I have a habit of running google:”VirtualBox” or google:”VMware” image and run it in google:”headless mode”, … blindly 
…, without checking config file. I own VMware Workstation so this is possible.
AFAIK, this is OK with VirtualBox. It enables google:”RDP” be default. So, one can always connect from remote Windows,.. or google:”SunRay”, etc.
Today, I learned VMware doesn’t take care of enabling google:”VNC” remote access. The VM I tried is from:
Communications Suite 7: Installing the VMware Image – Factotum
Communications Suite 7 VMware image is a simple and portable method for demonstrating Communications Suite 7 features without the overhead of installation and configuration.
I started this vm like:
$ vmrun start SunJava_Comms_Suite7u0_VM/*.vmx nogui
I tried to access it from VNC viewer on Windows. Failed… So, what did I do ?
I could have google:”ACPI” shut down this vm pretty much safely like this and configure vnc and restart it.
$ vmrun stop SunJava_Comms_Suite7u0_VM/*.vmx soft
Instead, I chose to ssh into this vm. First, I checked how vm guest network is configured.
$ grep connection SunJava_Comms_Suite7u0_VM/*.vmx ethernet0.connectionType = "nat"
It’s google:”NAT”. This means it uses google:”VMNet8″ subnet on host. And if guest is set up for DHCP, it would get IP address from dhcp server for vmnet8.
$ grep ethernet.*Address SunJava_Comms_Suite7u0_VM/*.vmx ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:55:ce:5b" ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0" $ grep -B 3 00:0c:29:55:ce:5b /etc/vmware/vmnet8/dhcpd/dhcpd.leases lease 172.16.128.130 { starts 3 2010/01/20 05:56:45; ends 3 2010/01/20 05:56:44; hardware ethernet 00:0c:29:55:ce:5b; $ ping -b 172.16.128.255 WARNING: pinging broadcast address PING 172.16.128.255 (172.16.128.255) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 172.16.128.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.042 ms 64 bytes from 172.16.128.130: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=1.63 ms (DUP!)
Voila! Now, I can ssh.
$ ssh root@172.16.128.130 Warning: Your password has expired, please change it now. New Password: Re-enter new Password: sshd-kbdint: password successfully changed for root Last login: Tue Dec 15 02:26:34 2009 from 10.1.110.19 Sun Mircosystems Inc. SunOS 5.10 Generic January 2005 Sun Communications Suite 7 Deployed via the EMRA Toolkit (version 7.0-0.02) Virtual Machine Built: 12:15:00:44.25-2009 Product: Messaging Server (64bit) 7u3 Version: 7.3-11.01 Product: Comms DSsetup 6.4 Version: 6.4-5.05 Product: Calendar Server 7 Version: 7.0-0.26 Product: Instant Messaging 8u2 Version: 8.2-02.04 Product: Convergence 1u3 Version: 1.0-10.01 Product: Indexing and Search Service 1.0 Version: 1.0-32.01 Product: Comms Delegated Administrator 7 Version: 7.0-1.00 Product: Calendar Server 6.3 Version: 6.3-19.01
Nice! I didn’t know that Solaris can set expiration on root password.
