Installing LinuxMCE on VMware ESX

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THIS IS STILL WORK IN PROGRESS. WHAT YOU SEE HERE WILL GET YOU STARTED BUT WILL NOT COMPLETE IT JUST YET, PLEASE HELP FIX THIS PAGE WITH YOUR OWN INPUT

Advantages of running LMCE in a Virtual Machine

Virtualization is a good way to take LinuxMCE for a test drive before spending any money on new hardware, or running a virtual core to serve multiple media directors without dedicating a new machine. USB and serial devices are accessible to a virtual machine so USB-UIRT and other popular devices should be usable (note pci cards cannot be use in a virtual machine as of yet). Another advantage is the ability to save working LinuxMCE setups (snapshots) which you can revert to in case you break your LMCE install. Another advantage is the ability to run multiple installations of LMCE, for testing and development purposes.

It is also possible to run multiple servers at the same time, on the same physical machine. For example a webserver and LMCE.

Installing ESX

It all starts with installing VMware ESXi. This is actually quite simple. It comes down to 3 steps.

  1. Download ESXi iso-file from VMware
  2. 'Burn' iso-file to DVD or USBstick (Use a tool like dd/Unetbootin/Rufus)
  3. Boot your machine with this DVD or USB-stick
  4. Follow onscreen instructions

Once ESXi is installed you need to have a client to manage the ESXi server, this client can be downloaded from the webpage of the ESXi server. In the vSphere client, you need to configure your ESXi server. It needs to know where to place the vm-datafiles. Also if you have multiple network connections or vlans they need to be configured.

Configuring the Datastore

Start the VMware vSphere Client, and connect to the ESXi server. In the left plane select your server, and then select the configuration tab in the right plane. Choose 'Storage' in the right plane and click 'Add-Storage'. Here you can add a Local Disk or connect via NFS to a NAS.

Configure Networking

Installing LMCE on ESXi

Once your datastore and network setup is complete, you can make a new vm, and start installing LMCE In the left plane of the vSphere Client, right click on your server and choose 'New Virtual Machine'. Follow the wizard, when you arrive at the network section, make sure you have 2 nics in your VM and choose the correct Network Interfaces. Your new VM will be setup in a few seconds. After the creation is finished, right click your new VM and choose 'Open Console', Then press the Power-On button, it will try to boot from LAN because there is noting configured for this VM. On the Menu bar you will see a CD icon, press it, it will list the CD drive attached to this VM, select the drive and another menu will open, here you can select the boot device of the VM. This can be an iso-file, or a CD/DVD disk, and it can be placed on your ESXi server or on the client machine. Normally i use an iso on my client machine. Choose 'Connect to ISO on local disk', find your iso and press Ok. The VM is probably still trying to boor from LAN, click in the window and press CTRL-ALT-INS or choose 'VM', 'Power', 'Reset' in the menu. The VM will now boot from the LMCE iso.





More information is coming

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