Virtual Appliances:VMware
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rMake and rBuilder can be used to create virtual appliances ready for use in VMware® virtualization solution. This includes images that can be used in any VMware product such as VMware Player and VMware Workstation as well as images that are optimized for use in VMware ESX Server. By developing the appliance for VMware, it automatically includes the VMware tools necessary when seeking to qualify it as a VMware Certified Virtual Appliance.
Use a VMware Virtual Appliance Image
Whether an rBuilder appliance image is a VMware Virtual Appliance or a VMware ESX Server Virtual Appliance, its download is an archive containing the files needed to launch the VMware image. After unpacking the archived files, open the image by selecting the unpacked VMX (.vmx) configuration file. Verify the virtual machine boots as desired.
Develop a VMware Virtual Appliance
There are two steps required in the Appliance Development process to develop VMware virtual appliances:
- Build the appliance group with rMake using the vmware flavor specification
- Generate rBuilder images in one of two build types as appropriate for the deployment: VMware Virtual Appliance or VMware ESX Server Virtual Appliance
vmware Flavor Specification
Use the vmware flavor specification to ensure an appliance group is built with the tools necessary for VMware. This is done when running the rmake build command, and it is described in the Conary Flavors page. The following is an example of building with group-example used to define the Example appliance:
$> rmake build group-example[vmware]
As with using any flavor specification, be sure that any alternate flavors are built at the same time as the VMware flavor by adding arguments to the rmake build command. The following shows group-example being built as a VMware image and as an ISO image, each for both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x86_64) architectures:
$> rmake build 'group-example[vmware is: x86]' 'group-example[vmware is: x86_64]' 'group-example[is: x86]' 'group-example[is: x86_64]'
Provided that you are using the rPath Appliance Platform by developing the appliance with group-appliance (as described in rPath Linux:group-appliance), you should have the open-source VMware Tools in the appliance. (Prior to using group-appliance, developers had to add these from a separate package.)
VMware Virtual Appliance Build Types
Generate rBuilder images using the instructions in the rBuilder Create a Build page, and be sure to make the following selections:
- The appropriate build type: VMware Virtual Appliance or VMware ESX Server Virtual Appliance
- The appropriate vmware-flavored build of the appliance group (should include "~vmware" or just "vmware" in the list of flavor specifications)