Top 5 Hypervisor tools | List of best Virtual machine tools | scmGalaxy

Today we are going to talk about Hypervisor which is also an important tool for Developers or programmers these days. In this post we are going to share the name & features of top Hypervisor tools which are mostly used by Developers these days.
But, before that let us first understand Hypervisor.
Hypervisor which is also known as Virtual machine monitor (VMM) is a software or firmware which allow to run and manage the virtual machines. In a broader way, we can say Hypervisor makes it possible to run different operating systems in the same machine by using all the hardwares like processor, memory etc. if no other operating system is on. In simple terms just understand, it is a tool which control and distributes the hardware resources to each operating system according to their needs without interrupting other operating systems.
Now, If we look forward there are two categories of Hypervisors
1. Type 1 hypervisor — This type of Hypervisor are also known as bare metal or native or embedded hypervisors. It can be installed and runs directly on the system hardware.
Highlights
  • More Efficient
  • Higher performance
  • Higher availability
  • Higher Security
  • Need skills to operate
2. Type 2 hypervisor — This type of Hypervisors can install & run on host operating system.
Highlights
  • Less Efficient
  • Less expertise Needed
  • Less security
  • Complex problems cannot handled
  • Easy to Install
  • Useful when I/O devices support is important.

 

So, Till now we read and understand about Hypervisors and types of hypervisors. Now, let’s move on to the important section where we will look on to the top 5 hypervisor tools. So let’s start.

1. VMware ESX or ESXi

 

vmware

Highlights
  • Type 1 Bare Metal
  • Belongs to Vmware
  • Known as Mature & Stable tool
  • Required License for advanced features & scalability
  • Free edition available with limited features
  • 5 commercial editions
  • Good for enterprises
  • It includes its own kernel
  • Memory over commitment
  • High availability
  • vMotion
  • Storage vMotion
  • Fault Tolerance
2. Microsoft Hyper V

microsoft-hyper-v

Highlights
  • Belongs to Microsoft
  • Type 1 Bare Metal
  • Good for Small-Medium Businesses
  • Good for running windows
  • 4 commercial editions
  • Free edition available (with no GUI and no virtualization rights)
  • Live Migration
  • Storage Migration
  • Dynamic memory
  • Extensible virtual switch

3. VMware Workstation/Fusion/Player

vmware-workstation

Highlights

  • Type 2 Hypervisor
  • It can run only single Virtual Machine
  • Not allow to create VMs
  • Licensing plans
  • Good for running multiple different operating systems or versions of one OS on one desktop
  • Good for labs and demonstration objectives
  • Good for sandbox environments and snapshots
  • Good Option for running Windows and Linux on Macs
4. Oracle VM VirtualBox
oracle-vm-virtualbox

Highlights
  • Type 2 Hypervisor
  • Mature and Stable
  • Belongs to Oracle Corporation
  • Similar to VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V
  • Alternative of expensive server and desktop virtualization
  • Open-source hypervisor
  • Suitable for Small-Medium Business & Enterprises
  • Live migration
  • Multiple host resource pools
  • Automated workflows

5. KVM

 

kvm

Highlights
  • Open Source
  • Belongs to Red Hat, Inc.
  • Mature hypervisor
  • Contains the features of Type 1 & Type 2
  • Suitable for Personal & Small medium solutions
  • Based on Linux
  • Numerous guest operating systems work with KVM (BSD, Solaris, Windows, Haiku, ReactOS, Plan 9, and the AROS Research)
  • KVM is used in products such as Redhat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV)
  • Live migration
  • Storage migration
  • Configuration snapshots
So, this is my list of top five hypervisor tools. Hope you guys will like my efforts and if you want to share your list of hypervisor tools than feel free to share in the comment box below. Lastly, I just want to say choose those tools which are suitable for you as per your requirements.
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How to Setup Puppet Learning VM – Complete Process/Guide

setup-a-puppet-learning-vm
Download the VM(Zip File here)

 

Minimum requirements

  • Internet-enabled Windows, OS X, or Linux computer with 10GB free space and a VT-x/AMD-V enabled processor.
  • Up to date virtualization software. See the setup instructions below for details.

Setting up the Learning VM

  1. Before beginning, you may want to use the MD5 sum provided at the VM download page to verify your download. On Mac OS X and *nix systems, you can use the command md5 learning_puppet_vm.zip and compare the output to the text contents of thelearning_puppet_vm.zip.md5 file provided on the download page. On Windows systems, you will need to download and use a tool such as the Microsoft File Checksum Integrity Verifier.

  2. Get an up-to-date version of your virtualization software. We suggest using either VirtualBox or a VMware application appropriate for your platform. VirtualBox is free and available for Linux, OS X, and Windows. VMware has several desktop virtualization applications, including VMWare Fusion for Mac and VMware Workstation for Windows.

  3. The Learning VM’s Open Virtualization Archive format must be imported rather than opened directly. Launch your virtualization software and find an option for Import or Import Appliance. (This will usually be in a File menu. If you cannot locate an Import option, please refer to your virtualization software’s documentation.)

  4. Before starting the VM for the first time, you will need to adjust its settings. We recommend allocating 4GB of memory for the best performance. If you don’t have enough memory on your host machine, you may leave the allocation at 3GB or lower it to 2GB, though you may encounter stability and performance issues. Set the Network Adapter to Bridged. Use an Autodetect setting if available, or accept the default Network Adapter name. (If you started the VM before making these changes, you may need to restart the VM before the settings will be applied correctly.) If you are unable to use a bridged network, we suggest using the port-forwarding instructions provided in the troubleshooting guide.

  5. Start the VM. When it is started, make a note of the IP address and password displayed on the splash page. Rather than logging in directly, we highly recommend using SSH. On OS X, you can use the default Terminal application or a third-party application like iTerm. For Windows, we suggest the free SSH client PuTTY. Connect to the Learning VM with the login root and password you noted from the splash page. (e.g. ssh root@<IPADDRESS>) Be aware that it might take several minutes for the services in the PE stack to fully start after the VM boots. Once you’re connected to the VM, we suggest updating the clock with ntpdate pool.ntp.org.

  6. You can access this Quest Guide via a webserver running on the Learning VM itself. Open a web broswer on your host and enter the Learning VM’s IP address in the address bar. (Be sure to use http://<ADDRESS> for the Quest Guide, as https://<ADDRESS> will take you to the PE console.

 

Troubleshooting

For the most up-to-date version of this troubleshooting information, check the GitHub repository. If nothing here resolves your issue, feel free to email us at learningvm@puppetlabs.com and we’ll do our best to address your issue.

For issues with Puppet Enterprise that are not specific to the Learning VM, see the Puppet Enterprise Known Issues page.

The cowsay package won’t install

The Learning VM version 2.29 has an error in the instructions for this quest. The cowsay package declaration should includeprovider => 'gem', rather than ensure => 'gem'.

If you continue to get puppet run failures related to the gem, you can install the cached version manually: gem install /var/cache/rubygems/gems/cowsay-0.2.0.gem

I completed a task, but the quest tool doesn’t show it as complete

The quest tool uses a series of Serverspec tests for each quest to track task progress. Certain tasks simply check your bash history for an entered command. In some cases, the /root/.bash_history won’t be properly initialized, causing these tests to fail. Exiting the VM and logging in again will fix this issue.

It is also possible that we have written the test for a task in a way that is too restrictive and doesn’t correctly capture a valid syntactical variation in your Puppet code or another relevant file. You can check the specific matchers by looking at a quest’s spec file in the ~/.testing/spec/localhost/ directory. If you find an issue here, please let us know by sending an email tolearningvm@puppetlabs.com.

Password Required for the Quest Guide

The Learning VM’s Quest Guide is accessible at http://<VM's IP Address>. Note that this is http and not https which is reserved for the PE console. The PE console will prompt you for a password, while no password is required for the Quest Guide. (The Quest Guide includes a password for the PE console in the Power of Puppet quest: admin/puppetlabs)

I can’t find the VM password

The password to log in to the VM is generated randomly and will be displayed on the splash page displayed on the terminal of your virtualization software when you start the VM.

If you are already logged in via your virtualization software’s terminal, you can use the following command to view the password: cat /var/local/password.

Does the Learning VM work on vSphere, ESXi, etc.?

Possibly, but we don’t currently have the resources to test or support the Learning VM on these platforms.

My puppet run fails and/or I cannot connect to the PE console

It may take some time after the VM is started before all the Puppet services are fully started. If you recently started or restarted the VM, please wait a few minutes and try to access the console or trigger your puppet run again.

Also, because the Learning VM’s puppet services are configured to run in an environment with restricted resources, they are more prone to crashes than a default installation with dedicated resources.

You can check the status of puppet services with the following command:

systemctl --all | grep pe- 

If you notice any stopped puppet-related services (e.g. pe-puppetdb), double check that you have sufficient memory allocated to the VM and available on your host before you try starting them (e.g. service pe-puppetdb start).

If you get an error along the lines of Error 400 on SERVER: Unknown function union... it is likely because the puppetlabs-stdlib module has not been installed. This module is a dependency for many modules, and provides a set of common functions. If you are running the Learning VM offline, you cannot rely on the Puppet Forge’s dependency resolution. We have this module and all other modules required for the Learning VM cached, with instructions to install them in the Power of Puppet quest. If that installation fails, you may try adding the --force flag after the --ignore-dependencies flag.

I can’t import the OVA

First, ensure that you have an up-to-date version of your virtualization software installed. Note that the “check for updates” feature of VirtualBox may not always work as expected, so check the website for the most recent version.

The Learning VM has no IP address or the IP address will not respond.

If your network connection has changed since you loaded the VM, it’s possible that your IP address is different from that displayed on the Learning VM splash screen. Log in to the VM via the virtualization directly (rather than SSH) and use thefacter ipaddress command the check the current address.

Some network configurations may still prevent you from accessing the Learning VM. If this is the case, you can still access the Learning VM by configuring port forwarding.

Change your VM’s network adapter to NAT, and configure port forwarding as follows:

Name   -   Protocol - HostIP -   HostPort - GuestIP - GuestPort SSH        TCP        127.0.0.1  2222                 22 HTTP       TCP        127.0.0.1  8080                 80 HTTPS      TCP        127.0.0.1  8443                 443 GRAPHITE   TCP        127.0.0.1  8090                 90 

Once you have set up port forwarding, you can use those ports to access the VM via ssh (ssh -p 2222 root@localhost) and access the Quest Guide and PE console by entering http://localhost:8080 and https://localhost:8443 in your browser address bar.

I can’t scroll up in my terminal

The Learning VM uses a tool called tmux to allow us to display the quest status. You can scroll in tmux by first hitting control-b, then [ (left bracket). You will then be able to use the arrow keys to scroll. Press q to exit scrolling.

Running the VM in VirtualBox, I encounter a series of “Rejecting I/O input from offline devices”

Reduce the VM’s processors to 1 and disable the “I/O APIC” option in the system section of the settings menu.

Still need help?

If your puppet runs still fail after trying the steps above, feel free to contact us at learningvm@puppetlabs.com or check the Puppet Enterprise Known Issues page.

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Provision a AWS ec2 vm using chef | Step by Step Guide | AWS ec2 vm Tutorial

provision-a-aws-ec2-vm-using-chef

Provision a AWS ec2 vm using chef

Step 1: Install chefdk

Step 2: Setup AWS Credentails

Step X: Setup your knife config

Step X: Make sure following is set and exported in env.

 

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=secrets AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=secrets AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1 AWS_SSH_KEY=your_ssh_key_name AWS_ACCESS_KEY=secrets AWS_SECRET_KEY=secrets

 

Step 3: Genrate a new repository using the chef generate command

> chef generate repo chefdk-provision-demo
> cd chefdk-provision-demo

Step 4: Generate a provision cookbook. This is the required name, and it must be in the current directory.
> chef generate cookbook provision

Step 5: Edit the default recipe, $EDITOR provision/recipes/default.rb with following code…

context = ChefDK::ProvisioningData.context with_driver 'aws::us-west-2' options = { ssh_username: 'admin', use_private_ip_for_ssh: false, bootstrap_options: { key_name: 'jtimberman', image_id: 'ami-0d5b6c3d', instance_type: 'm3.medium', }, convergence_options: context.convergence_options, } machine context.node_name do machine_options options action context.action converge true end

Understand the code:
> To break this down, first we get the ChefDK provisioning context that will pass in options to chef-provisioning.
> Then we tell chef-provisioning to use the AWS driver, and in the us-west-2 region.
> The options hash is used to setup the instance.
> We’re using Debian 8, which uses the admin user to log in, an SSH key that exists in the AWS region, the actual AMI, and finally the instance type.
> Then, we’re going to set the convergence options automatically from ChefDK. This is the important part that will ensure the node has the right run list.

Step 6: Generate a Policyfile.rb and And edit its content, $EDITOR Policyfile.rb.
> chef generate policyfile
> vi policyfile.rb

name            "chefdk-provision-demo" default_source  :community run_list        "recipe[libuuid-user]" cookbook        "libuuid-user"

Here we’re simply getting the libuuid-user cookbook from Supermarket and applying the default recipe to the nodes that have this policy.

Step 7: The next step is to install the Policyfile. This generates the Policyfile.lock.json, and downloads the cookbooks to the cache, ~/.chefdk/cache/cookbooks. If this isn’t run, chef will complain, with a reminder to run it.

> chef install

Step 8: Finally, we can provision a testing system with this policy:

> chef provision testing –sync -n debian-libuuid

Reference:
http://jtimberman.housepub.org/blog/2015/05/15/quick-tip-chefdk-provision/

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