Thank you Nick, for your answers. I'll definitely consider them when I'll start to try these things out.
Bogdan ________________________________ From: Nick Holland <n...@holland-consulting.net> To: misc@openbsd.org Sent: Tuesday, February 5, 2013 2:19 PM Subject: Re: openbsd and vmware On 02/05/13 06:03, Bogdan Andu wrote: > Hello, > > A few questions related to openbsd and vmware. > > > What are the best practices to run OpenBSD in vmware? Just Do It? I haven't found any problems running OpenBSD in VMware ESXi or whatever they call it this week. I usually just tell the management tool the VM is a FreeBSD system. However, I'll admit my uses are fairly simple and more development/testing/low-need type stuff...i.e., VM appropriate. > Are there any known problems one should take into consideration > before virtualization? Lots. The exact same as any other OS, though. All eggs in one basket, security farce, complexity leading to increasing downtime, etc. In short, take almost everything VMware calls a benefit, invert, and you are close to reality. But again, nothing to do with OpenBSD. In terms of OpenBSD on VMware benefits...forget vmware tools. Much of the functionality is built into OpenBSD, unlike most other OSs pushed for "virtualizing". > I already have a functional machine runnig OpenBSD 5.2 /amd64 on bare > metal. > > It is possible to create a virtual machine from one already running > apart from installing the os in vm and then migrating and installing > all applications? In almost all cases, you will find OpenBSD much easier than most other OS for this kind of stuff. Take a physical machine, disk image it, drop it on vmware, boot single user, mount root partition, rename hostname.whatever0 to hostname.em0, if you are not using DUIDs (and you switched from wd(4) to sd(4) disks), fix fstab (not necessary if you are using DUIDs), and it will just work (I may be forgetting something, but it's all totally simple). Try that with Windows or Linux -- not gonna happen. Note: P2V by raw disk image is not my recommended way of doing it, but I find the ability to do it shows how darned nifty OpenBSD is about things like this. Nick.
