unRAID development environment

This topic has been touched on for as long as i can remember but nothing solid has ever been done as a group effort (lots of individuals have done alot for their own experiments).

I propose that we create a virtual machine image of a suitable unRAID development environment that can be distributed freely and used by all.

If this idea is intersting to anyone speak up by answering the following question:

Which virtual machine software do you think would be best and why?

VMware server

Virtual Box OSE

I prefer VMWare because the player is free, easy to install and they have an environment to distribute server appliances.

However I propose a lil more then just a development environment.

The environment should be configured with 4 virtual drives.

The first (base) hard drive should have two partitions, 1 DOS configured with syslinux and bootable for unRAID (as now).

The other 3 virtual ide drives can be small growable filesystems

This lets users try before you buy at least to get familiar with the OS.

The Second partition on the first drive should have the Slackware distribution for developing in unRAID.

This lets a user "try out" unRAID and also compile/develop packages with unRAID.

This is why I haven't done anything further with this.

Also, With the free Player, is it possible to have the vmware appliance switch the 3 other IDE drives to RAW physical disks or only virtual disks?

Although we can use bitTorrent to distribute it, it will still need a seeder and this is where it gets dicey for me because I tend to telecommute 2-3 times a week. I need to preserve bandwidth for all my session management.

Bandwidth isnt an issue dont worry about that.

I was a big advocate of vmware until i started trying to go cross platform with images and use old images form previous versions. vmware dropped the ball imho with the stupid complexity of what images will work with what player/server/workstation properly.

Im now a big fan of vbox since it is open source and much simpler to use for normal users. One other advantage is that sidux the live cd supports vbox i.e. use live cd to open a virtual machine. I also believe vbox can open vmware images directly with some restrictions.

I would definitely be pro vbox.

I like all the development environment ideas but i would suggest we start much simpler in order to get something done and people adopting it. More users means more help.

One concern we would need is some sort of semi formal change control and distribution. Ideally we would want our own domain or even better a sub domain from here and Toms blessing.

I second the need for something like this.    It would be awesome to have some standard place to go for those of us with limited Linux experience when we cannot find a compatible package of what we need.

Although we can use bitTorrent to distribute it, it will still need a seeder and this is where it gets dicey for me because I tend to telecommute 2-3 times a week. I need to preserve bandwidth for all my session management.

Just config your router QOS to lo-pri torrent traffic.  Works wonders.  Depending on your router s/w (I like dd-wrt, but there are others) you can even lo-pri/hi-pri specific MAC addresses. 

The environment should be configured with 4 virtual drives.

The first (base) hard drive should have two partitions, 1 DOS configured with syslinux and bootable for unRAID (as now).

The other 3 virtual ide drives can be small growable filesystems

This lets users try before you buy at least to get familiar with the OS.

I like the idea of an evaluation system because the more people that can try unRAID, the more potential sales there will be.  I'd say an eval system should be VMware based because of their virtual appliance directory.  Getting unRAID in there may really increase exposure.  The more places we can get mentions, the more likely a person might stumble across it.

However, for me, a development system is different from a evaluation system, and for my use, I wouldn't want the two mixed.  I'm not a linux expert, so I make a lot of mistakes on my development platform, and when I get things right, I often like to start from scratch, retrace my steps, and make sure I got to the solution in the straightest path.  Therefore, I love virtual environments because I can just make a quick copy of a my clean install and I'm ready to go.  Adding additional items to create an eval system would add additional storage requirement that I don't need for my development system.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter to me either way because I already have a devel system that works for me.  What does matter is what we think will get the most exposure for unRAID and what will allow more non-linux-experts to create their own custom packages.  Both of these will improve unRAID adoption rates.

All sounds good but lets not get to far ahead of ourselves.

unless we can choose a vmware machine and more people post an interest this project will go the way of the dodo.

So step 1 first.

Which virtual machine software do you think would be best and why?

VMware server

Virtual Box OSE

All sounds good but lets not get to far ahead of ourselves.

 

unless we can choose a vmware machine and more people post an interest this project will go the way of the dodo.

 

So step 1 first.

 

Which virtual machine software do you think would be best and why?

 

VMware server

Virtual Box OSE

So far, I've found it far easier to get VirtualBox set up and configured in a way where I could see other drives on the host PC and get to the internet as well.  I tried to get an installation of Vmware so I could get to a files on the host PC and was not successful.  For that reason, I prefer VirtualBox.    I do like the ease of configuration of VirtualBox.

If a pre-configured Vmware "appliance" existed that allowed you to get to network shares, and the network, and more importantly, be visible on the network as "\\unraid" then it would not matter to me.  (can't name virtual machine "\\tower", might as well name it by its natural "name")

Joe L

VMware is definitely more powerful theres no doubt about that but i also prefer the intuitive flexibility of vbox.

I also like that theres an open source one which better fits the spirit of what were doing.

Being selfish I use Sidux as my main linux desktop. Keeping virtual box up to date on Sidux is trivial as all i type is smxi and come back in 30 mins.

For a setup to allow people to evaluate unRAID, I say VMware.  A lot of people are trying virtual machines using VMware, and I haven't had problems accessing my VMware VMs using "\\vmname"

For development, it wouldn't matter to me as much other than the fact that if I'm already using VMware.  Also, because of the fact that VMware is currently the leader of the industry, I fear less of it being abondoned. 

Another thing to keep in mind is that there are two versions of VBox.  There is an open source edition and there is a closed-source edition .  Both are (currently) free, but there are some differences (BTW, if you're using the run script, that is the closed-source version).  If I were using an unRAID setup with a GUI, I wouldn't mind using the open source version only.  However, without the GUI, I think I'd really like to use the RDP access to virtual machines which is only available in the closed-source version.  That doesn't make a huge difference to the end user, but for me, it negates the argument of going with the "open source" solution. 

The real reason that I prefer VMware over VBox is that I'd like to run the software on a stock unRAID stick.  I love the smaller footprint of VBox, but it requires a kernel recompile to add in SYSVIPC.  I'm pretty close to having a packaged VMware server and it doesn't require a kernel recompile.

Are we in agreement then vmware.?

Before we decide someone has to nominate themselves to be the master developer until we get a community portal type solution put in place. Essentially this person would be responsible for making the machine and adding the changes other people come up with then uploading once. From that point on the rest of us can assist more directly.

Which version of VMWare?  IIRC, Server2 Beta (free) creates different version VM's from Server 1.6 (free) ...

that is one of my gripes with vmware. im only say use vmware cause that seems to have the slight vote advantage.

I will let others discuss it more then we can decide

Vmware has always been upwardly compatible.

I believe if you create a vmware world in vmware server 1.6 then vmware player and vmware workstation can access it.

I would vote for vmware for a number of reasons.

1. I've been using it since ver 2.0.

2. I am a purchaser/supporter of workstation for each new version.

3. Part of my responsibilities is managing vmware worlds for my development group.

4. you can mount vmware virtual disks on local machines with vmware-mount (either windows or linux).

I'm not opposed to virtual box. It seems to have a number of useful features.

I like the RDP capability which is a big plus for my viewsonic smart displays.

I also believe virtual box supports direct access to the disks.

One of the things to consider about this "development" environment.

Is it just for making packages, or is it for building bzimages/bzroot and testing the boot up of them.

If so then this complicates things more.  I.E. requiring 2 partitions, 1 DOS for the syslinux, bzimage, bzroot and 2 for the slackware dev environment.

I like the RDP capability which is a big plus for my viewsonic smart displays.

Starnge... I've never beeen able to get this to work...

Does anyone want to create some sort of tutorial on setting up a dev environment for unRAID? It would be a great deal of help.

Thanks.

There's already plenty of information out there on setting up a development environment or full slackware environment for unRaid; search the forums and wiki.

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2937.0

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2937.0

 

Thanks!

The last section of the Building a custom kernel wiki page also has a number of useful links.