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Support Overview

A guest operating system is an operating system installed on a host machine (a physical machine) and run virtually on VMware.  IS&T supports installation of Windows (XP and Vista) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux as guest operating systems on VMware Fusion and Workstation.

Athena guest operating systems are not yet recommended or supported by IS&T.  There are several known issues in the areas of networking, licensing, authentication, and time synchronization.  The IS&T Vmware project team is currently reviewing these issues and may offer Athena guest operating system support in the future if they are resolved.

Virtual machines not created by VMware (converted from other virtualization systems)are not supported or recommended by IS&T.

Licensing

Licensing Statement 
You are responsible for ensuring that all software (applications and operating systems) you run on your virtual machines are licensed to run on those virtual machines.  Be aware that some vendors may have licensing restrictions related to virtual machines.

OS Licensing Overview
Note: this information is not comprehensive.  Review your licenses for additional information.

  • Apple does not allow Mac OS X Client to be virtualized.  Mac OS X Server's license does allow for virtualization on Apple-labeled hardware, but VMware Fusion does not currently support it.  Should VMware Fusion ever support Mac OX Server, you would need an individual Server license for each virtualized server in addition to the license for your host OS.
  • Microsoft permits Windows licensing on VMware.  In most cases, Microsoft Campus Agreement licenses allow up to four virtual instance installations.  Review the Microsoft Campus Agreement at MIT to determine your eligibility.
  • Red Hat permits Enterprise Linux licensing on VMware.  Each virtual installation is considered a separate computer requiring an individual license.

Before You Begin

  • Review the Known Issues to avoid any known pitfalls. 
  • Back up your system. Before beginning any installation, IS&T recommends you have a current and complete backup of your existing system. While we have tested the install process, there is an infinite number of possible system configurations, and some may cause problems.
  • Note:  64 bit virtual machine guests will only run on 64 bit host operating systems.  64 bit hosts will support both 32 bit and 64 bit guest virtual machines. For more information see: Vmware's knowledge base article: Hardware and Firmware Requirements for 64-Bit Guest Operating Systems
  • Carefully plan your disk allocations.  Do not over-allocate your disk. It is dangerous to tell VM ware to make images that, if they all grew to their full size, would take up more disk space than you have free.  If this happens, VMware may pop up an alert warning you when you're about to use up more space than you have.  That would give you a chance to free up disk space or exit cleanly.  We don't recommend relying on the warning. There's no guarantee it will appear before bad things (data loss or corruption) happen.
  • Obtain the necessary install media for your guest OS.  Note: IS&T provided student downloads of Windows XP must be installed within five days or they will expire.

 Installing

  1. Follow the instructions in VMware's Guest Operating System Install Guide[PDF]
  2. Install/configure the auto-update service for your guest operating system, if needed.  For more information, see: Red Hat Network and MIT Windows Automatic Update Service (WAUS)
  3. Install available OS updates and virus protection software to secure your machine.

Using your Virtual Machines

We strongly recommend treating each virtual machine as if it was a physical machine for most activities.  Virtual machines are vulnerable to most of the same things as physical machines including data loss/corruption, hardware failures, viruses, and hackers.  Install and use virus scanning software.  Take regular updates to your operating system, preferably via an automatic update system.  Make regular backups of important data.  Follow the recommended best practices for your guest operating system.  In most cases, simply treat your virtual workstation as you would any other machine.

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