vmware

[stevene]

I spent a lot of time attempting to run HS from a Virtual machine. VMWare and Virtual PC. I ended up giving up, the big issue was supporting all the serial port and usb devices in the Virtual machines.

I would realy like to see this work.

StevenE

[Chak]

My Homeseer is also running in Vmware (Server 1.04)
Most of my connected devices are also running virtual

RFXcom Receiver 868
RfXCom Receiver 433
RFXCom Tranciver 433

The CTX35 (ACT TI103) is at the moment connected to the Host via RS232.
Next week I will also make this device Virtual via RFXCom ethernet virtual device.

Irtrans is also connected to the host via USB
This device will also soon be replaced by the Ethernet version.

When there is any problem with my Homeseer machine i can run the guast in few minutes from any other machine.

[TeleFragger]

My Homeseer is also running in Vmware (Server 1.04)

so you had no problems with trying to get all the com ports running then...
vmware workstation on a server 2003 os...I couldnt get the serials to work... not sure why...
my xp side saw the serials but the 1wire app couldnt find the serial port..
ms virtual pc 2007 had 0 problems with the serial side.. just the limit of 1 cpu which I dont like....

[Malarcy]

I use Vmware (ESX) at work a lot - and in my experience the dual processor support in that is a mixed bag - sure - it provides more than 1 cpu to the guest, but in some benchmarking with some of our apps - they actually ran slower with 2cpus in vmware than one.

Same app on physical tin runs better with 2 cpus than 1 so the difference was down to vmware.

Everyones mileage varies etc. - I run my HS instance with 1 cpu and 512mb ram - it's working good for me.

Malarcy

[TeleFragger]

personally... I dont feel they " DO NOT SUPPORT VMWARE "

but more of a..... we dont know so we will say we dont support vmware..

theoretically... vmware is your pc.... and the os you install is the real thing that they do support..



example... I posted that I was having problems getting vmware to see my serial for my temps... I dont think once I asked a question for support... but simply was just telling yall my experience...

I am going to attempt vmware server on my server 2003 box and try and get xp to recognize my ports..


I installed XP in vmware and had homeseer working great... all webpages, plugins and everything.... just the dagon serials... think I was doing something wrong.......

so we will see....

I agree... if my server is having problems and I want to rebuild it... I move the vmware sessions to another box and power them up... viola.. up and running again!

[Malarcy]

This is a good thread and bears us working on it some more:

I use VMWARE server 1.04 (have used all previous release and beta versions) on Windows MCE 2005 host o/s.

here is what I have found as issues in vmware

1) FUNNY COM PORT - as described in previous posts, summary would be my advice is 1st two physical serial OK, subsequent ones should be USB or ETHERNET - if USB - pass through to guest OS and load drivers there - my rfxcom us/eu resceiver runs faultlessly like this. - Ethernet - install the drivers in the guest - should just work.

2) SYSTEM CLOCK - the bit of the real hardware that generates clock ticks isn;t emulated very well - windows in the guest works OK - but I advise installing the vmware tools and syncing the clock with the host. If running linux guests, there are some boot (grub) tweaks and run ntpd and sync often.

3) USB pass-through - someting (just sometimes - like 1 reboot in 50) the virtual usb hub on the host doesn't pass the physical usb device through to the guest - and you have to "discover devices" on the host - I have a script somewhere that does it - was much more preventlent in the BETA has happened once to me in real running (read 18 months of operation).

Next project is either w2k3 host with xp guest or ubunti linux host with xp guest - I am about to upgrade the host to 8gb of ram and mce 2005 won't address it.

Anyone got anything else?

Malarcy

[TeleFragger]

well im hosed... I mentioned doing this on my server as the server side is getting hosed...


so I have to decide what to do...

I can or was able to install
vmware workstation on server 2003...
had xp installed but couldnt get the serial ports to be seen by the 1 wire software...

so I then tried... virtual pc 2007... although the 1 wire worked on the first try....
virtual pc is limited to 1 cpu.... which then also means if I have sql installed...no need for sql but might as well do msde since that only supports 1 cpu.....

well this is in a quad zeon HT!!!!! so...
I uninstalled vmware workstation... installed vmware server 1.04 as you are running... but I have not tried installing xp yet and getting the serial ports working... due to I use vmware for another application..... so I tried server 2003 and my server actually gets the BSOD!!!!! and reboots...

so dunno what im going to do now...
and this is #1 reason why I want to get vmware or virtual pc working with homeseer.... main reason.... is this...


copy all vmwares or virtual pc sessions to another computer... fire them up.... and viola.. up and running while I rebuild my server.....
so I have 0 minutes this weekend.... so not going to mess with it until monday....

just got back from the blue and gold dinner for cub scouts (we won 3rd for best cake).... tomorrow at 8am I will be drinking beer and installing hardwood floors over at Officer Mikes house (neighbor.. few houses down) so my weekend is tied up.....

[epsteing]

we dont know so we will say we dont support vmware..

Correct. We have not done much testing with virtualization environments and we've had mixed success reports from users. Most of the reports are on the message board. I don't recall the specific issues, but if you search around, you'll probably find them.

[Malarcy]

well im hosed... I mentioned doing this on my server as the server side is getting hosed...


so I have to decide what to do...

I can or was able to install
vmware workstation on server 2003...
had xp installed but couldnt get the serial ports to be seen by the 1 wire software...

so I then tried... virtual pc 2007... although the 1 wire worked on the first try....
virtual pc is limited to 1 cpu.... which then also means if I have sql installed...no need for sql but might as well do msde since that only supports 1 cpu.....

well this is in a quad zeon HT!!!!! so...
I uninstalled vmware workstation... installed vmware server 1.04 as you are running... but I have not tried installing xp yet and getting the serial ports working... due to I use vmware for another application..... so I tried server 2003 and my server actually gets the BSOD!!!!! and reboots...

so dunno what im going to do now...
and this is #1 reason why I want to get vmware or virtual pc working with homeseer.... main reason.... is this...


copy all vmwares or virtual pc sessions to another computer... fire them up.... and viola.. up and running while I rebuild my server.....
so I have 0 minutes this weekend.... so not going to mess with it until monday....

just got back from the blue and gold dinner for cub scouts (we won 3rd for best cake).... tomorrow at 8am I will be drinking beer and installing hardwood floors over at Officer Mikes house (neighbor.. few houses down) so my weekend is tied up.....

Wild stab at this - if the hosts blue screens I would suspect bad ram - if your system is to kernel only or minidumps and you have a dump file - drop me a pm and I will happily analyse it for you and see if I can see a cause for the bluescreen.

Malarcy

[cadillackid]

after reading and participating in this thread a little.. and seeing that im kind of stuck in my bedroom or basement (installing and finishing hardwood floors in my greatroom / foyer) I decided to play a little more... on my development system I was able to run a host of server 2003 and run the released version of VMware Server.. the beta caused my host to Blue screen whenever I plugged a USB device in.. I was able to get running except:..

no more than 4 serial ports would work.. all are physical PCI card ports running on the host with their drivers loaded on the host... but I cant find any way to even add any more..

USB wise I couldnt get any more than 2 USB devices to load..

so then I tried Linux as the host and I could get the beta version of VMware to run.. but wow did it eat up resources whereas the non beta doesnt.. but I couldnt get my serial card drivers to load in Linux and of couse they cant be seen in the guest OS either... the USB worked better but still I couldnt get any more than 2 devices at the same time to be seen in the guest.. so I think virtualization is still a little ways away from where we all want it to be..
-Christopher

[Michael McSharry]

For those of you that are having serial port constraints then another option may be to use an IP interface with a serial/ip adapter. Some software will allow you to talk directly to IP while others require that you map it into a COMm port. I use the EPS series adapters from ebay and if you watch you can get from 1 to 16 ports from about $20 to $40. The only equipment that I need a real port is the 1-wire because timing is controlled by the PC for the DS9097U.

[Malarcy]

after reading and participating in this thread a little.. and seeing that im kind of stuck in my bedroom or basement (installing and finishing hardwood floors in my greatroom / foyer) I decided to play a little more... on my development system I was able to run a host of server 2003 and run the released version of VMware Server.. the beta caused my host to Blue screen whenever I plugged a USB device in.. I was able to get running except:..

no more than 4 serial ports would work.. all are physical PCI card ports running on the host with their drivers loaded on the host... but I cant find any way to even add any more..

USB wise I couldnt get any more than 2 USB devices to load..

so then I tried Linux as the host and I could get the beta version of VMware to run.. but wow did it eat up resources whereas the non beta doesnt.. but I couldnt get my serial card drivers to load in Linux and of couse they cant be seen in the guest OS either... the USB worked better but still I couldnt get any more than 2 devices at the same time to be seen in the guest.. so I think virtualization is still a little ways away from where we all want it to be..
-Christopher

Jut looked at the specs for vmware server - and indeed it states you can only connect 2 usb devices, but there is a new version in beta (seems there are problems with usb at the moment) - and the workstation product says you can have "more than 2 usb 1.1 devices because it provides a virtal hub" and 6 usb devices

��

For USB 1.1, a UHCI controller with a virtual hub enables you to connect to more
than two USB 1.1 devices.

��

For USB 2.0, an EHCI controller enables you to connect to up to six USB 2.0 devices.

I don't have workstation - but it seems it may be more suitable for those with more demanding com port needs.

Malarcy

[dickseer]

Hello,
Since the first stable release of VMware Server 1.0.x (2006), i use HomeSeer in a virtual environment for production and R&D. Apart from this virtual environment, i'm running HomeSeer also on bare metal embedded (again for R&D).

The VMware Server host runs Windows Server 2003 with some basic services like VPN/RAS/FAX/DNS/DHCP/FILE/etc. The host is equipped with 6 comports:

Default COM1 (TI203)
Digi AccelePort 4p Port COM3 (C-Control Station (I/O))
Digi AccelePort 4p Port COM4 -not for homeseer-
Digi AccelePort 4p Port COM5 (TEMP08)
Digi AccelePort 4p Port COM6 -not for homeseer-
USB FTDI COM7 (RFXCOM)

The virtual machine for HomeSeer runs Windows XP with 512MB RAM and 4 COM-ports.

I added the following settings/mappings/tweaks to the configuration file for the HomeSeer virtual machine:

>>>
mainMem.useNamedFile = "FALSE"
MemTrimRate = "0"
sched.mem.pshare.enable = "FALSE"
serial0.present = "TRUE"
serial0.fileName = "COM1"
serial0.irq = "4"
serial0.tryNoRxLoss = "TRUE"
serial1.present = "TRUE"
serial1.fileName = "COM3"
serial1.irq = "3"
serial1.tryNoRxLoss = "TRUE"
serial2.present = "TRUE"
serial2.fileName = "COM7"
serial2.irq = "5"
serial2.tryNoRxLoss = "TRUE"
serial3.present = "TRUE"
serial3.fileName = "COM5"
serial3.irq = "7"
serial3.tryNoRxLoss = "TRUE"
<<<

For the last 2 years (24x7), the (virtual) serial devices are controlled correctly by HomeSeer without any (timing) errors noticed.

Maybe this helps anyone else.
Goodluck
Bye
Dick

[Malarcy]

Did you need to do any reg tweaks on the xp guest to get it to see 4 com ports? - or is it that the irq's you specified in the config file allow xp to see them all?

Malarcy

[dickseer]

No, i did not add any reg tweaks on the XP guest and did not change the BIOS on the XP guest.

I added the IRQ settings in the VMX configuration file to map them as i wanted to be sure.

I added the serial0..3.tryNoRxLoss = "TRUE" to prevent overrun errors.

dick