Thanks, Hans-Cees! looks good.
SME7 beta 9 installs fine.
I was able to get VMWare from the download page:
http://www.vmware.com/download/player/ 28.2 MB on-disk, not too bad (the download is a bit bigger)
The MD5sum checked out
I got your vmwareshowsme9b.zip with ftp from the mirrors
.. /smeserver/contribs/hanscees/
382 MB on-disk (FTP is much faster)
Note that the readme file is also in the zipped files.
Installed the player by dbl-clicking and walking through the dialogs
I chose to turn auto-run and the google toolbar off.
Extracted the vmwareshowsme9b.zip to a newly-created folder
launched the player, and navigated to the new folder in the dialog that popped up.
SME7b9 opened in just a few seconds! - very nice
Supposedly, the vmware virtual machine can be updated over the network. By YUM, for example. Need to test this.
%%% Some suggestions: %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
rename your zip file to something like VMWP-SME7-b9-6JAN2006-00.zip or something. These files are huge (not nearly as bad as Qemu's but still), and it will save trouble if we can tell at a glance which file is exactly what SME vm, when we need to delete some. Adopting a standard naming convention will be a big help.
Add a VMWP-b9-6JAN2006-00.md5 file, for download. I got
504d36b828b26daaef19cec83d50b697 *vmwareshowsme9b.zip for the downloaded file.
Are you in compliance with the EULA?
http://www.vmware.com/download/eula/player_distribution.htmlIf so, it looks like you could also include a copy of the player in your folder, which would download faster via FTP or rsync. If not, or you're not certain, let's contact VMWare and make sure we're in compliance.
%%% Network connectivity: %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Have to think about the best way to configure things so that SME Server or pkgs can be tested. As is, the SME7b9vm is in server-gateway, with it's external NIC with an IP address on my home network, but VMWare is in the middle, and the SME7b9vm is only connected to my host machine. I've got ZoneAlarm on the host as well, some folks may have XP's firewall. Then, my client is on a network behind a 'real' SME Server.
There is a net-config app bundled with the player (vmnetcfg.exe) - we may be able to get full connectivity that way. Just have to figure out how.
There is also a registry hack to allow one or the other (or both) of the VMware Network Adapters to be bridged with the actual NIC on the host machine.
http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1212They say they shut it off to keep DHCP traffic from 'leaking' on to the physical network, but SME has it's own DHCP Server, we should be able to shut this off in VMWare, and just use the client, or a static IP (phys net). This is the way I've been running SME under QEMU, and it works fine. I'd rather do everything within VMWare (just because), though.
Anyway, thanks! It looks very promising to me. I hope with this tool, more people will help test updates to SME Server v 6.0 - we're very short-handed.
RonM