vmview: Take files and copy them to a VMware sandbox and then boot it. v0.1 Copyright (c) 2001 by Karl J. Runge Usage: vmview Options: -c Path to VM dsk file. -d Path to VM cfg file. -b Path to VM backup tarball. (these 3 paths may be set at the top of this script) -n Do not attempt to extract attachments from . -p Prompt whether to restore with the backup tarball. -have-nbd indicate that the kernel has nbd support. Notes: To avoid negative effects from viruses, worms, trojan horses, etc, the following are important: - You MUST have networking turned off in the VM. - You SHOULD have the VMware virtual disk restored from backup every time this script is run. If you use Linux + VMware to propagate Windows viruses and trojans it is all your responsibility! To make your virtual disk backup file do the following. If your vmware cfg file is, say, /home/me/vmware/winfoo/win95.cfg, then run these commands: % cd /home/me/vmware % tar -czvf winfoo.tar.gz winfoo vmware-mount.pl requires that the Network Block Device (nbd) be compiled into your kernel. (kernel option CONFIG_BLK_DEV_NBD) http://www.vmware.com/support/reference/linux/loopback_linux.html vmware-mount.pl must be run as root, so su(1) will be used to prompt for the root passwd and run vmware-mount.pl. Files that are detected to be mail files (e.g. via "From" in the header) are extracted by metamail(1). If this messes up use -n to skip metamail and copy the file directly to the virtual disk.