How to set up a Camio Flex VM Minimal in VMware Workstation?

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Camio offers a version of Camio Flex VM Minimal made to run inside of the VMware Workstation Product. The Camio Flex VM image for VMware Workstation is compatible with these versions of VMware products:

  • VMware Workstation

 What you need

  • VMware Workstation ( installation guide)
  • Camio Flex Minimal for VMware Workstation
  • A computer that can run VMware Workstation with the following hardware specs
    • The disks provided can be provisioned thinly but require:
      • 256GB for the main drive 
      • It is recommended to add approximately 128GB to the storage drive for each 1080p 2Mbps stream
    • 4 CPU cores + 1 CPU core for each 1080p 2Mbps stream is the recommended for the Virtual Machine.
      • If operating at the minimums, performance may be negatively affected depending on the hardware speed and generation.
    • 2 GB of Memory per CPU core is recommended
    • Example: 2 x 1080 2Mbps streams:
      • 6 CPU cores
      • 12 GB memory
      • 256 GB main drive
    • Note: in this minimal tmpfs forward solution, a dedicated separate storage disk is not required.
    • More information on sizing your Flex VM can be found here: How do I tune my Camio Flex VM to match the number of connected video streams?

To start, you'll have VMware Workstation installed as the hypervisor on a computer or server or yours.

1. Install VMware Workstation

  1. Go to this link:
    https://www.vmware.com/products/desktop-hypervisor/workstation-and-fusion
    https://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2024/05/vmware-workstation-pro-now-available-free-for-personal-use.html
  2. Download the version of VMware Workstation that you wish to install as a hypervisor on your computer or server.
  3. Follow the steps listed on the downloads page to install VMware Workstation hypervisor onto your computer.

2. Download the Camio Flex VM Image

  1. Download the camio-flex-minimal-x-vm-ramfs_05_28_2025.zip compressed file.
  2. Unzip the downloaded file to extract the files:
    1. camio-flex-minimal-x-vm-ramfs-disk1.vmdk 
    2. camio-flex-minimal-x-vm-ramfs.mf 
    3. camio-flex-minimal-x-vm-ramfs.ovf 

3. Create the Camio Flex Virtual Machine

These instructions show how to upload and configure your Camio Flex VM through the vSphere web interface.

  1. After opening VMware Workstation on your host machine, select "File" from the top bar navigation menu and select "Open"
  2. Continue with the prompt and Navigate to the downloaded files
  3. Select the "camio-flex-minimal-x-vm-ramfs.ovf" and continue
  4. Enter a name for the VM (we suggest something like camio-flex-vm-minimal-01)
  5. Continue and create the Virtual Machine, but do not start it yet.
  6. Now we will generate a MAC address. Select edit virtual machine settings.
    Screenshot from 2025-05-28 16-38-18.png
  7. Then select Network Adapter, a setting menu window should pop up
    Screenshot from 2025-05-28 16-38-50.png
  8. Then "Advanced", another window should pop up, and at the bottom, press the Generate button
    Screenshot from 2025-05-28 16-40-05.png
  9. Save this MAC address, as we will use it later.
  10. Close the sub menu, then press "Save"

6. Start your Camio Box Virtual Machine

Click the Green-arrow at the top of the window to start your VM. Once the virtual machine is finished booting, it's ready to be registered to your Camio account.

On the current version of the Camio-Flex-VM-Minimal, custom network settings need to be configured manually. Please contact Camio for assistance if your VM is having issues connecting to your network.

7. Register your Camio Box:

  1. Go to camio.com/box/register/box_vm_mac
  2. Enter a name for your Box.
  3. Enter the MAC address we generated earlier
  4. Click 'Register' and wait for confirmation of registration success to appear on that page. It should register within 30 seconds.

Congratulations! You have now registered your virtual Camio Box. Go to the camio.com/boxes page to connect cameras on your network to your Camio account.

Advanced:

You can of course customize the amount of resources dedicated to your Camio Box virtual machine. For more information see this help article : How do I tune my Camio Box VM to match the number of connected video streams?. 

Why is My Machine Not Registering?

  1. Double check that you have set the MAC address for your VM correctly. You should have set the MAC address for your VM according to the steps covered in step #5 above and you will be registering the device with that same MAC address.
  2. Check and see if the VM can be found on your local network. To do this you can use any available network scanning tool like nmap or the Fing application. If the VM is powered on but you do not see it on the local network, you have likely misconfigured the networking for the device.
  3. You may need to reboot the VM multiple times through the process, giving it approximately 10 minutes between reboots to allow the Flex box time to attempt to register and connect to Camio.

 

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