Run on a VM for dev

Product support balenaOS
1

Hi,

Is there any plans to roll out an Intel version ? Something that can run in VirtualBox/VMware ?

Would make for a great dev environment IMHO.

Thanks,

Pieter

2

Hi Pieter, there are various supported x86/64 devices. If you wish to run one under virtualisation the current recommended combination is Intel NUC device type and VirtualBox. You can read more about this on our blog post here: https://www.balena.io/blog/no-hardware-use-virtualbox/. Cheers!

4

Thanks - didn’t see that !

5

I see you can’t add a NUC to an Application that “started” with a Rasp PI 3

(I am sure there are good reasons for this :slight_smile: )

7

Hi there!
When you create a new application you can only add devices that are of the same architecture on it. Intel NUC architecture is amd64, when RPi3 is usually armv7hf.
I hope this makes sense :slight_smile:

9

Yeah, sure does - I can see why this is implemented :slight_smile:

11

For those that want to run this in VMWare, here is what I had to do:

Before you do this, create a USB stick (4gig) with the Generic x86_64 image - balenaEtcher works fine here (I am on a Mac)

  • Create a VM with some basic specs - I bumped the RAM in the default “Linux/Other 64-bit” to 2 gig

  • Move the hard disk (8 gig by default) from the SCSI controller to the IDE - any position except IDE0/Master will do

  • Under VM Options, change the boot method to EFI

  • Connect to the VM using VMRC, not the web interface

  • Power up the VM

  • Attach the USB stick to the VM

  • Reboot the VM

Here I had to press F2 and enter the boot menu manually, I then had to find the flash device and manually navigate to the .efi file. Once there, hit enter to boot. The screen will go black and if you look at your balenaCloud dashboard you will see the device installing. From here it should be smooth sailing.

If you see an error about not finding a device by label (resinroot-A) then go back and ensure that the harddisk is mapped to the IDE controller - balenaOS doesn’t have any of the drivers for the other options.

@wrboyce and @georgiats - hit me up with a DM if you want some images for this for a wiki page - it would also be nice for someone to double check this :slight_smile:

12

Great to hear it works @dewitpj and thank you for the instructions!

14

I tried to do it as described for VirtualBox (no USB but two virtual disks).
I get Root /dev/disk/by-label/flash-rootA doesen’t exist or does not contain a /dev · Issue #2027 · balena-os/meta-balena (github.com), whatever combination of Hard Drives I do (order, SCSI or IDE).

Event tried to convert VDI to VMDK to run the VB installation in VMWare but it does not startup.

By the way, SCSI should be supported as the VirtualBox description used SCSI

15

if you use VB don’t forget to switch the network adapter to Bridged to reach it by its local IP, see VirtualBox Network Settings: All You Need to Know (nakivo.com)