VirtualBox 3.1 significantly changed the way that harddisks, dvd/cd drives and floppies are mounted. The following steps are to install Windows XP as a guest on an Ubuntu 9.04 host with a IntelAhci SATA controller.

Make sure you download the Windows XP Intel SATA Drivers and unzip to extract “F32.IMA”.

sudo -i

To begin the install process, do the following steps:

• Create a new VirtualMachine.
• Add three controllers (sata, ide, floppy).
• Attach the Intel SATA floppy and the Windows XP dvd iso.
• Set the memory, boot order and bridged network connection.

VBoxManage createhd --filename /srv/virtualbox/harddisks/CHANGEME.vdi --size 20480 \
    --variant Standard
VBoxManage createvm --name CHANGEME --ostype "WindowsXP" --register \
    --basefolder /srv/virtualbox/machines
VBoxManage storagectl CHANGEME --name "SATA Controller" --add sata \
    --controller IntelAhci
VBoxManage storageattach CHANGEME --storagectl "SATA Controller" \
    --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd \
    --medium /srv/virtualbox/harddisks/CHANGEME.vdi
VBoxManage storagectl CHANGEME --name "IDE Controller" --add ide
VBoxManage storagectl CHANGEME --name "Floppy Controller" --add floppy
VBoxManage storageattach CHANGEME --storagectl "IDE Controller" \
    --port 0 --device 0 --type dvddrive \
    --medium "/srv/virtualbox/isos/WindowsXP_sp3.iso"
VBoxManage storageattach CHANGEME --storagectl "Floppy Controller" \
    --port 0 --device 0 --type fdd --medium /srv/virtualbox/floppy/F32.IMA
VBoxManage modifyvm CHANGEME --memory 1024 --nic1 bridged --bridgeadapter1 eth0 \
    --boot1 dvd --boot2 disk --boot3 none --boot4 none

Start the VM using a specified port (8888) for VRDP. You will then be able to attach via RDP to the Host IP on the specified port.

VBoxHeadless --startvm CHANGEME --vrdpport 8888 --vrdp on &

When the Windows XP installation begins, Hit F6 during setup and select the Intel(R) 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH8M-E/M) driver. Proceed with the Windows XP install until reboot is required.

At some point, post install, you may optionally take the following steps:

• Eject the Windows XP dvd iso.
• Attach (and then install) the VirtualBox Guest Additions dvd iso.
• Eject the Intel SATA floppy. Note: it can only be ejected while the machine is powered off; it should be ejected because it will otherwise be locked, such that other VM’s cannot use it.
• Change the boot order.

VBoxManage storageattach CHANGEME --storagectl "IDE Controller" \
    --port 0 --device 0 --medium none
VBoxManage storageattach CHANGEME --storagectl "IDE Controller" \
    --port 0 --device 0 --type dvddrive \
    --medium /usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso 
VBoxManage storageattach CHANGEME --storagectl "FLOPPY Controller" \
    --port 0 --device 0 --type fdd --medium none
VBoxManage modifyvm CHANGEME --boot1 disk --boot2 none

Don’t forget to run windows updates!

• Download the Windows XP Intel SATA Drivers and unzip to extract F32.IMA
• Hit F6 during setup to select the Intel(R) 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH8M-E/M)

sudo -i

VBoxManage createhd --filename /srv/virtualbox/harddisks/CHANGEME.vdi --size 20480 \
    --variant Standard
VBoxManage createvm --name CHANGEME --ostype "WindowsXP" --register \
    --basefolder /srv/virtualbox/machines
VBoxManage modifyvm CHANGEME --memory 1024 \
    --boot1 dvd --boot2 disk --boot3 none --boot4 none \
    --sata on --sataportcount 1 \
    --sataport1 /srv/virtualbox/harddisks/CHANGEME.vdi \
    --dvd /srv/virtualbox/iso/WindowsXP_sp3.iso \
    --floppy /srv/virtualbox/floppy/F32.IMA \
    --nic1 bridged --bridgeadapter1 eth0

Start the VM without a gui (note: the ampersand executes the command and returns you to the prompt)

VBoxHeadless --startvm CHANGEME &

Start the VM without a gui and without VRDP (after you have loaded the os and configured remote desktop accessability).

VBoxHeadless --startvm CHANGEME --vrdp off &

Stop the VM in a saved state

VBoxManage controlvm CHANGEME savestate

Power off the VM (like pulling the plug)

VBoxManage controlvm CHANGEME poweroff

Transferring from Windows to Ubuntu 9.04, I first mounted the windows share:

sudo mkdir /mnt/winshare
sudo mount -t smbfs -o username=user,password=pass //winserver/share /mnt/winshare

Next, run rsync with a specified bwlimit. Optionally, unmount the share

sudo rsync -vrR --delete --delete-excluded --bwlimit=6144 /mnt/winshare/* /destination/
sudo umount /mnt/winshare

Note that the bwlimit is in kilobytes not kilobits — 6144 KB ~= 48 Mbps. Also note that the bwlimit is limiting the I/O bandwidth…whatever that means.

    --bwlimit=KBPS          limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second

NTop (http://www.ntop.org) is great for tracking bandwidth usage:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ntop

Set the administrative account password for ntop to run under:

sudo ntop -A

Start the service:

sudo /etc/init.d/ntop start

Browse the reports on the default port, 3000. http://yourserver:3000/

For the sake of reliability and flexability, I wanted to install Ubuntu 9.04 Server on a Dell PowerEdge using Software RAID1 (reliability) and LVM (flexability). Software RAID1 was also considerably cheaper (except for the time it took to figure this out) than adding in the $200 Dell SATA RAID contoller.

I consider myself to be a novice Linux/Ubuntu user, so feel free to blindly follow my actions.

Hardware

Dell PowerEdge T100
2 SATA Hard drives @ 160GB; No RAID Controller
8GB RAM

From the factory, the T100 comes with 2 primary partitions on the primary hard drive for utility/diagnostics purposes. I decided to keep the two partitions as they only use approximately 2GB space.

Installation

The Partition Disks section occurs after booting from the CD, setting up the keyboard, network, clock, etc.

Upon selecting a Partitioning Method of Manual, the following configuration is presented.

SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 160.0 GB ATA WDC WD1602ABKS-1
    #1 primary    41.1 MB        fat16
    #2 primary     1.5 GB        fat32
       pri/log   158.5 GB        FREE SPACE
SCSI2 (0,0,0) (sdb) - 160.0 GB ATA WDC WD1602ABKS-1
       pri/log   160.0 GB        FREE SPACE

The space needs to be split into two additional partitions on each physical disk. One partition will be for SWAP, the other for LVM. I have seen differing recommendations for SWAP sizes from 1.5 to 2.0 times the RAM.

For symmetry sake–I wanted to keep the partition IDs symmetric between drives–I added and removed some partitions to end up with the following.

SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 160.0 GB ATA WDC WD1602ABKS-1
    #1 primary    41.1 MB        fat16
    #2 primary     1.5 GB        fat32
       unusable  452.4 MB        unusable
    #3 primary   142.0 GB  B  K  raid
    #4 primary    16.0 GB     K  raid
SCSI2 (0,0,0) (sdb) - 160.0 GB ATA WDC WD1602ABKS-1
       pri/log   2.0 GB          FREE SPACE
    #3 primary   142.0 GB  B  K  raid
    #4 primary    16.0 GB     K  raid

When creating #3, specify:

Use as: physical volume for RAID
Bootable flag: on

When creating #4, specify

Use as: physical volume for RAID

The next step is to bind the partition pairs in a RAID1 configuration. To do this, select the Configure software RAID menu item, located above the disk partition information. You should get a dialog saying:

Before RAID can be configured, the changes...

When RAID is configured, no additional changes...

The partition tables of the following devices...

Write the changes to the storage devices and configure RAID?

Select Yes.

For each of the two partition pairs:
Select Create MD device
Multidisk device type: RAID1
Number of active devices for the RAID1 array: 2
Number of spare devices for the RAID1 array: 0
Active devices for the RAID1 multidisk device: /dev/sda3, /dev/sdb3 and /dev/sda4, /dev/sdb4 respectively

Select Finish to exit the multidisk config menu. The partition config should now include the following:

RAID1 device #0 - 142.0 GB Software RAID device
     #1            142.0 GB
RAID1 device #1 - 16.0 GB Software RAID device
     #1            16.0 GB

Change the properties of device #0 to:

Use as: physical volume for LVM

Change the properties of device #1 to:

Use as: swap

Next step is to Configure the Logical Volume Manager located at the top of the config. A dialog pops up with the following:

Before the Logical Volume Manager can...

After the Logical Volume Manager is...

The partition tables of the following devices are...

The following partitions are...

Write the changes to disks and configure LVM?

Select Yes.

LVM configuration action: Create volume group
Volume group name: vg
Devices for the new group: /dev/md0 (142001MB)

Now that the volume group has been created, we need to create the associated logical volumes.

For each partition you wish to create (/, /usr, /home, /opt, /var, /tmp, /srv) do the following steps:
LVM configuration action: Create logical volume
Volume group: vg (141998MB)
Logical volume name: root
Logical volume size: 5GB

Specify the volume sizes as you see fit. LVM how-to’s generally recommend that smaller sizes are better, as it is much easier to increase the size than decrease it.

After creating all the logical volumes, select Display configuration details:

Unallocated physical volumes:
  * none

Volume groups:
  * vg                                         (141998MB)
    - Uses physical volume:       /dev/md0     (141998MB)
    - Provides logical volume:    home         (4999MB)
    - Provides logical volume:    opt          (4999MB)
    - Provides logical volume:    root         (4999MB)
    - Provides logical volume:    srv          (49996MB)
    - Provides logical volume:    tmp          (4999MB)
    - Provides logical volume:    usr          (4999MB)
    - Provides logical volume:    var          (9999MB)

Select Finish to get back to the main partition config menu.

For each logical volume created, there is now an entry in the config:

LVM VG vg, LV home - 5.0 GB Linux device-mapper (linear)
     #1              5.0 GB

Select the #1 5.0 GB line and specify the following:

Use as: Ext3 journaling file system
Mount point: /home (respectively)
Label: home (respectively)

After all logical volumes have been configured, select Finish partitioning and write changes to disk. You will see a dialog:

If you continue, the changes listed below will...

WARNING:  This will destroy all data...

The partition tables of the following devices are...

The following partitions are...

Write the changes to disk?

Select Yes, and your install should continue as normal until you reach a screen titled, “Install the LILO boot loader on a hard disk.”

LILO installation target: /dev/md0: software RAID array

Another dialog occurs, titled “Configuring lilo.” Select Yes… or No. Was that helpful?

Another dialog:

It was detected that it's necessary to run /sbin/lilo in order to...

WARNING: This procedure will write data in your MBR...

Do you want to run /sbin/lilo now?

Select Yes and the install should complete.

References

https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/serverguide/C/advanced-installation.html
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO.html
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/RAID1%2BLVM

After deploying Ubuntu 8.10 server, installing Ruby on Rails and all its prerequisites, and installing Phusion Passenger, there are just a few Passenger specific steps necessary to get your Rails application up and running.

Create a directory to house all of your Rails applications (you can put this wherever you like):

cd
mkdir railsapps
cd railsapps

Create your Rails application (“first”) with a mysql database:

rails -d mysql first

Create a SymLink for Passenger to follow from your application/public directory to the Apache DocumentRoot/SubUri:

sudo ln -s ~/railsapps/first/public /var/www/first

Update the Apache config to let Passenger know about the application:

sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default

Append the following at the end of the config:

RailsBaseURI /first

Restart Apache to apply your changes:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now that we have Apache and Passenger looking in the right places, we can get back to editing some of the Rails settings.

Change into our rails application root directory:

cd ~/railsapps/first

Edit the /railsapps/first/config/environment.rb file to notify rails that you are operating out of a SubURI

vi config/environment.rb

Just inside the end of the function “Rails::Initializer.run do |config|” add the following:

config.action_controller.relative_url_root = "/first"

So the last few lines of your environment.rb file should look like:

  # Activate observers that should always be running
  # Please note that observers generated using script/generate observer need to have an _observer suffix
  # config.active_record.observers = :cacher, :garbage_collector, :forum_observer

  config.action_controller.relative_url_root = "/first"
end

Edit the /railsapps/first/config/database.yml file to make sure you have correctly specified your database login information

vi config/database.yml

Call rake to create your application database

rake db:create

Your first rails app is now up and running! You should be able to browse to it at http://YourServerURI/first

Phusion Passenger™ — a.k.a. mod_rails or mod_rack — makes deployment of Ruby web applications, such as those built on the revolutionary Ruby on Rails web framework, a breeze. It follows the usual Ruby on Rails conventions, such as “Don’t-Repeat-Yourself”.

After setting up Ubuntu 8.10 and installing Rails, I executed the following steps to get Passenger installed.

Install Phusion Passenger:

sudo gem install passenger
sudo passenger-install-apache2-module

Upon success, passenger should return you the following response:

The Apache 2 module was successfully installed.

Please edit your Apache configuration file, and add these lines:
    LoadModule passenger_module 
        /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.6/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
    PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.6
    PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby1.8

To do as passenger instructs:

sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default

Opening that file, I added the “ServerName” at the beginning and Rails/Passenger items at the end of the file. I also cleaned up some of the spacing (for cleanliness sake).

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName glenfiddich-u.parallel21.com
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

    DocumentRoot /var/www

    <Directory />
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
    </Directory>
    <Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>

    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
    <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
        AllowOverride None
        Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log

    # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
    # alert, emerg.
    LogLevel warn

    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"

    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>

    RailsEnv development
		
    LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.6/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
    PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.6
    PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby1.8
</VirtualHost>

The last thing to do is restart Apache:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

After creating and launching a VirtualMachine on a Vista Host and installing Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, I executed the following steps to configure my Ubuntu server for Ruby on Rails.

After trying (and failing at the implementation of) several other sets of Ubuntu/Rails howto guides, most of my inspiration came from a Ubuntu/Ruby on Rails install guide that actually works.

The Steps

Update aptitude:

sudo aptitude update

Run any distribution upgrades: this step downloaded approximately 100MB and took a few minutes to install;

sudo aptitude --assume-yes dist-upgrade

Now that we are up to date, get a few Rails prerequisites:
– build-essential = “Informational list of build-essential packages”
– ruby = An interpreter of object-oriented scripting language Ruby
– ri = Ruby Interactive reference
– rdoc = Generate documentation from ruby source files
– irb = Interactive Ruby (irb)

sudo aptitude --assume-yes install build-essential
sudo aptitude --assume-yes install \
  irb \
  irb1.8 \
  libmysql-ruby \
  libmysql-ruby1.8 \
  libopenssl-ruby \
  libopenssl-ruby1.8 \
  libreadline-ruby1.8 \
  libruby1.8 \
  rdoc \
  rdoc1.8 \
  ri \
  ri1.8 \
  ruby \
  ruby1.8 \
  ruby1.8-dev

Download the latest gems, manually, because aptitude doesn’t appear to be able to get the latest version, etc.

wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/45905/rubygems-1.3.1.tgz
tar xzvf rubygems-1.3.1.tgz
cd rubygems-1.3.1
sudo ruby setup.rb
cd ..
rm -f rubygems-1.3.1.tgz 
rm -rf rubygems-1.3.1

Create symlinks: the installer didn’t do it for me, so i had to create them manually;

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/local/bin/gem
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/ruby1.8 /usr/local/bin/ruby
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/rdoc1.8 /usr/local/bin/rdoc
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/ri1.8 /usr/local/bin/ri
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/irb1.8 /usr/local/bin/irb

Install rails (takes a while…no status):

sudo gem install rails

Install other gems of interest:

sudo gem install rake
sudo gem install capistrano
sudo gem install capistrano-ext
sudo gem install ruby-debug
sudo gem install term-ansicolor
sudo gem install mongrel
sudo gem install annotate-models

Install apache: I’m not totally confident in the necessity of this step since we installed Apache during the Ubuntu install process… but what do i know?

sudo aptitude --assume-yes install \
  apache2-mpm-worker \
  apache2-prefork-dev \
  comerr-dev \
  libapr1-dev \
  libaprutil1-dev \
  libdb4.6-dev \
  libexpat1-dev \
  libkadm55 \
  libkrb5-dev \
  libldap2-dev \
  libmysqlclient15-dev \
  libpcre3-dev \
  libpcrecpp0 \
  libpq-dev \
  libsqlite3-dev \
  libssl-dev \
  uuid-dev \
  zlib1g-dev

My Apache install was not without incident. Although everything appears to be working, I did get the following reponse during the install:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  libapache2-mod-php5: 
    Depends: apache2-mpm-prefork (> 2.0.52) but it is not installable or
             apache2-mpm-itk but it is not installable
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:
Remove the following packages:
  libapache2-mod-php5
  php5-mysql

After creating and launching a VirtualMachine on a Vista host, I captured the following screenshots to document the process of installing Ubuntu 8.10.

Post install, I updated the Network Interface config and enabled the Firewall.

Ubuntu Install Screenshots

Network Interface

DHCP was enabled during install, so after logging on, I edited the network interface config to set a static IP address.

sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces

Remove the DHCP line:

#iface eth0 inet dhcp

replacing it with:

iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.100
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.0.0
broadcast 192.168.0.255
gateway 192.168.0.1

restart the networking service to apply the changes

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

If you need to edit your DNS, you can do so via:

sudo vi /etc/resolv.conf

Firewall

I enabled the firewall software (UFW) that came with Ubuntu, opening it up to allow OpenSSH, Apache and Samba

sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo ufw allow "Apache Full"
sudo ufw allow Samba
sudo ufw enable

To verify the firewall is working properly,

sudo ufw status verbose

which should produce the following results:

Status: loaded
Logging: on
Default: deny
New profiles: skip

To                         Action  From
--                         ------  ----
22/tcp (OpenSSH)           ALLOW   Anywhere
80,443/tcp (Apache Full)   ALLOW   Anywhere
137,138/udp (Samba)        ALLOW   Anywhere
139,445/tcp (Samba)        ALLOW   Anywhere

Logout

Given that the console is constantly grabbing control of my mouse and frustratingly small, I logged out, logging back in via SSH to do the remainder of the configuration.

logout

If you haven’t already done so, now would probably be a great time to make a backup/copy of your VM.

I was recently coerced into checking out what all the Ruby on Rails hype is about. In reading about Rails, it sounds like trying to get it to run with IIS is probably not the best idea. So I’ve taken the leap to setting up a virtual machine running Ubuntu 8.10 Server.

Being strictly a .NET developer for the last 8 years, I know practically nothing of the *NIX environment, LAMP stack or anything else that doesn’t come with Windows Update. So, everything here must be taken with a grain of salt, as I am well out of my comfort zone.

Sun xVM Virtual Box

Lacking a spare computer, I immediately stumbled across Sun’s FREE VirtualBox software at http://www.virtualbox.org/. Version 2.1.2 was released as of this post. I am running Vista Business as my host OS. The following screenshots are the steps I took to get my VirtualBox configured for Ubuntu.

Change the default directories

The default data directories in Vista are in C:\Users\YourProfile\.VirtualBox\… I generally don’t allocate a lot of extra room to my system partition, so I set the defaults to D:\VirtualBox\…

Create a “New” Virtual Machine

Update Virtual Machine Settings

There are a few settings that need to be changed on the Virtual Machine that you have just created. The following screenshots show PAE/NX being enabled, the Ubuntu ISO being mounted and changes to the type of network adapter.

Start your engines!

Last but not least, click “Start” to launch the Ubuntu install process on your new Virtual Machine.