
2) Create VM using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 64-bit target
For 32-bit CentOS, use Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (sans 64-bit at the end)
3) Boot from netinstall ISO and begin install process
4) Disable SELinux
SELinux as configured by CentOS 5.1 causes problems with VMware Tools.
Alternatively, this issue is fixed in a later SELinux policy update and you
may choose to enable SELinux and apply the update before installing VMware
Tools (not covered). See: http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2007-0544.html
5) Accept most defaults
Choose any desired packages or categories, like "server" and
"development"
6) When install completes, login to the graphical desktop as a normal user
7) Perform any software updates if prompted
40 updates were available at the time of this writing.
Additional installations
------------------------
Open terminal and log in as superuser (su -).
Use yum to install any additional packages you may need, for example:
$ yum -y install subversion
mod_python
sqlite
sqlite-devel
python-sqlite
mysql
mysql-devel
mysql-server
MySQL-python
postgres
postgresql-devel
postgresql-server
postgresql-python
ImageMagick
ImageMagic-devel
gcc
kernel-devel
You may also use the graphical package manager. From the main menu, select
Applications > Add/Remove Software.
Installing VMware Tools
-----------------------
First, enable Shared Folders on the host, even if you do not intend to add
any. Otherwise, the hgfs filesystem may fail to mount on boot with a warning.
Initiate the install process from the host, "Install VMware Tools"
Open a terminal and log in as superuser (su -).
Create a mount point for the VMware Tools virtual disc (if one does not
exist), and mount it:
$ mkdir /mnt/cdrom
$ mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
Extract the VMware Tools archive to /tmp:
$ tar -C /tmp -zxvf /mnt/cdrom/[archive.tar.gz]
Substitute the actual filename for [archive.tar.gz] above, such as
VMwareTools-7.6.2-71224.tar.gz
Unmount the disc:
$ umount /dev/cdrom
Launch the installer and answer the interactive questions (NO to experimental):
$ /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib/vmware-install.pl
The installer will prompt you to run the configuration script automatically at
the end. Do this and choose a desired screen resolution.
Configure Xorg to include missing mouse driver
----------------------------------------------
VMwareTools, as of this writing, does not properly configure Xorg to include
the mouse driver, leading to artifacting around the cursor and other anomalies.
Open terminal and log in as superuser (su -).
Edit the Xorg configuration file:
$ vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Update the server layout section to include two new input devices,
"Configured
Mouse" and "XOrgMouseWorkaround" as follows:
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
InputDevice "XOrgMouseWorkaround"
EndSection
Then create two input device sections at the end of the file:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "XOrgMouseWorkaround"
Driver "void"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "vmmouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protool" "ps/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection
If you are at the login for or are logged into a graphical desktop (such as
Gnome or KDE), restart the X server now by typing Control-Alt-Backspace.
Note: this will log you out of your graphical desktop session.
Resources:
http://communities.vmware.com/message/648620#648620
Configure the kernel interrupt frequency to avoid high cpu usage on the host
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because the kernel under CentOS 5.1 is compiled with HZ=1000, high cpu usage
may result on the host as it tries to fulfill the guest's request for
interrupt 1000 times per second. The following configuration instructs the
kernel to keep this frequency when booting to avoid problems, and later switch
to 100Hz to alleviate the cpu issue when running in a VM.
Open terminal and log in as superuser (su -).
Edit the grub configuration file:
$ vi /boot/grub/grub.conf
The contents should look something like this:
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title CentOS (2.6.18-53.1.13.el5)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.13.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb
quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-53.1.13.el5.img
Create a new "title" entry identical to and above the first. Give it a
unique
name, perhaps adding "100Hz" at the end. Now, append the following to
the
kernel line:
divider=10 notsc
Then, add the following above the "title" entries:
fallback 1
This instructs grub to use the second entry if the first one fails.
Your file should now look something like this:
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
fallback 1
title CentOS (2.6.18-53.1.13.el5) 100Hz
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.13.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb
quiet divider=10 notsc
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-53.1.13.el5.img
title CentOS (2.6.18-53.1.13.el5)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.13.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb
quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-53.1.13.el5.img
Note that this is only for 64-bit guests!
(Not tested, but 32-bit guests may instead use: divider=10 clock=pit)
Resources:
http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=2189
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&exter...
Set up a guest user account with your host user's UID
-----------------------------------------------------
In order to facilitate seamless file transfer to and from your shared folders,
you will likely want to create a new normal user account on the guest with
account and group UIDs matching the user account on the host.
First, create a shared folder in VMware on the host. We will call it
CentOS-shared here.
Then on the guest, open a terminal and check the status of the new directory:
$ cd /mnt/hgfs
$ ls -ld CentOS-shared
drwxrwxrwx 1 501 501 102 Feb 17 02:07 CentOS-shared
Note the owner and group UID: in this case, 501.
The next step is detailed using the Gnome graphical desktop.
Log into the graphical desktop as a normal user, or root if not available.