Virtualization tools

Containers/Hypervisors

• KVM (Kernel Based Virtual Machine) – http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page – Works on Linux ONLY.
• VMWare:
  • VMWare Player – http://www.vmware.com/products/player/ [FREE]
  • VMWare Workstation – http://www.vmware.com/products/workstation/ [EXPENSIVE]
• QEMU – http://wiki.qemu.org/Main_Page – a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer. Works on Linux ONLY.
• VirtualBox by Oracle (formerly SunMicrosystems) – http://www.virtualbox.org/ | Wiki: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox [FREE]
• Virtual PC/Server (by Microsoft) – http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/default.aspx – Currently Microsoft makes available only versions that execute on Windows 7.
• Xen – http://www.xen.org/ [FREE | OSS]

Converters and builders

• Vagrant – http://vagrantup.com/ – Vagrant is a Ruby GEM tool for building and distributing headless virtualized development environments. Works for Oracle’s VirtualBox container.
  • “Vagrant – Getting Started” by Mitchell Hashimoto – http://vimeo.com/9976342
  • “My Default Recipes For Vagrant Virtual Machines” (2011.01.10) – http://morethanseven.net/2011/01/10/My-default-recipes-for-vagrant-virtual-machines.html
  • Available Vagrant boxes – https://github.com/mitchellh/vagrant/wiki/Available-Vagrant-Boxes
  • Vagrant Wiki – https://github.com/mitchellh/vagrant/wiki/
  • “Vagrant: EC2-Like Virtual Machine Building and Provisioning from Ruby” by Peter Cooper (Ruby Inside; 2010.03.08) – http://www.rubyinside.com/vagrant-ruby-powered-virtualbox-vm-building-and-provisioning-3059.html
  • “Using virtual machine (vagrant) for you web development” (UnforlThat blog) – http://unfoldthat.com/2011/05/06/using-vagrant-for-your-django-development.html
  • “Working in Virtual Machines, the Vagrant Way” by Mitchell Hashimoto (presentation at LA Ruby Conference 2011) – http://confreaks.net/videos/483-larubyconf2011-working-in-virtual-machines-the-vagrant-way
• EasyVMX! – Create virtual machines’ VMX file for VMware Player – http://www.easyvmx.com/
• VMBuilder – http://dcgrendel.thewaffleiron.net/vmbuilder/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20061104033552/http://www.dcgrendel.be/vmbuilder/
• VMX-builder – http://sanbarrow.com/vmxbuilder.html
• VMware vCenter Converter – http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/
• Citrix XenConvert – http://www.citrix.com/lang/English/lp/lp_1688624.asp – a physical-to-virtual (P2V) and virtual-to-virtual (V2V) conversion tool. For XenServer.

Other

• imvirt – I’m virtualized? by Thomas Liske – http://micky.ibh.net/~liske/imvirt.html – a Perl script trying to detect if you are running in a virtual machine.
• virt-what by Richard Jones – http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-what/ – shell script detecting if we are running in a virtual machine.
  • more virtualization tools by the same author – http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/
• libguestfs, tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images – http://libguestfs.org/
• Sys::Detect::Virtualization = a Perl module for detecting virtualization – http://www.dmo.ca/blog/perl-module-for-virtualization-detection/ | download (at CPAN) – http://search.cpan.org/dist/Sys-Detect-Virtualization/
  • How to detect virtualization – http://www.dmo.ca/blog/detecting-virtualization-on-linux/

Knowledge

• Virtualization Info – http://virtualization.info/
  • “Guide to create .vmx files for VMware Player” – http://virtualization.info/en/news/2005/12/guide-to-create-vmx-files-for-vmware.html
• Sanbarrow.com – http://sanbarrow.com/ –
• “Virtual machine nomenclature strategies” by Rick Vanover (TechRepublic; 2010.12.22) – http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/datacenter/?p=3587
• articles on virtualization at Petri IT Knowledgebase:
  • “VMware or Virtual PC – Which Product is Right For You?” by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_vmware_virtualpc_compared.htm
  • “How to Import Virtual PC and Virtual Server machines to VMware”> by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_import_virtual_server_and_pc_to_vmware.htm
  • “ISO Image Files & VMware” by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/use-iso-image-files-vmware.htm
  • “Understanding VMware VMX Configuration Files – Learn How To Create and Edit VMX Files” by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_vmware_vmx_configuration_files.htm
  • “VMware Files Explained: VMDK, VMEM, VMSN, VMSD, VMX & More” by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_vmware_files_explained.htm
  • “Understanding VMware ESX Users, Groups, And Roles – ESX User Configuration, ESX Group Management, ESX Role Management” – http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_understanding_vmware_esx_users_groups_roles.htm
  • “VMware ESX Roles, Permissions & Privileges Explained” by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/vmware-esx-roles-permissions-privileges.htm
  • “Create Custom Roles in VMware ESX Server” by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/create-custom-roles-vmware-esx-server.htm
  • “What is a VMware Snapshot?” by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_vmware_snapshot.htm
  • “How to Mount VMware Virtual Disks Without VMware” by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_mount_vmware_virtual_disk_without_vmware.htm
  • “Virtual Floppy Disks with VMware” by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/virtual-floppy-disks-vmware.htm
  • “VMware ESX Server Cluster & Resource Pools Explained” by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/vmware-esx-server-cluster-pools.htm
  • “Move Physical Machines to VMs with VMware Converter: Part 1” by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_convert_physical_machines_to_virtual_machines_with_vmware_converter.htm
  • “How to Convert Physical Machines to Virtual Machines with VMware Converter: Part 2” by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_convert_physical_machines_to_virtual_machines_with_vmware_converter_2.htm
  • “Step-by-Step VMware Server Setup Tutorial” by David Davis (2009.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_install_vmware_server.htm
  • “Creating Virtual Machines with Microsoft Virtual PC 2007” by Daniel Petri (2008.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_create_virtual_machines_virtual_pc_2007.htm
  • “Installing a new OS on a new VM witn Microsoft Virtual PC 2007” by Daniel Petri (2008.01.08) – http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_install_new_os_on_microsoft_virtual_pc.htm
  • VMware Discussion Forum – http://www.petri.co.il/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=43
• “The ABCs of virtual private servers” by Glenn Fleishman (ArsTechnica):
  • “The ABCs of virtual private servers, Part 1: Why go virtual?” (2011.02.16) – http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/02/virtual-private-servers.ars
  • “The ABCs of virtual private servers, Part 2: Getting started” (2011.02.22) – http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/02/the-abcs-virtual-private-servers-part-2-getting-started.ars/

Shape-shifters

• Colinux (Cooperative Linux) – http://www.colinux.org/ | project pages at SourceForge – http://sourceforge.net/projects/colinux/ | WikiPedia info – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_Linux
• React Operating System – http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html – a free, from-the-scratch rewrite of WindowsXP/2003. In alpha stage.
  • Installation instructions – http://www.reactos.org/wiki/Installing_ReactOS
  • Installation instructions for virtualization environments – http://www.reactos.org/en/newbies_install.html
• User Mode Linux (UML)
  • The User-mode Linux Kernel Home Page – http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/
  • User Mode Linux HOWTO (2008.03.07) – http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/old/UserModeLinux-HOWTO.html
  • info at WikiPedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-mode_Linux
  • User Mode Linux community site – http://usermodelinux.org/
  • info redirector – http://usermodelinux.net/
  • “Introduction to User-Mode Linux – How to install, configure, and use Linux virtual machines” by Carla Schroder (IBM developerWorks; 2003.01.23) – http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/tutorials/l-uml/
    This tutorial shows how to install, configure, and use Linux® virtual machines. With User-Mode Linux (UML), you can set up multiple virtual machines that are isolated from each other and from the hardware. This lets you test applications all the way to failure without breaking the host system — or even requiring a reboot.
  • “How to run Linux inside Linux with User Mode Linux” by Marc Abramowitz (Linux.com; 2007.01.11) – http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/59404

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Installing Vagrant

1. Install VirtualBox
2. Install Ruby
3. Install Ruby gem:
   1. Get the latest version from Ruby Forge: http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=126: wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/74954/rubygems-1.8.5.tgz
   2. Unpack it: tar zxvf rubygems-1.8.5.tgz
   3. cd rubygems-1.8.5/
   4. ruby setup.rb
4. Install Vagrant: gem install vagrant
5. Follow configuration instructions from http://vagrantup.com/docs/getting-started/index.html

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Related here: Virtualization Security – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/virtualization-security/ | Cloud security – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/cloud-security/.