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AutoLab on VMware Fusion Documentation

So after my last post about the VMware Fusion and AutoLab goodness, I was pinged by Alastair Cooke on Twitter about possibly writing up the documentation for the VMware Fusion section.  Being the nice guy I am I agreed to do so for the good of such a great project.  So without further adieu, here is the documention for AutoLab and VMware Fusion.

Download AutoLab on VMware Fusion Setup Document

 

 

This document will also be included in the updated AutoLab documentation soon.  Hope this helps everyone out!  If you have any issues then please sound off in the comments or hit me up on Twitter.

AutoLab on VMware Fusion

I have noticed that you can’t find much about installing the AutoLab on a Mac running VMware Fusion.  Here are some notes on getting it going.  The first thing I noticed about trying to get this setup was that we needed to utilize Nicholas Weaver’s UBER Network Fuser.  Why, you ask?  Well, one of the biggest limiting factors between VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion is the inability to create customized networks beyond the defaults.  This tool allows us to create up to 10 other networks beyond the two defaults.  Once you start this tool, you will want to create a network called VMnet3.  This network is one that is used by the AutoLab VMs.  If you read through the AutoLab documentation you will see that it will need to live on the 192.168.199.0/24 subnet…but wait…we can’t edit the subnet in UBER Network Fuser.  Well, here is the way to edit this:

  1. Open up Terminal.
  2. Do the following:  cd /Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion
  3. You will want to edit the file called “networking”.  So:  vi networking
  4. Find the IP that UBER Network Fuser has chosen in this file for VMnet3 and change it to reflect 192.168.199.0.

    Screenshot of the networking file and what to look for.

  5. Save the file.

Are we done?  Nope…one more quick thing before I let you go.  I found that when bringing the AutoLab VMs into Fusion one will want to copy them to their Virtual Machines folder and then rename the VM’s folder to <VMname>.vmwarevm.  This will allow UBER Network Fuser to see the VMs so you can adjust the custom networks as needed.  Now after this has been completed, you should be able to continue through the AutoLab documentation and start placing the content needed on the NAS VM.  if you have any questions then please feel free to ask in the comments.  I will continue to post more as needed as I get this configured on my MBP.

vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate – Part Five

Now that we have a completely working automation workflow with some cool little auto-generated stuff in it, we can move to the presentation of the workflow.  Think of this as the GUI for the workflow.  There are two different presentation views controlled by a single presentation configuration view.  These are:

    • vCO Client Workflow Execution View
    • Web Workflow Execution View

The presentation of a workflow is controlled through essentially an advanced form editor, in my opinion.  This editor is found within the Edit workflow portion of the vCO client.  To get to this you just go edit your workflow as usual and select the Presentation tab in the editor.  I won’t go into too much detail as there isn’t much to really go into.  You can play around with the settings within the presentation section and run the workflow to see what it does.  Try running the workflow from the vCO client and from a webview.  You will see how the form pieces react differently within each type of view.

The presentation of a workflow is important because you give your workflow a polished view to the user executing it.  It can offer a roadmap through the workflow and at the same time give a pleasant experience for the user.  If you would like for a more detailed post about the presentation section then please feel free to say so and I will do my best to accommodate.

I have to say that this series has definitely been a fun one to do.  I hope that this gave you a good introduction into vCO and how you can apply it to your daily tasks.  So kick back, automate, and prepare to have more time to do other things than your daily tasks.  On an ending note, please go grab yourself a copy of Cody Bunch‘s book, Automating vSphere with VMware vCenter Orchestrator.  This is by far a great reference and how-to on real world use cases.  Anyway, have a fun time with Orchestrator and as always, if you have any questions then please sound off in the comments and I will see if I can help!

vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate – Part Four

While learning how to use vCO for automating tasks within my virtual environments I came across the need to auto-generate or auto-populate certain portions of a workflow based on response from a user.  To add to my more recent posts (vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate – Part 1/2/3) I would like to extend on the idea of the minimal user input idea.

Continue reading “vCenter Orchestrator: Operation Automate – Part Four” »

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