Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 documentation covers information on how to install the operating system in a virtual machine. For additional information about the operating system, refer to the instructions included in the installation media.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 documentation includes the following topics:
- Installation Instructions
- VMware Tools in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Guest
- Knowledge Base Articles for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
- VMware Compatibility Guide
Installation Instructions
To install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 in a virtual machine you can use the standard Red Hat distribution CD or the boot floppy/network method. The following installation instructions are for standard distribution CD.
Prerequisites
Before you begin, verify that the following tasks are complete:
- Read General Installation Instructions for All VMware Products.
- VMware Workstation and VMware ACE. When creating the virtual machine, select the LSI Logic SCSI adapter. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 does not include a driver for the BusLogic SCSI adapter.
- Configure the virtual machine with at least 256MB of memory. If the virtual machine has less than 256MB of memory, Red Hat Enterprise Linux presents an error message as it loads certain VMware drivers.
- The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 hugemem kernel is not supported.
- If Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, Update 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 is installed on ESX Server 2.5.x, select BusLogic SCSI as the storage adapter. VMware provides a separate driver to support the BusLogic SCSI adapter. For instructions on downloading and installing the BusLogic driver, see www.vmware.com/download/esx/drivers_tools.html.
- ESX Server 2.5.x supports the LSI Logic adapter on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 6 or later.
Installation Steps
- Insert the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive.
- Power on the virtual machine to start installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.
- Follow the prompts to complete the installation. Be sure to make the choices outlined in the following steps.
- In the Automatic Partitioning screen, allow automatic partitioning.
You might see a warning that begins "The partition table on device <devicename> was unreadable. To create new partitions it must be initialized, causing the loss of ALL DATA on the drive."
This does not mean that anything is wrong with the hard drive on your physical computer. It simply means that the virtual hard drive in your virtual machine needs to be partitioned and formatted. - Click Yes to partition the drive.
VMware ESX Server: If you are using the vlance network adapter in your virtual machine and your computer is connected to a LAN that provides DHCP support, in the Network Configuration screen, you can select the option Use bootp/dhcp. If you prefer, you can also set the networking parameters manually. If you are using the vmxnet network adapter in your virtual machine, use the network configuration tools in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 to configure your network connection after you finish installing the guest operating system. - Install VMware Tools.
VMware Tools in an Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Guest
For information on VMware Tools, see Knowledge base article 1014294, General VMware Tools installation instructions, at http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1014294.
Knowledge Base Articles for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
The following links refer to knowledge base articles on operating system specific issues.- See knowledge base article 1018631 at http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1018631 for information about a kernel panic error that occurs when you install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0, 4.1, or 4.2 on an AMD NPT processor.
- See knowledge base article 8964517 at http://kb.vmware.com/kb/8964517 for information about Enterprise Linux 4 hugemem kernel support.
- See VMware Knowledge Base for a list of known issues about the operating system.
VMware Compatibility Guide
The VMware Compatibility Guide Web site lists supported guest and host operating systems and provides related support information.