Virtual Machines and AntiVirus

I am in the process of transitioning all my my software out of the built in XP Mode in Win 7 and into VMWare. I am getting VMWare Workstation as well.

I am curious, are you guys running anti-virus inside you VMs?

Does it even make sense to do this, or does it suffice to have that all in the Host OS.

Probably many answers, i run 4 vms with no antivirus. I have them set up in bridged networking which means so long as the vms are bridged to my internet connection i am exposed. Also should i install bad software on my vm i am exposed there too. Maybe double exposed as my guest has shared folders enabled with the host.

Good question. I run Norton on my host W7 Pro x64 system. In the XP VM, I run the free Microsoft Security Essentials ver. 4.0.

After I install Windows (and all it's patches) in a vm, the next thing I install is always MS Security Essentials. I also use it on my host machine.

OG

I run my VM's in NAT mode with shares disabled when on a outward facing network.

As far as AV software I really don't see the need as when in NAT mode all traffic is scanned by the hosts AV package and if you do get something then just delete your VM and load in your backup copy.

Rarely does my VM acces the internet at least not the VM I use for plc programming anyway.

But as OG said MS SE is a very lite option that will provide basic protection if you think you need it.

Along the same lines, do you guys use XP SP2 or SP3 in your VM?

My vms are typically WinXp SP3 or some iteration of Win7 or a server OS. I never use WinXP SP2 any more.

OG

To start with, my plan is to break up the VMs like this.

Rockwell software (FTalk, 5000, 500, etc)
Siemens
Mitsubishi
Omron
Twincat
Misc Control (CTSoft, PTools, Compumotor, Lenze, etc)

These are all the ones I'll need in the immediate future.

Is there any point in breaking up the Rockwell Stuff separately?
Am I getting carried away with breaking up the others too much?

I know some guy keep a separate VM for every major job on a customer basis. How are you guys doing it?

And thank you all for the helpful responses already given!

Siemens and rockwell should be apart as they have alot of specific services running (that i fondly call bloat). Im thinking omron and mitsubishi can co exist together nicely and like you said all others in your generic xp box.

DamianInRochester said:

To start with, my plan is to break up the VMs like this.

Rockwell software (FTalk, 5000, 500, etc)
Siemens
Mitsubishi
Omron
Twincat
Misc Control (CTSoft, PTools, Compumotor, Lenze, etc)

These are all the ones I'll need in the immediate future.

Is there any point in breaking up the Rockwell Stuff separately?
Am I getting carried away with breaking up the others too much?

I know some guy keep a separate VM for every major job on a customer basis. How are you guys doing it?

And thank you all for the helpful responses already given!

Click to expand...

Sounds good to me. I have 8 vendor specific VM's (major ones ie. AB, Siemens, Omron, Citect, AutoCAD) and an "Everything Else" VM with other random bits of software.

I haven't seen a need for separating VM's for different clients projects yet.

brendan.buchan said:

Sounds good to me. I have 8 vendor specific VM's (major ones ie. AB, Siemens, Omron, Citect, AutoCAD) and an "Everything Else" VM with other random bits of software.

I haven't seen a need for separating VM's for different clients projects yet.

Click to expand...

Curious to see AutoCAD on your list. I would have though that would be a good one to leave on the host?

I run CAD software in a VM also and primarily eplan with my rockwell VM as I use the exchange between RS Logix Architect and Eplan a lot.

Running seperate instances for each client /customer is helpful so that you are doing projects in the same rev / version they are working with which is easy to handle in 5000 but not so much in 5 and 500 and so on.

I don't know that a seperate VM for each client is needed as in most cases you just use a seperte snapshot for each client /customer at least that is how I do it.

I have a nightly backup of all my VM's and snapshots using Veeam to a NAS from my laptop. This works well for a 1 man shop but if a different guy goes to the client each time then you may want seperate VM's

We have our stuff split into 3 VMs on the maintenance shop computer. One handles the Siemens software (Simatic Manager and WinCC Flex), one for most of the AB stuff, and one for AB RSView. I've had so much stability trouble with RSView, I decided to give it its own sandbox to break without bothering the other software. The only real miscellaneous software our maintenance guys need is the various HMI programming packages (Red Lion, Fuji, and TCP) which are installed on the AB VM, since the HMIs are used on machines that have AB PLCs.

What is the best order to install the Rockwell stuff if starting all from scratch?

FT Activation Server
FT SE
RSLogix5000
RSLinx
RSLogix500
RSNetworx
CC Workbench?

DamianInRochester said:

What is the best order to install the Rockwell stuff if starting all from scratch?

FT Activation Server
FT SE
RSLogix5000
RSLinx
RSLogix500
RSNetworx
CC Workbench?

Click to expand...

IMO It depends.

How do you plan to do your activation? Are you locking them to the guest or the host?

Here is what I typically do.

I install my activations to the guest so in the VM itself and do so with a blank VM and then build it up from there with snap shots. I install each package then reboot then snapshot then instal another title and I try to group revs together by major rev or CPR number.

Like with FTview SE in the same VM I have several snapshots with different versions of FT View SE from 5.0,5.10.6.00 etc

I also have different machines from major vendors like siemens, rockwell, Omron, etc and then have version snaphots in each machine.

You can do some intense things with snapshot branching.

You can make a snapshot per customer if you want and if you have open liscense for the OS you can roll that snapshot only to it's own machine if the need ever comes like giving it to a co worker to go service a customer that you normally deal with etc.

Again it depends on your needs really and the size of your company and you customer base and the types of industry or industries you work in.and also the types of storage and OS license structure you have etc.

Kinda like your desktop pc no 2 people normally have the same setup and config it is a little or a lot custom based on their needs.

A question only you can really answer

P.S. if you are getting into this I will give you some good advice backup that VM often to a NAS or server or something and If budget allows something like Veeam which will do accurate inremental and reverse incremental bacvkups of VM's is a lifesaver and will make things easy for you to keep your data safe.

I recommend a daily incremental where possible and a weekly full and I would retain no less than 3 fulls if possible to be really safe IMO.