High-level guidelines for building a Virtual Appliance:

• Start with a new VM
  • Use SCSI VMs for portability and performance
  • Split into 2GB files for size and portability
  • Allocate minimum required mem to the vm (clearly document this)
  • Disable snapshots, do not include snapshot files
  • Remove unused hardware devices
    • i.e - USB, audio, floppy, etc…
    • start devices such as floppy, cd, etc… disconnected
  • Disable “Shared Folders”
  • Avoid the use of serial and parallel ports or other specialty features
  • Chose the proper network type - Bridged is the the default but there may be a situation to use NAT
• Install “JEOS” - Just Enough OS
  • Select the Linux distribution of your choice (pick a supported guest to make life easier on yourself - Note: if you use RHEL or SLED you will need to get permission to distribute)
    • Minimize he footprint
      • only install and run necessary services
      • only open necessary ports
      • more secure and less to patch
    • Install VMware Tools
      • Improved performance, optimized drivers for virtual hardware, etc…
      • Hooks to management tools
      • Fully redistribute able inside Linux guests
    • Include or enable users to add a second virtual disk
      • put config information: user data, logs files, etc… on second disk
      • easier to update and backup the virtual appliance
• Install the applications stack
• Configure the appliance for first boo
  • Console experience
    • Accept EULA
    • “Zero-Configuration”
    • Present management URL
  • Web management interface
    • Configure networking
    • Configure security
  • Monitor and manage performance of the solution
  • Test everything! Test first boot/complete execution on different machines
• Value-Add
  • Expose logging from underlying services
  • Support SNMP
  • Provide audit hooks
  • Allow users to backup configurations and/or restore to factory default settings
• Package the virtual appliance
  • Copy appliance to new directory
  • Remove unecessary files
    • log files, nvram file, etc..
  • Add your “Getting Started Guide” or “ReadMe”
  • Compress the entire directory
    • 7-Zip or RAR work very well
    • Use cross-platform compression technology
  • Create a web page to host your virtual appliance download
  • Certify your virtual appliance
  • Create a listing on http://vam.vmware.com
• Provide a patch mechanism for your virtual appliance
  • leverage the default packaging technology of the OS (i.e. .deb or .rpm) or build your own packaging and update technology
  • Support direct online updates from your servers
  • support offline patching

Available tools, frameworks and services:

• VMware Virtual Appliance Development Kit
  • under development - used as part of Ace 2.0
• rPath Builder
  • Web-based virtual appliance development tool
  • Includes rPath Linux distro
  • Includes its own patching solution
• VirtualAppliances.net
  • Service provider
  • Developing their own framework
• jump box
  • Service provider

I recently listened to a podcast that mentioned my “Cisco WAAS performance benchmarks” and “PSTs on network file shares…” posts.  Have a listen the mention happens about 31 minutes into the podcast.  I also posted a comment to provide some rudimentary clarification on a few items discussed in the podcast.  Guys thanks for the mention!