Virtual Machine Installs#
Contributors: Trevor Raty KG6MDW and Tim Wilkinson KN6PLV
The use of virtual machines as AREDN® nodes is for advanced users. Most users should use Mikrotik ac2 or ac3 hardware to achieve similar functionality. These instructions are provided with the assumption that you understand your virtualization platform and are familiar with creating images and uploading virtual disks. The x86_64 image has been tested and is considered stable on the Proxmox, Unraid, QEMU, and VMware ESXi platforms, so usage on other virtualization platforms may not work as expected.
Prerequisites / Image information#
At a minimum the VM must have two virtual CPUs, 64mb memory, and 128mb of storage. Providing more CPU is generally not needed on modern hardware.
There are two modes for networking: single-port and multi-port. Set the number of interfaces before powering on the VM for the first time. Regardless of the number of interfaced created, the node will initially be configured in ‘single-port mode’. This can be changed later in the AREDN UI.
- Single-port mode
All traffic utilizes VLANs as described in the Advanced Options section of the Network Settings dialog in the Node Admin documentation. This requires your virtual interface to be VLAN aware or to be set as a passthrough interface.
- Multi-port mode
Ports can be assigned as needed to be LAN, DtD or WAN links. If your virtual interface is VLAN aware, you can tag VLANs; otherwise the interface should be untagged, which is the recommended setting. As an example, if you have three interfaces defined, you might assign ports as follows:
First interface: WAN
Second interface: DtD
Third interface: LAN
Note
The images do not include any vmtools but they do contain drivers for the standard QEMU/VMware paravirtualized storage and networking. Using the paravirtualized devices is recommended.
Proxmox Installs#
Proxmox Virtual Environment is an open-source server management platform for virtualization. There is an updated checklist of steps for Proxmox installs on the Bay Area Mesh Wiki.
QEMU Installs#
Download the latest firmware image from the AREDN® downloads website.
Extract the .gz file. 7zip on Windows may have issues with the .gz file, so you may need to download gzip for Windows or extract it on a Linux or Mac computer/VM.
Upload/copy the
.imgfile to your VM server. You can rename the image if you desire.Create the VM/Domain on your server and assign the
.imgfile to it.Boot the VM and proceed with the AREDN® node configuration steps.
VMware Installs#
For VMware you will need to use QEMU tools or another V2V converter in order to convert the image to vmdk format. Some example software is listed below:
Download the latest firmware image from the AREDN® downloads website.
Extract the .gz file. 7zip on Windows may have issues with the .gz file, so you may need to download gzip for Windows or extract it on a Linux or Mac computer/VM.
Convert the
.imgto.vmdkusing your V2V converter of choice. For example, if you are using QEMU, open a terminal/command prompt and on Windows navigate to where QEMU is installed (normallyc:\Program Files\qemu\). Run the following command, replacing “aredn.vmdk” and “aredn.img” with the filenames you have chosen.
qemu-img convert -f raw -O vmdk aredn.img aredn.vmdk
If you are using Virtualbox, below is the built-in command, replacing “aredn.vmdk” and “aredn.img” with the filenames you have chosen.
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename aredn.vmdk -rawdisk aredn.img
Create the VM/Domain on your server, but do not assign it a disk.
Upload/copy the
.vmdkfile to your server. You can rename the image if you desire.sshto the ESXi host, navigate to where the.vmdkfile was uploaded and run the following command to verify/fix any conversion issues. This step helps to identify and fix potential image errors.
vmkfstools -i uploaded.vmdk verified.vmdk
Assign the verified
.vmdkdisk to the VM.Boot the VM and proceed with the AREDN® node configuration steps.