Workstation virtual machine. Installing and configuring a virtual machine using VMware Player. Shutting down a virtual machine

Getting started with VMware Workstation
(for dummies)

Many people, having heard the term “Virtual Machine”, think that it is very difficult and do not want to use this wonderful and very useful tool, which makes life easier for developers in many ways software, testers, and ordinary users. In this article I will try to dispel the myth about the complexity of working with virtual machines and I’ll walk you through the whole process, starting with installing the virtualization program, ending with installing and configuring the guest operating system. Also, in conclusion, I will give basic techniques for working with a virtual machine.

As an example, I chose the VMware Workstation 7.1.4 virtual machine and the ubuntu-12.04 guest operating system. And I will install and configure all this in the host operating system Window XP.

Well, let's get started and start with a description of the installation process virtual machine.

1. Install the VMware Workstation 7.1.4 virtual machine.

The VMware Workstation 7.1.4 distribution comes as one executable file: VMware_Workstation_7.1.4_Micro_Rus.exe. After launching the executable file, a window appears on the screen showing the process of preparing to install the program (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Preparing to install a virtualization system.

After 10-20 seconds, after collecting all the necessary information and preparing to install VMware, an installation assistant window will open on the screen, first of all warning about intellectual property rights (Figure 2).

Figure 2. VMware Installation Assistant.

Feel free to click the “next” button to proceed to selecting the installation type (Figure 3).

Since the article describes the installation for novice users, let’s not split hairs and choose to install the standard VMware package, which will be sufficient for most user requirements for a virtualization program. In the future, it will always be possible to add components that are not included in the standard package.

Figure 3. Selecting the installation type.

After clicking the “Next” button, the installation assistant will prompt you to select the folder in which the program will be installed (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Selecting an installation location.

After clicking the “Next” button again, a window will open in front of you with a choice of where to place the shortcuts for quick launch of the virtualization program (Figure 5). Where to place quick launch shortcuts is a matter of taste. I find it most convenient to use the Start menu.

Figure 5. Selecting a quick launch location.

This was the last preparation for installation, as you will be informed by the window that opens after clicking on the “Next” button (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Ready to install message.

To start the installation, click the “Install” button and a window will open in front of you showing the installation process (Figure 7). Now you have to wait a couple of minutes.

Figure 7. Installing VMware Workstation.

After the installation is completed, a window will open on the screen informing you about this long-awaited event (Figure 8). Click the “Finish” button to complete the installation and proceed to creating and configuring your first virtual machine.

Figure 8. Completing the VMware Workstation installation.

2. Create a virtual machine.

Creating your first virtual machine will be as easy as installing virtualization software. To create a virtual machine, launch the VMware Workstation virtualization program from the Start menu (Figure 9).

Figure 9. Launching VMware Workstation.

Naturally, the first time you launch the program, it will prompt you to read the license agreement and accept it (Figure 10). We don’t have much of a choice, and if we want to create a virtual machine based on VMware, we agree with it.

Figure 10. License agreement.

As soon as you agree to accept the license, the “VMware Workstation” program window will open in front of you (Figure 11), in which you will be offered a choice of one of three actions:

• create a new virtual machine;
• create new group virtual machines (usually used when it is necessary to create a virtual computing system, for ease of access and work with individual virtual machines that are part of the virtual computing system);
• open an existing virtual machine or group of virtual machines.

Since this is our first launch of VMware Workstation, there is nothing to open yet, and it’s too early to create a group; first we need to learn how to handle a separate virtual machine. Therefore, we choose the first of the proposed options.

Figure 11. VMware Workstation program.

After selecting the first option, the Virtual Machine Creation Wizard window will open (Figure 12), which will help you quickly and easily create and configure your first virtual machine.

Figure 12. Virtual machine creation wizard.

For the first time, we will select a standard virtual machine configuration that will suit most users. To do this, mark the option “Normal (recommended)” in the configuration options offered to choose from and click the “Next” button.

After this, a window for selecting the source for installing the guest operating system will open (Figure 13). I downloaded the Ubuntu 12.04 guest operating system in advance from RuTracker.org as an installation disk image (.iso). Therefore, in the window that opens, select the second option: “Install from an installation disk image” and indicate the path to the required file (ubuntu-12.04-oem-i386.iso).

Figure 13. Selecting the guest OS installation source.

To simplify the installation of the guest operating system, next step, the virtual machine creation wizard will prompt you to specify personal data for installing the guest operating system (Figure 14). In the window that opens, enter your name, username and password.

Figure 14. Entering personal data.

After clicking the “Next” button again, we proceed to setting the parameters of the created virtual machine. First of all, you will be asked for the name of the virtual machine and its location. An example of filling in these parameters is shown in Figure 15.

Figure 15. Name and location of the created virtual machine.

For comfortable work with the Ubuntu operating system, 20 GB is enough. The file size is quite large, so if you plan to transfer it to other computers or make backups, then you should think about the possibility of hosting a virtual hard drive in several files.

Since I don’t have the task of moving or copying a virtual machine, I will select the “Save the virtual disk as one file” option. In addition, the virtual machine works a little faster with such virtual hard disks.

Figure 16. Configuring virtual hard disk settings.

This completes the basic settings of the virtual machine and after clicking on the “Next” button, a window will open showing the parameters of the virtual machine you have set (Figure 17).

Figure 17. Installed virtual machine parameters.

As you can see from the figure, all the basic parameters necessary for comfortable work with the virtual machine are installed:

• hard drive size – 20 GB;
• size RAM– 500 MB;
• network adapter type - NAT;
• input/output devices, etc. – CD/DVD, Floppy, USB controller, Printer, Sound Card.

Almost everyone is here virtual devices and their parameters are quite suitable for normal operation with a virtual machine. If, for any reason, you need to connect additional device or change the parameters of the virtual machine, for example, the amount of RAM, then click the “Hardware setup…” button and select add devices or change their parameters.

Since you can add new devices or change any parameters of a virtual machine without problems even after it is created and the guest operating system is installed, at this stage I will not change anything in the proposed parameters and will proceed to installing the guest operating system.

To do this, just check the box “Run the virtual machine after creation” and click “Finish” to complete the creation of the virtual machine. In this case, the files of your virtual machine will appear in the folder you selected (Figure 18), the virtual machine will start, and the installation process of the guest operating system will automatically begin (Figure 19).

Figure 18. Files of the created virtual machine.

Figure 19. Starting the guest OS installation.

3. Install the guest operating system.

The guest operating system is installed on a virtual machine in almost the same way as on an ordinary computer, but I will still briefly describe the process Ubuntu installations 12.04 as a guest operating system.

Installation of the operating system will begin automatically after the creation of the virtual machine is completed, and after a few seconds a window with the Ubuntu installation wizard will open on the screen (Figure 20), in which you must select the language in which the installation wizard will dialogue with you and select one of the OS installation options :

• try Ubuntu by launching the operating system from the disk;
• install Ubuntu.

Naturally, we choose the second option, since we need a full-fledged guest operating system. Click the “Install Ubuntu” button to begin installing the guest operating system.

Figure 20. Ububtu installation wizard.

If you have slow Internet access or no Internet access at all, or for some reason you do not want to download updates for the operating system you are installing, uncheck the Enable Networking menu item by clicking the button and then clicking on the line in the menu that appears “Enable Networking” (Figure 21).

As a result of these actions, the checkbox next to the “Enable Networking” line should be absent. This will allow you to save a lot of time when installing the operating system, and if you wish, you can update the system and install the latest versions of the software after installing and configuring Ununtu.

Figure 21. Disabling the network during installation.

Before starting the installation, the “installation wizard” will inform you about the required hard disk space and the need to connect to the Internet, which is desirable, but not at all necessary (Figure 22). In addition, if the Internet is slow, the installation process can take a long time.

It is also advisable to allow the installation of Fluendo MP3 to play multimedia content.

Figure 22. Preparing to install Ubuntu.

At the next stage, you need to select a method for partitioning the hard disk into partitions (Figure 23). Since we have created only one virtual hard drive and not very much large size, then we will choose the first option, besides, after creating the virtual hard disk there is no useful information and you can safely format it.

Figure 23. Partitioning the hard drive.

At the next stage, we select the hard drive on which we will install the operating system. And since we have only one virtual hard disk, there is actually nothing to choose from and it will be offered by default. Simply click the “Install Now” button to begin the installation.

Figure 24. Selecting a hard drive for installation.

After clicking the “Install Now” button, files will begin copying from the installation disk image to the virtual hard disk. To save time, in parallel with the copying process, you need to make basic settings for the operating system and the first setting will be to select your location.

You can enter the name of the city or select its approximate location on the map. Once the required city is specified, click the “Continue” button.

Figure 25. Selecting a location.

At the next stage, the keyboard layout is selected (Figure 26). In the same window, you can check your selection and make sure that the printed text is displayed correctly. Usually, by default, the keyboard layout is determined correctly according to the city you specified and no additional actions are required at this stage. Click the “Continue” button to proceed to the next stage of setting up Ubuntu.

Figure 26. Selecting a keyboard layout.

Now you need to set personal data (Figure 27):

• your name;
• computer name;
• username (must not be the same as your name);
• password for logging into the operating system under specified name user.

Here you will be asked to indicate how to log in to the system: automatically or after entering a password. If unauthorized people will have access to your virtual machine, it is better to select the “require a password to log in” option. This will save your personal information intact.

After entering all the data, click the “Continue” button.

Figure 27. Entering personal data.

This completes the basic Ubuntu settings (Figure 28) and the entire further installation process will take place automatically.

Figure 28. Automatic installation of Ubuntu.

During the installation process, advertising screensavers will periodically appear, describing the advantage of the installed operating system over previous versions Ubuntu, which will help somewhat brighten up the wait for the installation to complete. However, the installation process may take several tens of minutes, but fortunately we are installing the operating system on a virtual machine, and you can simply minimize the window with the installation process and go about your business.

When the installation is complete, a message will appear on the screen notifying you that the installation is complete and prompting you to restart your computer (Figure 29). Feel free to click “reboot”, because this only applies to your new, ready-made virtual machine, and not to the entire computer.

Figure 29. Completing the Ubuntu installation.

In a few seconds, a virtual machine window with the Ubuntu operating system installed will open in front of you (Figure 30), revealing the widest possibilities of virtual machines and complexes that you have not yet used. Customize the operating system settings to suit you and enjoy your work.

Figure 30. Operating system Ubuntu 12.04.

4. Basic operations with a virtual machine.

4.1. Starting a virtual machine

From the start menu, launch the virtualization system:

Start->All Programs->VMwre->VMware workstation

In the window that opens, select the menu item:

File->Open

And select the virtual machine you created (the .vmw file). My virtual machine is located at the following address:

F:/VM Ware/Ubuntu.vmx

Start an open virtual machine using one of the following methods:

4.2. Pausing the virtual machine.

When you finish working with the virtual machine, you can pause it, which will save the state of the virtual machine at the time you finished working, and you can close the virtualization program.

After resuming work (see section 4.1), the virtual machine will appear in front of you in the form in which you finished working with it. This is the most common and convenient way finishing work with the virtual machine.

You can pause the virtual machine in one of the following ways:

4.3. Shutdown the virtual machine.

To shut down the virtual machine, just complete in a standard way operation of the guest operating system. In this case, the virtual machine will end automatically and you can close the virtualization program.

However, there is also an analogue of the computer buttons “Power off” and “reboot”, which allow you to turn off or restart the virtual machine, regardless of the state of the guest operating system. You can turn off virtual machines:

You can reboot the virtual machine:

• select menu item: VM->Power->Reset;
• press the key combination ctrl+R.

However, the most convenient way to complete work with a virtual machine, in my opinion, is to install it on a slot (section 4.2).

4.4. Connecting removable devices to a virtual machine.

You can connect removable devices in the menu:

VM->removable devices

By checking the box next to the required removable devices, you connect them to the virtual machine; by unchecking the box, you disconnect them. As you can see, everything is very simple.

To make it even easier, I’ll give an example of connecting to a virtual machine USB storage:

• connect the USB drive to the computer and after a few seconds in the menu “VM->Removable Devices” a new item will appear with the name of the connected USB drive, in my case it is: Feiya Mass Storage Device;
• check the menu “VM->Removable Devices -> Feiya Mass Storage Device->Connect (Disconnect from Host)”(Figure 31) and after a few seconds a folder with the contents of the USB drive will open on the desktop of your guest operating system (in our case, Ubuntu);

Figure 31. USB connection drive.

For USB disconnect drive, uncheck the box in the same menu.

4.5. Switching between host and guest operating systems.

To switch from the guest operating system to the host operating system, press the key combination ctrl+alt. To return to the guest operating system, click on the window with the guest operating system.

This is quite enough to start working with a virtual machine, and in the future, if you like the capabilities of the new tool, and you will certainly like them, you can easily explore all its capabilities, and I will try to help you in one of the following articles.

When switching to the next version of the Windows operating system, some users are faced with a lack of support for their favorite applications in the new OS. Or it’s even more complicated - you have, for example, OS X, and you need applications that are compatible only with Windows.

At the moment, there are a large number of “virtual machines” that can solve these inconveniences. For example, paid Parallel Desktop and VMWare Workstation, or free options such as Microsoft VirtualPC or VirtualBox from Oracle.

We have already talked about VirtualBox in articles:

• Creating a virtual computer and installing Windows on it using VirtualBox;

Today I will talk about working with .

The process of installing a virtual machine is no different from the installation process regular programs, so you can skip it. After installation and reboot, the main program window will appear.

Everything in this emulator is easy to configure. On the left side are the virtual machines that you have installed. On the right is the “invitation” window of the program. With its help, you can create or open an existing virtual machine, connect to remote server and much more. At the top there are several panels containing controls.

Creating a virtual machine

In VMWare Workstation, you can choose several ways to create a virtual machine. To describe all possible functions, we will choose a selective method for creating a machine.

In the next window you must indicate compatibility with previous versions of the program.

This is usually used for collaborative work on different configurations. The left side of the window displays the products compatible with this machine, and the right side shows the restrictions that apply to the machine. this configuration. Now this is not important, so we leave everything as it is.

The next step is to install the system on a virtual machine.

In this case, you can specify as a real drive hard drives, and a virtual image. Or you can choose installation media later, right when the virtual machine starts.

Then you need to select the operating system you are going to install.

In accordance with your choice, the program will offer the optimal set of settings for a specific system. Next, you need to come up with a name for the virtual machine, as well as the folder in which it will be located.

On most modern computers The processor has more than one core. In the program you can also set the number of cores that you want to use in the guest system.

Note: You should not give the virtual machine too many physical resources. The computer will run slower, and you will not get a big increase in the performance of the guest system.

At the next step, you need to specify the amount of RAM that will be allocated to the virtual operating system. The program will also warn you about the minimum amount of memory at which the system will function, and will also indicate a limit beyond which you should not go. IN in this case It is recommended to leave the value that the emulator program initially specified.

The next step is to specify the type of network you want to use.

In this case, if you do not understand network technologies, nothing needs to be changed. After installation, the virtual machine will have a network and you will not have to configure it separately.

The next step asks you to select the disk on which the system will be stored.

You can create a new virtual disk or use an existing one. You can also allocate part of the physical disk for system operation. In the first two cases, a virtual hard disk will be created in the form of a specific file or group of files. The configurator will then prompt you to select a virtual disk type. Since SCSI is either not supported on older systems or does not work well, it is advisable to choose the IDE interface.

Next, you need to specify the size of the future disk. In this case, we can specify a space slightly larger than what we need. In this case, you can select all disk space immediately, or you can fill it gradually so that the empty space is virtual disk did not take up real gigabytes. For convenience, the program will offer you to split the disk into several files, or save everything in one.

In conclusion, it is worth familiarizing yourself with the parameters of the created VMWare Workstation virtual machine. If everything is in order, then click the “Done” button, otherwise you can go back and change any parameter.

The right side of the program now displays a black screen indicating that the virtual machine is disabled, as well as information about the virtual machine's hardware. The process of installing the system on a virtual machine should be skipped since it is no different from installing a real operating system.

Procedure for starting a virtual machine, pausing and shutting down

So now everything is ready to launch. If you already have a system on a virtual machine (VM), then you can simply launch it. Or install the system on a newly created machine.

There are two options:

1. If there is a VM, then in the window on the main tab you need to select “Open” and select the VM (file with resolution .vnw).
2. After adding (or after creating a new one), you need to start the VM by clicking on the start button, which is located at the top of the window under the “Edit” menu, or by selecting the menu item Virtual Machine - Power -> Resume, or by pressing the key combination Ctrl + B.

It is worth noting that the virtual machine can be paused. In this case, its full state at the time of shutdown will be preserved and the virtualizer program can be closed. After resuming operation, all windows open source software and even processes in memory will remain in the same state in which you left them. This is the most convenient option using a virtual machine because you don't have to wait for it to load. There are three ways to pause a VM:

1. Click the “Pause” button at the top of the window, under the “Edit” menu
2. Select the menu item Virtual Machine - Power - Suspend
3. Press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Z

There is also a less convenient way to shutdown a virtual machine and virtualizer program - shutdown the guest operating system as if you were shutting it down on regular computer. Moreover, if you turn off the machine using VMWare capabilities, the system will automatically shut down, as if you had pressed Power button on the system unit.

You can shut down a virtual machine in the following ways:

1. Click the “Stop Virtual Machine” button, which is located under the “Edit” menu
2. Select the menu item Virtual machine - Power - Power Off
3. Press the key combination Ctrl+R

It is worth noting that sooner or later you will have to shutdown/reboot the VM because... “garbage” will accumulate in the guest operating system, which will disappear only after a reboot. It will gradually accumulate and eventually make the machine work slowly.

Everything is fine: the guest system is up and running, but it may not allow the mouse to leave its working window. In this case, if you want to leave the virtual system, you need to press the Ctrl+Alt key combination. However, there is a set of drivers that, by installing them, you do not have to do this. The system integrates into the host machine and you can switch between them without any problems.

You can do this as follows: go to the Virtual Machine menu - Install/reinstall the VMWare Tools package.

The VMWare Tools package installs drivers for sound cards, video adapters and other equipment.

An important fact is that VMWare Tools can work with several guest systems at the same time. In this case, each system will work independently of the others. The number of simultaneously running systems is limited only by the physical capabilities of your computer. And you, as a user, can switch between them using tabs.

There is a problem: let's say that the system has become unstable and you need to press the Ctrl+Alt+Delete key combination, but the task manager of the host system is called. You can send a similar combination to the guest system using the Virtual Machine menu - send the command Ctrl+Alt+Delete.

Everything is fine: the guest system is functioning and you are satisfied with almost everything, but there is one problem: the system screen is too small and this makes the work inconvenient. There are several ways to fix this problem:

1. If you have a large diagonal monitor, you can simply increase the screen resolution.

2. There is a more elegant approach: you can enable “single mode”. This is a mode for integrating the guest operating system into the main one. At the same time, you will be able to work in parallel with applications of both the host and guest systems. Worth noting. That the entire screen will be used and the resolution of the guest system will be the same as that of the host. In order to switch to this mode, you need to click on the “Unified Mode” button, which is located in the menu under the “Tabs” menu, or go to the menu View - Unified Mode

3. It is possible to expand the operating system to full screen, completely covering the main workspace. This can be done by clicking on the " Full screen mode", which is located between the Virtual Machine and Tabs menu, or go to the View - Full Screen menu. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Enter. In this case, the VMWare Tools panel will appear at the top of the system, which will automatically hide if you do not hover over it.

So now we have a working system. It is necessary to add to it network folders– in this case, we will give the system access to the physical hard drive. To do this, you need to shut down the virtual machine.

The system on the virtual machine is the same as on the real one. Accordingly, you need to turn it off like a regular system.

After turning off, you need to click the “Change settings” button and go to the “Options” tab.

In it you need to find the “Shared Folders” option, set the switch to the “Always On” position and select the necessary shared folders for your system. You can specify either a separate folder or an entire hard drive partition.

Apply the changes and boot the virtual machine. Externally the machine has a network, but internally a disk needs to be connected to the system. The easiest way to do this is to open “My Computer” and select “Connect network drive" All! IN virtual system there is access to real data.

There is another, simpler way to transfer files and folders: to transfer data inside a virtual machine, you just need to drag a file from the real system into it with the mouse.

Connecting removable devices to a virtual machine

Sometimes the question arises: “What to do?” if you want to connect a flash card, printer and other devices directly to the machine. In this case, the developers have provided a number of operations that can connect external USB devices.

You can view the list of devices that are available to the machine in the Virtual Machine - Devices menu. There you can also see a list of currently connected equipment. By checking the box next to the required device, you connect it in the guest system; by unchecking it, you disconnect it. It's simple!

For example, if you want to connect a drive to a virtual machine, you need to do the following:

1. Connect the flash card to the computer and after a few moments it will appear in the “Devices” menu;
2. Check the box next to the device and after some time you will see a system message stating that the device is connected.

Conclusion

Another important point: suppose that you reinstalled the operating system, but you still have the VMWare Workstation virtual machine. To run it, you need to open it in the program: Home - Open virtual machine. Then a window will appear upon startup.

In this case, you need to click the “I copied it” button. And the virtual machine will boot. Running virtual machine:

In conclusion, it is worth noting that a virtual system is a very useful and, at times, indispensable device. The undoubted advantages of a virtual machine are such features as:

• If desired, you can virtualize any operating system and, accordingly, if the system is old, then old programs that cannot run on modern hardware will work with it;
• Each system is independent, which allows you to conduct experiments without fear of “killing” the OS;
• You can create almost any hardware configuration and test the system's performance on it.

However, there is also a downside to the coin - the VMWare Workstation program is paid and costs 8,300 rubles. Buy it or use analogues - it's up to you.

Hello everyone, today I want to continue the topic of setting up home virtual infrastructure on Wmware workstation. And today we will look at how to configure a Wmware workstation network for virtual machines. What types of networks are there and what each type is used for, understanding these tenets will greatly expand your capabilities in terms of using this hypervisor.

And so last time we created a virtual machine and installed an operating system on it. Now let's assume that you are creating another virtual machine and want to organize an Active Directory domain, but for this you need to configure a Wmware workstation network. Let's look at where this is done and what the Vedas of the network are.

Types of Wmware workstation networks

And so what types of networks are there in this type of virtualization:

• Bridge > connect directly to the physical network. bridge, as it is also called, combines several ports into a virtual switch; in fact, you will see your network interface in the virtual machine.
• NAT > essentially creates several separate network interfaces through which your virtual machine receives the Internet, the physical adapter naters the virtual adapter.
• Host-only > private host-only network is essentially a closed local network that Wmware workstation sets up between the physical computer and the virtual machine.
• Other. specify a virtual network > essentially a closed, isolated network
• Segment local network> an isolated network created by you personally, traffic runs only between virtual machines.

How to set up a network

To do this, go to the virtual machine parameters and select a new or existing one network adapter. The default is NAT, in this setting there is a built-in DHCP server that gives you an internal IP address. Also, when installing VMware, two network virtual interfaces are created on your physical host, through which traffic is proxied.

Here are the network interface settings for the vm machine:

• ip address 192.168.145.128
• default gateway 192.168.145.2
• DHCP server 192.168.145.254

Let's look at the settings of the network adapters that you have added to your physical computer:

• IP address 192.168.145.1, as you can see they are from the same segment 145. This allows you to receive Internet in a virtual machine.

NAT settings can be viewed in Edit > Virtual Network Editor

In this editor you can set and view NAT parameters

Click NAT Settings, here you can see the gateway 192.168.145.2, if desired, you can replace it with the one you need. Please note, you can even forward ports to the desired machine.

view DNS settings. By default they are set automatically, but you can also set them manually.

DHCP parameters, they indicate the issued pool of IP addresses and lease time.

Let's make a trace from our vm and see the traffic flow. As you can see, the first hop is the gateway, and then the physical interface gateway, where traffic enters through that virtual interface with ip 192.168.145.1.

Bridge Mode

Here are the parameters of my network adapter on a physical computer, as you can see the ip address is 192.168.0.77 and the gateway is 192.168.0.1

And here are the network settings on the Wmware workstation 192.168.0.11 virtual machine and with the same main gateway. From which we can conclude that the network setup was done in one segment, and if I also had a laptop connected via WiFi, then I would have direct access to the virtual machine from it, since they would be on the same local network. The only thing is that everything would go through the physical adapter of the computer where virtualization is configured.

Node only

We continue with VMWare Workstation network settings and set the value For node only. And so now your virtual machine receives an IP address from the local network in which there is only it and your physical computer.

On a physical host.

Other: specify virtual network

In this case, you can have both a bridge and NAT, or maybe an isolated network, it all depends on how you configure it in the editor virtual networks.

LAN segment

An isolated network, traffic between virtual machines runs inside the virtual switch and nowhere else. It is created very simply in the virtual machine settings. Click Local network segments > Add..

Now select the created segment, suitable for active domains directory for example.

Bottom line

As you can see, Wmware workstation is currently version 12, a very powerful tool for organizing networks of various levels of complexity and tasks, I think you can come up with scenarios yourself.

VMWare is software for virtualizing a computer and its enterprise-grade components. With a virtual machine, you can install different operating systems and run them simultaneously. This can be very useful for testing various software, Linux distributions, improve security, or work with programs that are not supported by your operating system.

Before we do anything, we need to install the program itself. This is commercial software and is not distributed under an open source license. Moreover, there is a fee for companies to use VMware Pro. But for ordinary users there is a free version of VMWare Player with limited functionality.

With this edition of the program you can do everything you need ordinary users things like creating virtual machines, running them, setting up resources and a lot of other things. Restrictions are placed on features required by the developer, such as deploying machines on multiple computers or fine tuning network interfaces.

Due to the fact that the program is not open source, you will not find it in the official repositories. Therefore, we will need to download the installer from the official website. Here you can find versions for Windows, Linux or MacOS.

Then you just need to run the installer and follow all the steps of the wizard. At one stage you will need to enter your Email address to register the program. We will not dwell further on the installation, since this is already described in the article.

2. Create a virtual machine

The first thing you will notice after launching the program is the interface. It is completely in English, but nothing can be done, there is no Russian language and there are no plans. To run your systems, you first need to create a virtual machine. To do this, select "Create a New Virtual Machine":

On the first screen of the wizard you need to select installation disk for the car. This could be an ISO image saved in file system, or a real optical drive.

One great feature here that VirtualBox doesn't have is that VMware is able to automatically detect a system it knows and perform some configuration steps without user intervention. This makes installation very easy. And many different Linux systems and distributions are supported here.

If supported for your operating system automatic setting, you will be prompted to enter the username and password for the new system:

Select maximum size hard drive, and whether it needs to be split into parts. Typically, if you do not plan to record it on small media, then there is no need to split it:

Last screen, checking settings:

If you press the " "Customize Hardware", then you can configure various parameters hardware, but we will consider this point a little later:

Immediately after pressing the button "Finish" The new vmware virtual machine will start and the installation of the selected system will begin. You may not even have to configure anything during installation; VMWare will do everything itself.

3. Setting up a virtual machine

We are not always satisfied with the default settings. Sometimes you need to change the parameters of various equipment. Select the virtual machine from the menu and click "Virtual Machine Settings" or select the same item from the menu bar for the running machine.

In the window that opens, you can configure various parameters for it. The first tab indicates the size of available RAM.

On the tab "Processor" you can change the processor parameters, namely the number of cores and enable support for AMD-V or Intel-VT virtualization.

On the tab "Disk" you can control virtual hard drive cars. You can view information about the used space, select a connection cable, and also mount the disk to real system to view or change files on it.

Tabs "CD/DVD", "Floppy" allow you to configure those connected to the virtual machine optical discs, images and floppy disks:

On the tab "Network Adapter" you can customize the way you connect to the network. NAT, Bridged and Host-Only options are available. But in most cases NAT is great. Here, all requests from the virtual machine go to the Internet, but the Internet cannot contact it. But in local system a connection can be established between virtual machines and the host via IP and nothing additional needs to be configured here, unlike Virtualbox:

Tab "USB" allows you to configure the used USB version stack. Again, you don’t need to install anything additional:

On the tab "Display" You can customize the screen settings. You can select the number of monitors, enable 3D acceleration, screen expansion, and also set the amount of video memory. For video memory there is no limit of 128 Megabytes, which is very convenient.

Finally, in the section "Options" you can customize the machine name and additional options switching on and operation:

3. Adding a device

Using a button "Add" in the settings window you can add a new device to the virtual machine; it can be a hard drive, network adapter or another type of drive. New devices are added only like this:

For example, to add a hard drive, select in the next step of the wizard "Hard Drive". Disk type - SCSI:

You can create new disk, select an existing one or even add a real disk. To create a new disk, the settings are similar to what we have already seen when creating a virtual machine:

All that remains is to specify the name of the disk file and it will appear in the list:

What's interesting is that you can add disks and other components on the fly, right while the VMware virtual machine is running. At times, using VMWare in this way can be very convenient.

4. Starting the machine

To start a switched off machine, right-click on it and select "Play Virtual Machine":

The download will then begin immediately. If during the WMVare splash screen you manage to click, grab input focus, despite the many interfering pop-up windows and click F2, then you will get into BIOS menu, where you can configure the download priority:

Here everything looks the same as in the BIOS of any regular computer.

3. Working in a virtual machine

By default, input focus is not captured when you hover over a machine. To grab focus you need to click inside the window. You can also use the keyboard shortcut to grab input focus Ctrl+G. To turn off capture and return to the main system, click Ctrl+Alt.

Guest OS additions can be installed here, and if the system is supported, they will be installed automatically, but they are of little use here, because the shared clipboard for Player versions are not supported. But the VMware shared folder is available.

To configure it, open the machine settings, go to the tab "Options", then "Shared Folders".

In the field "Folder Sharing" select "Always Enabled":

Then click the button "Add" and select the desired folder:

Next, the newly created folder will appear in your virtual system. And if it doesn’t appear, then you may need to restart the machine.

5. Cloning the machine

Unfortunately, in free version Snapshots of a virtual machine are not supported, but you can clone it for later use. There is no tool for this. Just copy the machine folder to another location, and then when the time comes, open the menu "Open Virtual Machine" and select the desired folder:

Now setting up vmware workstation will not cause you problems and you know what this virtual machine is capable of and what it is not capable of.

Conclusions

In this article we looked at how to use VMware Player. It's a great virtual machine, but I still prefer VirtualBox. Despite all its features, like the BIOS, automatic installation and graphic settings for almost everything possible, there are no basic functions such as a shared clipboard or system snapshots. What do you think about this? What do you use? Write in the comments!

A virtual machine is a software or hardware system that emulates the operation of one or more operating systems (Windows, Linux, Mac). Since programs for creating virtual machines are equipped with different functionality, I would divide their use into home and for organizations. Homemade means using free software without technical support developers and with limited functionality (but often this functionality is enough), for organizations it is full functionality with the opportunity to ask questions to the developers, but sometimes paying a lot of money for it. In this article I will describe the installation and operation of one of the programs for home use (not for commercial purposes), VMware Player. VMware Player - free for non-commercial use software product, based on virtual VMware machines Workstation (which in turn is a paid product).

First of all, download the installer from the manufacturer’s website VMware Player (at the time of writing latest version was VMware Player 5).
Launch it on your computer. In the welcome window, click "Next".

In the next window, leave the default path or indicate the location where the program will be installed and click "Next".


Then, if you don’t mind sending data to improve the performance of VMware Player, leave a checkmark and click "Next". The checkbox does not affect the operation of the program in any way.


After that, you will choose to install shortcuts on the desktop and in the Start menu or not. You can leave everything as it is and click "Next".


If you are sure about the installation options, click "Continue".


At the end of the installation, a window indicating the successful installation of the program should appear, click "Finish".


When the program starts, a window about licensing appears, read the license and select Yes, I accept the terms in the license agreement(thereby you agree to the license) and click “OK.”


After this, the VMware Player console will launch, now let’s create a virtual machine, to do this, click on the right “Create a new virtual machine”.


In the new window that appears, select what you will install the operating system from, you can specify DVD drive in which there is a disk with the system or indicate the path to ISO image operating system.


Then a window will appear in which you can enter the license key, select the version to install and specify the computer administrator login and password. You can skip everything except the login, but it is written down by default, after you have entered everything you wanted, click "Next".


After this, enter the name of the virtual machine, which will be displayed in the VMware Player console and indicate where the virtual machine will be located locally; I recommend leaving the default path.


After this, specify the disk size for the virtual machine, in in this example I'm installing Windows 7 on a virtual machine, so the default is 60 GB, if you are satisfied with the disk size, you can leave this value, otherwise enter your values.


After this, a window will appear in front of you with all the specified settings, if you think that you have specified everything correctly, click "Finish", otherwise with the button "Back" go back to the step where you would like to change the settings and make the changes.

After pressing the button "Finish" The installation of the operating system will start. It is worth noting that the installation will take place in automatic mode unlike VirtualBox.


If you want to make changes to an installed virtual machine, you need to select the virtual machine in the main VMware Player console (after turning it off) and click “Edit virtual machine settings”.

In the window that opens Virtual Machine Settings in the tab Hardware You can change the hardware, in particular add or reduce the amount of RAM, change the number of processors, add or remove a disk, change network settings or add a network adapter, etc.

In the tab Options, you can change the name displayed in the console, do shared folder etc.