Category Archives: Posts - Page 11

Upgrading Ubuntu Server to 9.10

Posted by on October 29, 2009 No comments

A quick reminder for those who don’t know or have forgotten how to upgrade an Ubuntu server:

sudo apt-get install update-manager-core
sudo do-release-upgrade

Follow the instructions, reboot, and you’re done!

Installing OS X Client in VMware Fusion

Posted by on October 27, 2009 2 comments

Mac OS X’s EULA only allows for usage of OS X Server within VMware Fusion, but with a (relatively) simple script you can modify the darwin.iso to function with OS X client as a guest.1 This script should hypothetically work with Fusion 2.0 and 3.0 on Leopard and Snow Leopard (as both guest and host). Save the following script to a file.

#!/bin/bash
cd "/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/isoimages"
mkdir original
mv darwin.iso tools-key.pub *.sig original
perl -n -p -e 's/ServerVersion.plist/SystemVersion.plist/g' < original/darwin.iso > darwin.iso
openssl genrsa -out tools-priv.pem 2048
openssl rsa -in tools-priv.pem -pubout -out tools-key.pub
openssl dgst -sha1 -sign tools-priv.pem < darwin.iso > darwin.iso.sig
for i in *.iso ; do openssl dgst -sha1 -sign tools-priv.pem < $i > $i.sig ; done
exit

Now open Terminal and chmod the script to executable.

chmod 755 /path/to/my/script

Finally, execute the script with root privileges.

sudo ./path/to/my/script

This will modify and re-sign the darwin.iso to allow OS X client as a guest. Hat tip to several sources online (which I can no longer remember) that were used to help make this script many moons ago.

  1. Of course, since this is against the license agreement no one is going to use it, right? ↩

Ubuntu 9.10 Article Updated

Posted by on October 25, 2009 1 comment

I’ve just updated my Ubuntu 9.10 in VMware article with a better process. If you’re looking to install Karmic Koala when it’s released on 10/29 check it out!

WordPress Plugin Updates

Posted by on October 23, 2009 No comments

I’ve spent quite a bit of time on CDN Tools and Fidgetr in the past few weeks and this has cut back on the time I had planned to use to write blog entries. I’ll try to get a few new articles up soon, but in the mean time here is a status update on some projects you might be interested in…

CDN Tools (v0.9x and higher) is now compatible with WordPress 2.8+ and features a wide variety of reliability upgrades for various installation quirks. I will be testing it shortly with WP 2.9 and expect to have a compatible version out prior to that release. There are also some fun new features in the pipeline that will hopefully see the light of day in the next few weeks.

Regarding Fidgetr; I have decided to port the widget to the new WP 2.8 multi-widget API (which is adapted from the firetree multi-widget class). While doing so I discovered that my previous assumptions about a single Fidgetr widget per WordPress page made porting quite difficult. This necessitated an almost total rewrite of the core (and major modifications to the accompanying themes). At this time I have the new widget mostly working, but there are many cosmetic bugs to resolve with the themes. That said, I’m excited to offer this feature for those who desire it. I have no targeted release date, but Fidgetr 2.0 will require WP 2.8+. Fidgetr 1.3.5 is almost certainly the last 2.7 compatible release.

Various Useful OS X Shortcuts

Posted by on October 7, 2009 No comments

A few random shortcuts I use on a daily basis…1

  • You can specify a unix path with the go to folder command in Finder? ⌘-⇧-G
  • Using ⌘-1 through 9 in Safari will take you to your Bookmarks Bar bookmarks. Folders will be ignored in the numbering
  • If you’re in a file selection dialog you can use ⌘-D to go to Desktop. Similarly ⌘-⇧-A works for Applications, ⌘-⇧-C for computer view, ⌘-⇧-H for home, and ⌘-⇧-I for idisk (automounts)
  • If you have a save/don’t save dialog up you can select don’t save with ⌘-D
  • ⌘-click on a window’s title bar (in Finder, Safari, and other apps) to see a hierarchical menu
  • Drag/drop the icon in the title bar of document windows in nearly any application to perform drag/drop operations. For example, you can drag a Word/Excel doc to Mail.app or Entourage to immediately open a new email with that doc attached.
  • Hold ⌥ and drag a file in the Finder to copy it to a new location.
  • Hold ⌥-⌘ and drag a file in the Finder to create an alias at the new location.
  • In cocoa applications you can use emacs shortcuts.
  • When browsing lists in the Finder type the first few letters of the file you’re going to and it will immediately scroll to the first occurrence of the characters alphabetically.
  1. For the shortcuts ⌘ means command (also known as the apple key), ⇧ means shift, and ⌥ means option ↩

Ubuntu 9.10 In VMware – Updated

Posted by on October 5, 2009 20 comments

Update 2: Preliminary 10.04 instructions are available here. No real obstacles for those running the latest Fusion/Workstation.

Update: If you’re using VMware Fusion 3.0 or any VMware Tools version 8.2.3-204229 or better you can follow a drastically simplified process. sudo apt-get install build-essential, choose install VMware Tools from the menu, copy tar to desktop, untar, sudo ./vmware-install.pl and follow the instructions. Simple!

With the release of the Ubuntu 9.10 RC it’s time to revisit installing Ubuntu into a VMware VM. I’m using VMware Fusion 2.0.x, but behavior should be largely the same for any recent VMware release.

First, create a new VM and point the installation disk at your Ubuntu 9.10 ISO. At this time I would not recommend using “easy install”, so uncheck that and continue. If you wish to use the graphical installer you’ll need to increase the RAM allocated to your VM from 512MB to 768MB.1

Now you can boot your VM and follow the graphical installer. Once complete your VM will hopefully reboot properly and ask you if you want to force the CD to disconnect (you do). If this doesn’t occur, force the guest to shut down, disconnect the ISO in the settings, then boot the VM again.

The official VMware Tools do not work properly due to the newer kernel (2.6.31), so we’ll need to build the open-vm-tools for this kernel. Follow the steps below to build them yourself or simply download the AMD64 deb package I have already built for the modules.2

  1. Obtain the build prerequisities3 
    sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools build-essential open-vm-toolbox
  2. Run module assistant to build the modules 
    sudo m-a
  3. Choose select and activate open-vm
    Select open-vm
  4. Click okay, then select build
    Screen shot 2009-10-25 at 12.41.35 PM
    Screen shot 2009-10-25 at 12.37.37 PM
  5. Once it completes it will ask if you want to install. Choose yes, then quit out of m-a and reboot.
  6. After a reboot check to see that the vm modules inserted into the kernel properly. 
    vmware@vmware-desktop:~$ lsmod | grep vm
vmsync                  5104  0 
vmmemctl               10120  0 
vmhgfs                 59080  0 
vmci                   33952  0

If you see the 4 modules listed above then you should have functioning copy/paste, auto-resolution switching, and even shared folders. However, to enable shared folders you’ll need to follow these steps:

  1. Enable shared folders and add a folder in the VM settings4
  2. Run this command:5 
    sudo mount -t vmhgfs -v -o ro .host:/sharedfoldername /path/to/mnt

Let me know in the comments if you have issues or have improvements to the process. Waiting for the official VMware Tools release is boring!

  1. It may not be necessary to increase it a full 256MB, but the 512MB default causes the install to fail as of the release candidate. ↩
  2. If you choose to install the package, you’ll need to do step 1 and then skip to step 6. ↩
  3. open-vm-toolbox is only required for desktops ↩
  4. If you get a message about “Unable to update run-time folder sharing status: The command is not recognized by the Guest OS tools” you can ignore this error. ↩
  5. You can change ro to rw if you want your shared folder to be read/write capable ↩