Brining up new VM for SugarCRM

[kleinicus]

Hello, everyone.
My name is Steve and I am new to SugarCRM Open Source.

I am trying to bring up a new virtual machine for SugarCRM and I am having some difficulty. Here's what I've done so far...

1. I downloaded the appliance version that already exists as a VMDK file. I extracted the files and copied the VMDK file to the VMFS volume on my VMWare ESX server (v. 2.5.3). When I try to create a new virtual machine and use the VMDK file as the existing disk file, ESX server cannot find the file. It shows all of the other disk files of the other virtual machines that are currently running, but it doesn't show the SugarCRM disk file.

2. I downloaded the ISO file from which you can create a CD to install the SugarCRM OS onto an x86 machine. I copied the ISO file to my ESX server and used it as the disk-based CD to install a new VM. The installation goes fine. When the virtual machine reboots and tries to boot the kernel, the virtual machine turns off. No explanation, no error message, nothing. It just shuts itself off.

I would like to bring up the Linux version of this, as it would save us buying another Windows license. Plus, I could use the experience working with Linux on the server side.
If someone has some advice, I would appreciate it.
Thanks!

SK

[kleinicus]

Okay, I'm starting to get the hang of this...

I attempted option 2 from my above post again. This time it worked. Apparently SugarOS does not support more than one processor. I originally elected to use 2 virtual processors for the VM, and that is apparently what made the kernel crash. When I created a new VM with only a single processor, the VM came up just fine.

Now I face another problem. SugarOS apparently does not support either vlance or vmxnet as valid network interfaces. I tried both of them, and each time the kernel finishes booting up, it does not grab an IP address. Symptoms include:
1. No IP address displayed for logging into the web tool or the administration tool.
2. NTP synchronization fails during services startup.

I tried installing the VMWare tools from Virtual Center to get the drivers installed on the VM, but had no luck.

Can someone tell me how to get the drivers for vmxnet installed?

SK

[nathanbthomas]

I am going to check in with the rPath team on these issues today...will let you know what I find out.

The appliance image was definitely generated initially for Player specifically...no smp support, and ide disks only, but I believe that all of that shouldn't matter if you do a native install from the iso on esx/gsx as you have done.

What I am less certain of is the problems with the network interfaces, only having used player and workstation, which I have never had any issues with.

Nathan

[kleinicus]

Thanks, Nathan! I appreciate it.
It's definitely unusual. I had a guy who knows VMWare really well tell me the same thing, that the appliance was intended for IDE disks and Workstation/Player, rather than ESX server.

I find it interesting that Player and/or Workstation is the intended platform for this system. Do people really have success using the appliance in an enterprise environment just running Player on a Windows server? I find that hard to believe, but maybe so.

Let me know what you find out about this. I would love to run just the appliance version and install from the ISO file if possible.
Thanks again!

SK

[nathanbthomas]

Can you please try the latest version of the appliance and if it works any better? There were a number of fixes made to the rBuilder tool that generates the image, and although there is nothing specific that I know of that explains your behavior the new image might make a difference.

Nathan

[osde.info]

the reason rpath sugar VMDK was IDE was because a long time ago rpath rbuilder only built IDE VMDKs

following feature requests (from myself and others) rpath now lets you choose IDE or SCSI VMDKs

BTW rpath sugar runs great on VMware Player, VMware Server, VMware ESX and Xen DOM0 !