VirtualBox 4.0 on SME Server v8 beta 6

Maintainer

Computing SOS Pty Ltd

Description

Below are instructions on how to install VirtualBox version 4 on fresh install SME Server v8 beta 6. Plus installing and configuring phpVirtualBox to control (create, edit, remove) your virtual machine on its web interface. In addition, scripts to automatically start the vbox service and the virtual machines in case of power failure can be found at the end of this article.

Requirements

Computer with SME server version 8 beta 6 installed.

Installation

1. Setup SME Server v8 beta 6.
2. Do a yum update.

yum update

3. If any updates were applied,

4. signal-event post-upgrade
   signal-event reboot

5. Check your current kernel.

uname -r

6. Install kernel-devel to get the latest development tree (2.6.18-238.12.1.el5PAE-i686).
Use this command only if you have PAE kernel installed:

yum install kernel-PAE-devel

Otherwise,

yum install kernel-devel

7. Update SME again

   signal-event post-upgrade
   signal-event reboot

8. Create a symbolic link
NOTE: Be careful if you cut-and-paste the command below. In some terminal windows, parts of the command does not paste correctly.

ln –s /usr/src/kernels/’uname  –r’-i686 /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build

9. Install the Fedora Epel repository using the instructions here.
10. Install the VirtualBox repository using the instructions here.
11. Install Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS)

yum install --enablerepo=epel dkms

12. Enable fopen on php.ini (line 65) located on /etc/

allow_url_fopen = On

13. Install VirtualBox v4.0 (At the time of writing, the latest version is v4.1.0).

wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.0/VirtualBox-4.1-4.1.0_73009_rhel5-1.i386.rpm
yum install VirtualBox-4.1-4.1.0_73009_rhel5-1.i386.rpm -y

Note: you will get an error message, which you can ignore.

14. Setup VirtualBox as a service so it starts automatically after a reboot by copying the vboxwebsrv from rc5.d to rc7.d.

cp /etc/rc5.d/S30vboxdrv /etc/rc7.d/.
cp /etc/rc5.d/S35vboxballoonctrl /etc/rc7.d/.
cp /etc/rc5.d/S35vboxweb-service /etc/rc7.d/.

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15. Create a vbox.cfg file on your /etc/vbox/.

    nano /etc/vbox/vbox.cfg

    vbox.cfg should have this content.

    VBOXWEB_USER='root'
    VBOXWEB_HOST=127.0.0.1
    VBOXWEB_PORT=18083

    Note: Without the vbox.cfg, vbox services on your rc7.d folder will not start.

16. Before we install phpVirtualBox, make sure you install SOAP first.

yum install php-soap

17. Login to the server-manager page and create an ibay for phpvbox. Don’t forget to assign a password.
18. Install phpVirtualBox

cd /tmp

wget  http://phpvirtualbox.googlecode.com/files/phpvirtualbox-4.0-7.zip
unzip phpvirtualbox-4.0-7.zip
cd phpvirtualbox-4.0-7
cp –R * /home/e-smith/files/ibays/phpvbox/html

19. Create a tmp folder inside the /phpvbox/html folder.

cd /home/e-smith/files/ibays/phpvbox/html
mkdir tmp
chmod 777 tmp/

20. Open config.php (located on your /phpvbox/html/ folder) and uncomment some lines & change the tmp location as per below.

cp config.php.example config.php
nano /home/e-smith/files/ibays/phpvbox/html/config.php

/* SOAP URL of vboxwebsrv (not phpVirtualBox's URL) */
var $location = 'http://127.0.0.1:18083/';

// Disable authentication
var $noAuth = true;

// Host / ip to use for console connections
//var $consoleHost = '192.168.100.1';

var $enableAdvancedConfig = true;

// Authentication library.
//var $authLib = 'Builtin';

// Allow VDE network configuration. This must be supported by the underlying VirtualBox installation!
var $enableVDE = true;

// Path
var $cachePath = '../tmp';

21. Disable authentication of vboxwebsrv (this is not recommended, but at this stage, this is the only setup that works). Login to the server’s SSH and type this command.

vboxmanage setproperty websrvauthlibrary null

22. Install VirtualBox extension pack to enable support for USB 2.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP and PXE boot for Intel cards.

wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.0/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.0-73009.vbox-extpack
vboxmanage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.0-73009.vbox-extpack

23. Go to http://your_server’s_ip/phpvbox (e.g. http://192.168.100.1/phpvbox) to create our virtual machine.
    • Create a new virtual machine (e.g. vmXP)
    • Enable network card (either NAT or Bridged) so you can connect to your new VM console.
    • Open an RDP client (run->mstsc) then type your server’s IP address e.g. 192.168.100.1.

    

24. Download VirtualBox Guest Addition from here http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.0.8/VBoxGuestAdditions_4.0.8.iso and install it to your newly setup VM.

Automatically Start Virtual Machine

1. Edit your vbox file on /etc/sysconfig/

nano /etc/sysconfig/vbox

vbox code should look like this:

# Virtual box machines to autostart
# Example to start 2 machines
#       VBOX_AUTOSTART = "MachineName1 MachineName2"

VBOX_AUTOSTART="vmXP"

2. Edit your vbox file located on /etc/init.d/

#!/bin/sh
#
# chkconfig: - 91 35
# description: Starts and stops vbox autostart VMs.

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: vbox
# Required-Start: $network $named $vboxdrv
# Required-Stop: $network $named
# Default-Start:
# Default-Stop: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
# Short-Description: Autostart some Virtual Box VMs
# Description: Autostart some Virtual Box VMs that are mentioned in /etc/sysconfig/vbox file
# Written by Alex Amiryan
### END INIT INFO

. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

MANAGE_CMD=vboxmanage

[ -r /etc/sysconfig/vbox ] && . /etc/sysconfig/vbox

prog=$"Virtual Box Machines"

start()
{
        echo -n $"Starting $prog: "
        RETVAL=0

        for vbox_name in ${VBOX_AUTOSTART}
        do
            SERVS=1
            echo -n "${vbox_name} "
            daemon $MANAGE_CMD startvm "${vbox_name}" -type headless >/dev/null 2>&1
            RETVAL=$?
            [ "$RETVAL" -eq 0 ] || break
        done
        if [ -z "$SERVS" ]; then
            echo -n "no virtual machines configured "
            failure
            RETVAL=6
        else
            if [ "$RETVAL" -eq 0 ]; then
                success $"vbox startup"
                touch /var/lock/subsys/vbox
            else
                failure $"vbox start"
            fi
        fi
        echo
        return "$RETVAL"
}

stop()
{
        echo -n $"Shutting down $prog: "
        for vbox_name in ${VBOX_AUTOSTART}
        do
            echo -n "${vbox_name} "
            runuser root -c "$MANAGE_CMD -q controlvm "${vbox_name}" savestate" >/dev/null 2>&1
        done
        RETVAL=$?
        [ "$RETVAL" -eq 0 ] && success $"vbox shutdown" || \
            failure $"vbox shutdown"
        echo<
        [ "$RETVAL" -eq 0 ] && rm -f /var/lock/subsys/vbox
        return "$RETVAL"
}

status()
{
        for vbox_name in ${VBOX_AUTOSTART}
        do
            echo -n "${vbox_name} "
            $MANAGE_CMD showvminfo "${vbox_name}"|grep "^State:\s*.*$"
        done
}

case "$1" in
  start)
        start
        ;;
  stop)
        stop
        ;;
  restart|force-reload)
        stop
        start
        ;;
  status)
        status
        ;;
  *)
        echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|force-reload|status}" >&2
        exit 3
        ;;
esac