This chapter first guides you through installing the hypervisor on the three most common operating systems (Windows, MacOS, Linux). For more information on supported hypervisors, see the hypervisor introduction page.
VMware
You will receive the license key required to use VMware hypervisors from the course leader.
Windows
Start the installation by downloading VMware Workstation Player or VMware Workstation Pro. Run the downloaded exe file and answer the installer questions in the affirmative. If you are prompted to restart your computer at the end of the installation, follow the instructions.
MacOS
Download VMware Fusion to begin installing the hypervisor . Open the transferred dmg file and double-click the install icon. Answer the installer questions in the affirmative. The installer installs VMware Fusion in the Applications folder. Finally, the program asks if you want to move the installation file to the Recycle Bin. You can answer "yes" if you do not want to keep the installation file.
Linux
Download either the VMware Workstation Player or Workstation Pro installation file. After the download is complete, the installation file should be run as sudo or as root, which will install the kernel drivers and VMware applications. If the installation program reported a successful installation, you can finish here. Otherwise, see the following additional instructions.
Additional notes
Unfortunately, the programming interface of the Linux kernel is not stable between versions, so the installation of VMware kernel modules may not be successful if the kernel is either too new or too old. In addition, especially in Rolling release distributions (Arch), other programs may also be an incompatible version (e.g. Python).
Patched versions of VMware kernel drivers are available for use with new kernels. This guide does not apply to all distribution packages, but probably to distributions using the latest kernels. Here's how to upgrade:
$ rm -fdr /tmp/vmware-patch
# replace. workstation-15.1.0 with the downloaded version
$ git clone https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules /tmp/vmware-patch -b workstation-15.1.0
$ cd /tmp/vmware-patch
$ make -j`nproc`
$ sudo make install
$ sudo rm /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libz.so.1/libz.so.1
$ sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libz.so.1/libz.so.1
$ sudo /etc/init.d/vmware restart
The commands should be run again if the system kernel is updated. Avoid running commands as an administrator. For example, the final steps above that only copy files have been done with sudo as an administrator.
!! Update 9/2020: VMware still needs the following change with kernel 5.8:
$ sudo mv /usr/bin/vmware-modconfig /usr/bin/vmware-modconfig_backup
$ sudo ln -s /bin/true /usr/bin/vmware-modconfig
VirtualBox
Windows
Download the VirtualBox installation file to begin the installation . Open the downloaded exe file and answer the installer questions in the affirmative. If you are prompted to restart your computer at the end of the installation, follow the instructions.
MacOS
Download the VirtualBox installation file to begin the installation . Open the downloaded dmg file and double-click the install icon. Answer the installer questions in the affirmative. The installer installs VirtualBox in the Applications folder. Finally, the installer asks if you want to move the installation file to the Recycle Bin. You can answer "yes" if you do not want to keep the installation file.
Linux
The primary recommended way to install VirtualBox on a Linux system is to use the Linux distribution's own package manager. If a distribution package is not available or the available distribution packages are too old, official distribution packages and installation instructions are available on the VirtualBox home page . If the latest version has blocking bugs, older versions will be available on the site.
Gnome Boxes
Gnome Boxes is only available for Linux. Install the operating system distribution package gnome-boxes . The package is available under this name in at least Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, and Arch Linux distributions. The program can then be launched from the desktop menus or the command line with the gnome-boxes command .
If the package does not come with a hypervisor by default, you still need to separately install the kernel KVM modules and libvirt and qemu or qemu-system from the Linux distribution's own package selection.
QEMU
QEMU is only available and tested for Linux. Install the operating system distribution package qemu . The package is available under this name in at least Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, and Arch Linux distributions ( qemu-kvm in Fedora ). The program can then be started from the command line with the command qemu-system-x86_64 .
Also install the following Utilities: 7zip, qemu-arch-extra, virt-manager, libvirt, spice, spice-gtk. If necessary, run modprobe kvm_intel / modprobe kvm_amd before use , depending on the manufacturer of your processor.
After installing the hypervisor, you can next set up the virtual machine.