I have a Windows Server 2008 Virtual Machine setup on my VMware Server install for testing purposes. I had just about finished installing and configuring the OS when I attempted to install VMware Tools and receieved the follwing error:
VMware Tools is not supported on this guest OS.
Check the virtual machine’s configuration to make sure the settings match the installed operating system. Consult the documentation for more details about supported guest operating systems.
The Fix:
- Create a new VMware Datastore pointing to the VMware Server install directory %HOMEDRIVE%\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server
- Select the unsupported OS Virtual Machine and Edit the CD/DVD drive settings found under Hardware
- Select ISO Image and browse for the appropriate Operating Systems VMware Tools ISO file (in this case windows.iso)
- Click OK and restart the Virtual Machine
The ISO will now be mounted as the CD/DVD drive for the Virtual Machine - Browse the contents of the guest OS CD/DVD drive and run the VMware Tools setup (in this case setup.exe)
You will now have a fully functional install of VMware Tools on your unsupported OS.
I recently installed Windows 7 on my desktop PC at work. I use VMware server quite heavily to assist in testing various aspects of both client and server Operating Systems. So I downloaded and installed the latest version of VMware Server only to be confronted with the following error when attempting to access the VMware Servers web interface:
The VMware Infrastructure Web Service at “http://localhost:8222/sdk” is not responding (Connection Refused)
So I head towards the first port of call and make sure the required services are all started. Sure enough, the VMware Host Agent service has not started and can also not be started manually.
The Fix:
- Make sure that you are logged onto the PC as an administrator
- Browse to %HOMEDRIVE%\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Server\hostd
- Delete the datastores.xml file from this directory
- Restart the VMware Host Agent service
The datastores.xml file will now be regenerated automatically and the VMware Host Agent service will start. You will now be able to log into the VMware Server web interface as normal.
As promised the configuration of the Moodle-Google Integration plugin:
- Download Google-Moodle Integration plugin
- Unzip the files and upload them to your Moodle installation
- Login to your Moodle site and click Notifications to update the newly installed blocks
- From the Users menu, select Authentication then Google Authentication
- Enter your Google domain name
- On your Moodle server create the private and public keys:
Private Key (stored in Moodle only)
Command: openssl genrsa -out rsaprivkey.pem 1024(Visit Google Documentation for Key Generation Help)
Public Key (stored in Moodle and Google)
Command: openssl req -new -x509 -key rsaprivkey.pem -out rsacert.pem(Visit Google Documentation for Key Generation Help)
- Upload the created RSA Key File (rsaprivkey.pem) to Moodle (Users -> Authentication -> Google Authentication)
Upload the created SSL Signing Certificate (rsacert.pem) to Moodle (Users -> Authentication -> Google Authentication) - Login to your Google Apps Admin Control Panel (http://google.com/a/yourdomain) in a new window
- Browse to Advanced Tools – > Authentication -> Setup Single Sign-on (SSO)
- Check the Enable Single Sign-on box
- Copy and paste the Sign-in, Sign-out and Change Password page URL’s from the Setup Instructions box located on the Google Authentication setup page in Moodle
- Upload the Verification Certificate (rsacert.pem created in step 6) and Save the changes in Google Apps
- In your Google Apps Control Panel, browse to Users and Groups -> Settings and check the Enable Provisioning API box
Save the Changes
(This allows users to be updated) - Browse to Advanced Tools -> Manage OAuth Domain Key
- Upload the created certificate (rpacert.pem from step 6)
- Copy the OAuth Consumer Secret
- In Moodle, enable all Google Blocks and add them to the Front Page of your Moodle
(I had issues with a couple of the blocks and therefore only enabled the GMail Block. See how you go but if you have issues disabling the other plugins would be the first port of call) - Browse to Modules -> Blocks -> GMail Blocks and paste the Google OAuth Consumer Secret into the supplied field
Save the Changes - Select the Google User Sync block from Modules -> Blocks and fill in your Google Admin info.
Save the Changes - Test the config…
Our current configuration allows our staff and students to login to Moodle using their Active Directory credentials (via the Moodle LDAP authentication plugin) and link straight to their GMail account. This has allowed us to continue to provide a complete Single Sign-on (SSO) environment for our users.
The school I work at currently uses Moodle as our chosen LMS for students. Moodle is linked with our School Management system to sync courses, assignments and course enrollments among other things. This greatly assists in minimising administration work, but more on this at another time…
Our school also uses Google Apps Education Edition to provide our students with Email accounts and usage of the other Google Apps services. Google provides a great LDAP sync tool that can easily sync users and groups memberships but lacks a way to sync users passwords (not secure). For this to be possible a Single Sign On (SSO) system must come into the equation. These systems can cost thousands of dollars (depending on user numbers) from 3rd party developers or require a large amount of IT admin time and server resources to perfect a solid solution. I searched long and hard for a suitable tool for this job and tried a number of solutions but none worked well enough for my liking.
At the same time that I was searching for solutions for this issue I was also browsing around for some useful Moodle plugins. This is where I came across the Moodle-Google Intergration plugin that would solve all my issues. The plugin provides a SAML based authentication method to allow users to use their LDAP credentials (LDAP must be configured in Moodle) to log into their Google Apps account. This plugin talks with the SSO feature built into Google Apps via SAML 2.0 post and the use of the generated keys and certificates for security. Users then login to Moodle and from there can access their Google Apps account.
More to come on the configuration of this plugin. Stay tuned…
I was asked by one of the staff members at the school I work out how to convert MP4 files to AVI. The staff member needed a quick, simple and free way of doing this so that the files could be imported into Windows Movie Maker. A quick Google search and I came across a nice little program called MP4Cam2AVI.
MP4Cam2AVI allows you to convert and/or join MP4 or MOV files to AVI in four easy steps:
- Browse to the location of the video file/s you wish to convert.
- Select the video file/s from the listing.
- Select the appropriate action to perform on the video/s (Join or Batch Convert).
- Select the Output directory and start the conversion.
The resulting video file/s can now be imported into Windows Movie Maker.
I was asked to explore the idea of setting up virtual PC’s for students use to allow them to “fiddle” with the software side of a computer without disrupting the school’s network. Strangely enough I was already somewhat exploring this issue. I decided to use VMware server as it allowed for greater control over the use and administration of the Virtual Machines compared to VMware player.
I setup an Active Directory group containing the students that would require the access to the Virtual Machines. I then assigned this group the following permissions on the Virtual Machines using the VMware Server console:
- Virtual Machine ->
- Interaction ->
- Power On
- Power Off
- Reset
- Answer Question
- State ->
- Revert To Snapshot
- Interaction ->
The Interaction permissions are fairly self explanetry and the Revert To Snapshot permission allows the student to revert to a clean/working OS using the snapshot I created after I completed building the Virtual Machine.
I then created another Active Directory group containing the teachers that would be teaching the classes and assigned the same roles. I decided that teachers would not require any higher level of permissions than students as I have done all the neccesary work creating the Virtual Machines.
More to come once I have fully implemeted the above…
I am not much of a Mac person although I can see Macs greater performance when it comes to image and video editing, but this is another story. What I do like about Macs is the OS X dock. For me docks are a simple and easy way to store shortcuts to my mostly used programs and folders. In my opinion the best Windows dock out there is RocketDock as it is easy to use, simple to setup and looks good too. Below is a screen capture of my current dock which is set to auto hide at the top of my screen.
Here is a short video and feature list from RocketDock.com:
Features:
- Minimize windows to the dock
- Real-time window previews in Vista
- Running application indicators
- Simple drag-n-drop interface
- Multi-monitor support
- Supports alpha-blended PNG and ICO icons
- Icons zoom and transition smoothly
- Auto-hide and Popup on mouse over
- Positioning and layering options
- Fully customizable
- Completely Portable
- ObjectDock Docklet support
- Compatible with MobyDock, ObjectDock, RK Launcher, and Y’z Dock skins
- Runs great on slower computers
- Unicode compliant
- Supports many languages and can easily be translated
- A friendly user base
- And best of all… its FREE!!!
Download: http://static.slysoft.com/SetupVirtualCloneDrive.exe
I have recently been looking into alternatives to our current out of date Virtual CD software. I have been using other SlySoft products for some time now, but had not really used Virtual CloneDrive at all. Since it is a freeware utility there was no harm in trying.
I have currently only tested the utility out in our testing environment. More to come if we decide to use Virtual CloneDrive as a virtual drive solution…
Follow Me!