VMware Notes

Development Environment Virtual Machines

Note: if the VMs are run regularly the IP address assigned by DHCP remains fairly stable. If you start a VM after some days of not running, it may be assigned a new IP address by DHCP. If that occurs, please update the IP address on this page. If you can't readily determine the IP address, use VMWare Server Console to access the VM instance's console, login and use ifconfig to display the assigned address.

How to access virtual machines

If you just want to login and use the development environment you don't need to install the VMWare software. Instead, use a good X11 application (see details below).

If you want to start/stop the VMs, you have two options:

1. Install the VMWare Server software on your own workstation, then use it to connect remotely to the VM Server software running on the relevant host system
2. Use Windows remote desktop to login directly to the remote system and run the VMWare Server Console there.

The second option also lets you copy/backup the VM files on the host system. Using Cygwin/X to access virtual machines

Follow these steps:

1. Install cygwin, using the cached download at eaicc repository to avoid re-downlading the 200MB or so. Make sure the X11 component is selected for installation.
2. From inside a cygwin console window on your desktop, launch X11 and either ssh to the remote system and launch windows manually (remember to set the DISPLAY envirionment variable), or run a full remote desktop session using the xdm -query option.

To make this easier, I use a few simple bash script files (see attached). Rather than modifying my Windows hosts file I just put the VM machine's IP address in a bash script and re-use it (again, see the attached files). Create a bin directory in your home directory in cygwin to hold these scripts, and they should then be found using the default command path (you may need to do chmod +x).

Connect

#!/bin/sh
#
# Start an SSH session with fast encryption to remote host, with pass-through X support.
# Uses separate bash script for ip address (last parameter in tick marks)
#   Note: login id is hardcoded, parameterise if you wish

ssh -l root -X -c blowfish `ip`

Start X11 Session

#!/bin/sh
#
# Start a fullscreen X11 session with desktop and login from remote host
# using a separate bash script for ip address (last parameter in tick marks)

xwin -fullscreen -clipboard -query `ip`

Echo IP

#!/bin/sh
#
# A simple way to reuse IP address in other scripts.
# Easier than updatingWindows hosts file all the time?

echo 10.1.1.2