NST and Virtual Machines

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General Virtual Machine Questions

What Virtual Machines Will NST Run Under?

NST is currently known to run under:

  • The VMware product line.
  • VirtualBox

What are the Disadvantages of Running NST within a Virtual Machine?

  • Performance will be less than running NST on bare metal.
  • Wireless tools will not work as physical wireless adapters appear are typically virtualized as Ethernet NICs.

What are the Advantages of Running NST within a Virtual Machine?

  • You can monitor the traffic on the machine without any cables or hardware.
  • You can easily move your NST system to a different machine.

VirtualBox Frequently Asked Questions

Why can't I monitor all traffic on the virtual network adapter?

There are two likely reasons that can trigger this issue:

1. The network adapter must be up and enabled on the host system before a virtualized NST system will be able to see any traffic on the adapter. If this is the issue, you will need to enable the network adapter on the machine which hosts the virtual NST (outside of the NST system).

2. VirtualBox allows one to specify the "virtual hardware implementation" when configuring network adapters. We have seen the case where some "virtual hardware implementations" do not properly support promiscuous mode operation within the NST environment (in particular some of the E1000 adapters).

So, if you run across this condition, we recommend that you try a different "virtual hardware implementation" (the PCnet Fast-III implementation has worked for us).

How do I install the VirutalBox Guest Additions?

  • Install the following packages that are necessary to build the kernel modules:
yum install gcc kernel-devel
  • From the Devices menu of VirtualBox, click on the Install Guest Additions options. If things go well, a virtual CD will appear on your GNOME desktop.
  • Open a terminal window and login as root (if you aren't already logged in as root).
  • Copy the contents of the CD to a temporary directory, run the installation script, and then remove the temporary directory (NOTE: While VBOX* will probably work as shown below, it is recommended to replace it with the actual directory name):
cp -rp /media/VBOX* /tmp/
cd /tmp/VBOX*
./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run # NOTE: Run ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-amd64.run if 64 bit machine
cd
rm -fr /tmp/VBOX*
  • Reboot the system (may not always be required - you can't do this step if running from a Live boot).

How do I update the VirutalBox Guest Additions?

Anytime you update the kernel on a NST system running under VirtualBox, you will need to rebuild the VirtualBox kernel module. This can be done using the following command: 

service vboxdrv setup

It's recommended to either reboot your machine or restart the VirtualBox services after rebuilding the kernel module. Here are the commands to restart the VirtualBox services: 

service vboxadd restart
service vboxadd-x11 restart
service vboxadd-service restart

NOTE: Updating and restarting the services won't necessarily fix your current X session. So, if you are logged into a graphical desktop, you will need to log out and back in order to make use of the VirtualBox drivers.

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