VMWare is finally free
I’m not a huge fan of virtualization in production environments (feels an awful lot like putting all your eggs in one basket and slowing everything down in the process) but you cannot beat it for testing. Today I found out that VMWare server is now free for download. Their major upsell is service contracts and add-ons, but if you don’t tend to use that or need it for testing and you run Windows but want to run other operating systems or perform potentially dangerous tests, this is the software for you.
If you’ve never played with VMWare before you’re missing out. You can read from a bootable ISO or you can compile your own OS into what is essentially a large file that represents the computer’s disc. That computer can be copied too. So if you want to run a dangerous test, you copy the file, boot it, install your dangerous software, run it, perform your tests, then shut it down and delete it without worry since it never touched your real drive or your original image. Perfect! If you’ve got an extra copy of a distro lying around that you never got to play with and didn’t feel like repartitioning a drive, this is definitely the software for you.
January 11th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Yeah it’s cool stuff, I currenty run BSD in it ^^
January 11th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Definitely a good news!
I already have some virtual linux box which is good for testing…
January 11th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I’m looking for white papers, commentary, analyst reports on securing VMs in production environments. How do these VMs get patched/updated?
January 12th, 2007 at 10:40 am
We use VMWare for a lot at work (we basically build all new boxes in the lab, in VMs *if possible*). It’s a vulnerability lab, so it’s not really a production enviroment, err… it’s mainly used for research, development and QA. But, to the point, VMWare has provided a lot of pre-installed OSes and software as “VMWare appliances”. These also work in VMWare Player, if you have it (I believe it’s also free).
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/
January 12th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Sorry for the comment spam, if you combine this with my previous comment, feel free to do so.
I believe VMWare Server going freeware, falls under “Give away the recipe and open the restraunt” in Eric Raymond’s ‘The Magic Cauldron’ (The Cathedral and the Bazaar). A very good book about open source strategies, etc..
January 14th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Virtualization Software is, no doubt, the future of Computer Security.
Now, on a PC level it’s very cool & useful to run one or more OS under your primary OS (Windows?). For example you can have your virtual Linux System (most popular choice) for experiments/programming/etc or, like RSnake said, testing “dangerous” installations and doubtful configurations of your primary OS.
Personally, I run Windows on my Laptop (don’t want to miss all the cool Utilities that IBM has, sadly, NOT developed for Linux) but I need Linux mostly for programming and a few tests. So I use VMWare to set up a fully operational Slackware 11.0 with network access and a couple of services and I’m happy with it
Finally, I believe Virtualization will grow even bigger in the near feature and even lead to certain working models that have been abandoned in the past like the “one mainframe - many terminals”.