Virtual Appliances Blog

As always, let us know if there are any issues/broken pages/etc.

While I’m on a roll tonight writing blog posts, just wanted to note that we’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.5… the upgrade went smoothly (like all of those that proceeded it). That is all.

Virtual Appliances has explored using the JeOS version of Ubuntu 8.04 in our next generation of appliances. We did experience some issues with installation during the Alpha and Beta periods, however those problems are supposed to be fixed now.

Although JeOS is still very much in it’s infancy, it is good to see that Ubuntu is actively attempting to create an optimized virtual machine version of their OS.

Keep in mind that we utilized this concept of “just enough operating system” very early on with our hand tuned, Gentoo-based appliances. Our first appliance- a static web server based on lighttpd- weighed in at a super small 10MB when compressed!!! This early Virtual Appliance had a 500MB virtual hard disk and was able to server static web content (documents, files, and images) from a network share.

We have found there are still some OS dependencies present in Ubuntu JeOS that we’d like to see gone (for example, USB support, Bluetooth support, ALSA (sound) support). We feel that none of these drivers are necessary in an VMware ESX server environment.

Stay tuned for future developments!

We’ve had an increased amount of support email in the past few weeks.

For those seeking email support, you might want to pop over to our support forums. We have a very active community over there with many of the typical new user questions already addressed.

We are keenly working on updating Virtual Appliances and are hoping to have a Ubuntu 8.04 Server (”Hardy Heron”) preview available soon!

Build 181 (for VMware only) has been posted to fix issues (here, here) when using the Ubuntu 7.04 server kernel. We have changed to the generic kernel, which should fix boot problems where an “INT10h…” error is displayed on the screen and the boot ceases.

As a bonus, all recent security updates (until February 15th) have been included.

Those importing Virtual Appliances into VirtualBox might also see the same problem. We are hoping to get some feedback from Parallels user to see if this problem is solved when importing the VMware VM into Parallels.

Download links and information are available here.

After receiving some reports of problems importing the VMware Server/Player/Workstation of our appliances into VMware, we have released an ESX specific version. This is the standard build 180 LAMP VA for i386 (based on Ubuntu 7.04 Server Edition).

Click here to download.

Please use our forum for all support issues.

For more information about Virtual Appliances, including support options, please consult our website.

An article posted today in The Journal discusses using virtual appliances as a delivery mechanism for software applications in the future.

Quote:

The rise of virtual machines may prove to be somewhat of a nightmare for entrenched purveyors of closed operating systems, but it may become a boon for independent software vendors (ISVs) and end users — so a recent Yankee Group report suggests.

ISVs will be able to deliver a more customized operating system (similar to what we have been doing at Virtual Appliances) and tailor it to specific application stack requirements. Using Linux allows the ISV more fine-grained control over what is included/excluded from the virtual appliances’ OS installation.

Quote:

The report suggests that virtual machines can lead to lower support costs, better quality software, improved scalability and quicker deployments. Potential bottlenecks to virtual machine adoption include resistance from established OS providers, as well as IT integrators. Finally, internal IT departments that center on OS configuration may not wish to change.

Source article is here.

The full line-up is now available on Moka5!

• Virtual Appliances Cacti
• Virtual Appliances LAPP
• Virtual Appliances Tomcat
• Virtual Appliances LAMP

These appliances are based on i386/32-bit Ubuntu 7.04 (aka Feisty) Server Edition and are functionally equivalent to our VMware build 180 releases.

We would sure love to hear from Moka5 users if you’re using these offerings. Use our forums for feedback and/or support issues.

Download here.

A Moka5 version of Virtual Appliances LAMP build 180 (32-bit only for now) is now available for testing.

Download link:

Virtual Appliances LAMP

The Moka5 Engine is a free download and is available for Windows and OS X (the latter requiring VMware Fusion).

Moka5 is an interesting virtualization technology that provides streaming virtual machines (start the virtual machine before it’s entirely downloaded!), ability to rollback changes to your VM easily, and other portability features. See the Moka5 LivePC Features page for more information