OpenBSD 4.1 on ESX Server 3.0.1
May 23rd, 2007 by slowe
Having tested a couple of the previous releases of OpenBSD on various versions of ESX Server (OpenBSD 3.8 here and version 3.9 here), I decided to test OpenBSD 4.1 on ESX Server 3.0.1. I didn’t really expect any problems at first, but then I stumbled across this article describing a problem between OpenBSD 4.1 and ESX Server 2.5. Fortunately, it appears as if that problem does not affect ESX Server 3.0.1.
The VM configuration was pretty straightforward; just change the SCSI controller to LSI Logic instead of BusLogic and everything should work beautifully. The OpenBSD 4.1 release notes indicate a new driver for the VMware VMXnet NIC driver, but I haven’t had the opportunity to test this yet; my installation is still using the pcn0 driver.
After installing OpenBSD, I was able to successfully install a number of packages using pkg_add (pulling the packages down via FTP). Not confident that I had transferred enough data to be sure that I wasn’t going to see the same issue the other blogger ran into with his installation, I fired up Interarchy and transferred a 450MB ISO file via SFTP. The file transfer completed successfully and I ran into no problems.
I’ll likely experiment with adding the VMXnet driver within the next few days to see how that works and how it affects network performance.
Site Tags: BSD, ESX, Unix, Virtualization, VMware
Related Site Tags: OSS
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007 at 11:13 am and is filed under Unix, Virtualization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 24th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
how did you create the config file for OpenBSD on ESX 3.01?
September 24th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Adam,
Just use the “New Virtual Machine” wizard and select “Other” as the guest operating system. I tested with the LSI Logic SCSI controller, but I don’t know if the BusLogic will work or not. I never did get the VMXnet driver working; instead, I manually modified the .VMX file to use an Intel e1000 card instead.
You’ll have to jump through some hoops (so I hear–I haven’t actually tried yet) to get VMware Tools running, as there is no native OpenBSD set of VMware Tools.
October 26th, 2007 at 11:24 am
I’m currently trying to get the vmware tools installed on a FreeNAS VM in ESX 3.02 and I’m pulling my hair out.
Please post if you do find a way to do this.
Thanks!
November 20th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Did you successfully tested the vic driver with OpenBSD 4.1? Is there good reason to switch from pcn to vic?
Thanks for your feedback!
November 20th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Xavier,
I never was successful in making the vic driver work with ESX Server. I’m not sure what I was doing wrong. One key reason to switch from pcn to vic would be (theoretical) better throughput with lower CPU utilization.
November 28th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I have been using OpenBSD 4.1 on ESX 3.0.1 (at a july2007 patch-level) for about 5 months or so, using the LSI controller and the pcn driver. These systems are deployed as carp/pf/pfsync firewalls and I have enjoyed excellent performance. I’m interested in trying the vic driver, but I unless I see performance problems, I’m hesitant to change a very reliable configuration.
Btw, I have been a casual FreeBSD user for several years, I have been always impressed with how easy and straightforward everything is with Free and OpenBSD. I will probably never buy a Cisco Firewall product ever again. PF is a dream!