"VL-e Proof-of-Concept Distribution", owner=>"Jan Just Keijser", email=>"janjust@nikhef.nl", footer=>"Comments to Dennis van Dok or Jan Just Keijser.")); ?> vl-e

Virtual Laboratory for e-Science
Using the VL-e PoC Release 1 VMware Images

The VL-e PoC Release 1 is also available as a VMware image. This VMware image can be used on any PC on which the free VMware Player is installed (or any of the non-free VMware products).
Versions for both Linux and Microsoft Windows of the VMware Player are available. It is recommended to install the latest version of the VMware Player, 1.0.2-29634 at the time of this writing.

The VL-e PoC Release 1 VMware Images were created using VMware Workstation 5.5.1 with this configuration: The resulting virtual machine was then preloaded with The current build of the VMware image is build 005 which is based on PoC R1 build 25, released on October 17th, 2006.
The build of the VMware image that was released on DVD is build 002, which is based on PoC 1.0.

Installation Instructions and FAQ

PoC Release 1 VMware Image Installation Instructions

NOTE: The VMware image files require at least 4 GB of free disk space!

NOTE: The compressed version of the current build of the PoC Release 1 VMware image is actually smaller than the one that was released on DVD. This is due to a smarter packaging method of the VMware image files. The unpacked files actually require more disk space than the first release.
After installing the VMware Player, unzip the image file
VL-e PoC build005
into an empty directory. You should end up with the following files: 

    vle-poc-r1-s001.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s002.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s003.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s004.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s005.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s006.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s007.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s008.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s009.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1.nvram
    vle-poc-r1.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1.vmem
    vle-poc-r1.vmsd
    vle-poc-r1.vmss
    vle-poc-r1.vmx
You are now ready to proceed to Using the PoC Release 1 VMware Image.

The previous releases are build003 and build004.

PoC Release 1.0 VMware Image Installation Instructions (old)

NOTE: The VMware image files require at least 4 GB of free disk space!

On the VL-e PoC Release 1.0 DVD, a VMware image of a complete PoC installation is included. The installation instructions for this release are included here for completeness' sake. If you are installing from the web, please use the latest PoC R1 VMware image.

After installing the VMware Player, unzip the image files
VL-e PoC Image, part1 VL-e PoC Image, part2
into an empty directory. You should end up with the following files: 

    vle-poc-r1-s001.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s002.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s003.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s004.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s005.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s006.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s007.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s008.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1-s009.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1.nvram
    vle-poc-r1.vmdk
    vle-poc-r1.vmem
    vle-poc-r1.vmsd
    vle-poc-r1.vmss
    vle-poc-r1.vmx
After extracting these files, update the vle-poc-r1.vmx configuration file to avoid two warning messages when starting up your VL-e PoC R1 VMware image for the first time.

You install this update by downloading the file and then overwrite the existing vle-poc-r1.vmx file in the directory in which you have extracted the VL-e PoC Image files.

Using the PoC Release 1 VMware Image

After installing the image files, start up VMware Player and select the .vmx file to use:
load_file

Alternatively, you can also launch the image directly by double-clicking on the vle-poc-r1.vmx file itself.
If you now see either this screen
always_create

or this
cdrom_error

then you forgot to install the vle-poc-r1.vmx update. Select "Always Create" and clicking on "OK", resp. clicking on "OK" will also fix these two warning messages. The next time VMware is booted, the warnings should no longer appear.

The CentOS boot-up screen appears:
grub_start

If it does not, then pray that there is help for you in the VMware Image FAQ.

Linux will boot after approximately 10 seconds and will bring up the graphical login screen:
gdm_greeter

The login screen will automatically log in as the user pocahontas after 30 seconds, after which you are ready to use the VL-e PoC Release 1 VMware Image. Congratulations!

The passwords for both pocahontas and root are:

user_names

Stopping the VMware Player (Windows)

The VMware Player can be stopped like any other Microsoft Windows program. When the player is shut down, the VMware session is put on standby, pretty much like a laptop. The next time you launch the VMware session, it automatically restores the previous state.

VMware Player Installation Instructions (Linux)

It is assumed that a Linux-capable person is installing VMware, hence these instructions are relatively short:

Download the VMware Player RPM and install it (requires root access): 

  rpm -i VMware-player-1.0.2-29634.i386.rpm
That's all folks!

Trademark

VMware, the VMware "boxes" logo, GSX Server, ESX Server, Virtual SMP, VMotion and VMware ACE are trademarks (the "Marks") of VMware, Inc.

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