Full Virtualization Devices

Full virtualization devices are heavy-weight virtual machines that emulate a whole computer with generic hardware. Most things that are possible on physical computers are also possible on fully virtualized devices. Most operating systems can be run on a full virtualized device.

Limitations

• Virtualization solutions might not work. Since the virtual machine itself is virtualized it does not expose the AMD-V/VT-x processor features to the guest operating system.
• The hardware clock runs on GMT time zone. This will be a problem with Microsoft operating systems since they assume the hardware clock to be local time.
• Timer precision will not be as high as on real hardware since the virtual machine’s process is scheduled by the host system.

Emulated Hardware

• Processor and RAM depending on the performance profile
• One hard-disk connected to the first IDE as master
• Intel motherboard
• Cirrus Logic GD5446 Video card
• Intel E1000 network cards
• PS/2 mouse and keyboard (german layout)
• Additionally a USB tablet input device (for absolute mouse positioning)

The emulated environment is the same as in KVM run with:

kvm -cpu kvm64 -usbdevice tablet -smp sockets=1,cores=1 -nodefaults -vga cirrus -tdf -k de -enable-kvm  -net nic,model=e1000 ...

Console

The console access is realized as vnc connection to the graphics output. The console will show exactly the output of the graphics card of the virtual machine. Keyboard or mouse events will be sent to the server via its emulated keyboad and mouse devices. This has several implications:

• The console is not text-based even if a text-based console is displayed.
• Multiple console windows will show the same console.
• The meaning of pressed keys depends on the keyboard layout configured for the emulated virtual keyboard in the virtual machine, not on the real keyboard of the user.
• Closing the console is the same as disconnecting the monitor cable from a computer (emulated keyboard and mouse are not disconnected)

Images

The hard-disk images are stored in the qcow2 format. When they are downloaded they can be run in Qemu. Disk images in the qcow2 format can be uploaded and run. For operating systems that have problems with hardware changes, qemu should be configured to emulate the same hardware as in the testbed.

To learn more about the creation of images, consult the advanced user’s manual.

Executable Archives

Executable archives can be uploaded only when the device is prepared. However, download, custom status, and execution monitoring are also available while the device is started. Automatic execution is possible only when nlXTP guest modules are installed on the image.

The archive directory is not part of the device’s image. It is a separate device which is mounted separately by your system.

Technologies

ToMaTo supports the following technologies for full virtualization:

• KVM (preferred) (in stable, but not deployed)
• KVMQM

Configuration Window

Name

The on-screen name of the device. This setting will not affect your experiment.

Site

Site that this element will be deployed to.

Performance Profile

Device profile that will be applied to this element.

Template

Template that will be used when preparing this element. When your device is prepared, you can still exchange the template.

Changing the template of a prepared device will delete all existing data on the device’s current disk image.

Segment separation

As long as the Colorify segments option in the topology editor is activated, ToMaTo highlights separated networks as different segments. Elements can be defined as connecting elements to combine different network segments. This does not have any direct effect on the network infrastructure and is ONLY for usability purposes. It allows to mark devices which interconnect networks to increase the overview of the topology.

Custom Icon

Select a URL to a custom icon for this device to be shown in the editor. The icon should be a 32x32 PNG image.

ToMaTo offers a set of pre-defined custom icons under Custom Element Icons in the main menu’s Resources menu. → go now

USB tablet mouse mode

Since normal mouse inputs are realised by sending movement deltas instead of absolute positions and the problem that the virtual device only gets absolute possitions as input, this option (if activated) increases the mouse precision, by emulating a tablet mouse device.

Keyboard Language

It is possible to change the keyboard layout, which allows to configure it to the match your layout. Currently the following layouts are supported:

• English (GB)
• English (US)
• German
• French
• Japanese

Interfaces’ Configuration Window

Name

The interface’s device name on its host (e.g., “eth0”)