VirtualBox 4.0 on SME Server v8 beta 6

Maintainer

CompSOS

Support

For questions or comments regarding this HOWTO, contact Shiena Tadeo of Computing SOS or Sorolo Systems Inc. at this email address.

Description

Below are instructions on how to install VirtualBox version 4.1 on a fresh install SME Server v8 beta 6 and higher. 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.

This has been tested using the following:

• one SME Server Release 8.0
• two VirtualBox-4.1-4.1.22_80657_el5-1
• three Kernel is 2.6.18-308.13.1.el5

Requirements

Computer with SME server version 8 beta 6 and higher installed.

Installation

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

yum upgrade

3. If any updates were applied, update and reboot the server.

signal-event post-upgrade
signal-event reboot

4. Check your current kernel.

uname -r

5. Install kernel-devel to get the latest development tree. Latest kernel at the time of writing is 2.6.18-308.13.1.el5.
   Use this command only if you have a PAE kernel installed:

   yum clean all
   yum install kernel-PAE-devel kernel-headers
   yum info kernel-headers

   Otherwise,

   yum install kernel-devel kernel-headers

6. Check if the compiler (GCC) is installed by issuing this command.

   rpm –qa | grep gcc

        You will have an output, similar to this:
   

   libgcc-4.1.2-52.el5_8.1
   gcc-4.1.2-52.el5_8.1

     If not installed, install it.
   

   yum install gcc

     If you will get an error "No package gcc available. Nothing to do" then do this:
   

   cd /tmp
   wget ftp://ftp.mirrorservice.org/sites/sourceware.org/pub/gcc/releases/gcc-4.7.1/gcc-4.7.1.tar.gz

7. Update SME, and reboot again.

signal-event post-upgrade
signal-event reboot

8. Change your kernel boot options.
   Optionally, for best results with SME 8.x and earlier versions, modify /etc/grub.conf, adding divider=10 to the kernel boot options in order to reduce the idle CPU load with VirtualBox. For example, if your kernel boot line is:

   kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-238.19.1.el5 ro root=/dev/main/root 

   change it to:

   kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-238.19.1.el5 ro root=/dev/main/root divider=10

   Reminder: if you subsequently update SME Server to use a newer kernel, you may need to change your kernel boot line to reflect the update.

9. Create a symbolic link.
   

   NOTE: Be careful if you cut-and-paste the command below. Pay particular attention to the dashes (-) and the backticks (`). There aren't any single quote marks in the command below - they are all supposed to be backticks.

   ln -s /usr/src/kernels/`uname -r`-`uname -m` /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build

   Reminder: if you subsequently update SME Server to use a newer kernel, you may need to recreate the symbolic link.

10. Check that the symbolic link was properly created by doing a directory listing.
    

    NOTE: Be careful if you cut-and-paste the command below. In some terminal windows, from some browsers, the parts of the command in bold font do not paste correctly. Pay particular attention to the dashes (-) and the backticks (`). There aren't any single quote marks in the command below - they are all supposed to be backticks.

    ls -la /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build

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

yum install --enablerepo=epel dkms

13. Install the VirtualBox repository using the instructions here.
14. Install VirtualBox (At the time of the last update to these instructions, the latest version was v4.1-4.1.22).

yum install --enablerepo=virtualbox VirtualBox-4.1

15. Review the VirtualBox installation log to ensure that the installation was successful.

tail /var/log/vbox-install.log

16. Remove the compiler install (for security best practices)

rpm -e gcc

17. Update SME, and reboot again

signal-event post-upgrade
signal-event reboot

18. Setup VirtualBox as a service so it starts automatically after a reboot. Copy the command below on putty console then hit Enter.

for file in $(ls /etc/rc5.d/S??vbox*); do cp "$file" /etc/rc7.d/. ;done

19. 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.

20. Login to the server-manager page and create an iBay for phpvbox. For instructions on how to create and configure an ibay, please see the SME Server Administration manual.
After creating the ibay, do not forget to assign a password.
21. Before we install phpVirtualBox, make sure you first install SOAP.

yum install php-soap

As of 2012-09-03 a fresh sme8b6 with updates installed, the above line tries to install php-soap-5.3.3-13.el5.sme.1.x86_64. If yum complains about a missing dependency php-common-5.3.3-13.el5.sme.1, verify whether you have installed php-common-5.3 by issuing this command "rpm -qa | grep php-common". If so, you can obtain php-soap-5.3.3-1.el5.sme.6 by invoking "yum install --enablerepo smedev php-soap-5.3.3-1.el5.sme.6". Integration test passed.

To avoid this error message “PHP does not have the SOAP extension enabled” especially if you have no plan of restarting the server.

svc -t /service/httpd-e-smith/

22. Install phpVirtualBox

cd /tmp
wget `wget -q -O - http://phpvirtualbox.googlecode.com/files/LATEST.txt` -O phpvirtualbox-latest.zip
unzip phpvirtualbox-latest.zip

Note: at the time of the last update, the latest version was 4.1-8. Please adjust the following for later versions.

cd phpvirtualbox-4.1-8
cp –R * /home/e-smith/files/ibays/phpvbox/html

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

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

24. Create a config file using the example file provided.

cp config.php-example config.php

25. Open config.php (located on your /phpvbox/html/ folder). Uncomment some lines (by removing the '#' at the beginning of the line).

    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;

    Set the consoleHost parameter to the hostname of the server running VirtualBox

    // Host / ip to use for console connections
    //var $consoleHost = 'host-name-of-the-server-running-virtualbox';

    /* Enable advanced configuration items (normally hidden in the VirtualBox GUI)
     * Note that some of these items may not be translated to languages other than $
     */
    var $enableAdvancedConfig = true;

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

    Change the tmp location as per below.

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

26. 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

27. Install VirtualBox extension pack to enable support for USB 2.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP and PXE boot for Intel cards. Please install the extension pack with the same version as your installed version of VirtualBox!
You can find the extension packs here. The following commands download and install the extension pack for VirtualBox 4.1.8.

wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.8/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.8-75467.vbox-extpack
vboxmanage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.8-75467.vbox-extpack

28. Update SME, and reboot again

signal-event post-upgrade
signal-event reboot

29. Ensure that the extension pack is installed correctly. Open a console window, then

    vboxmanage list extpacks

At this point, VirtualBox should now be configured and running correctly. To check this, we will now log into the ibay we created for phpVirtualBox and attempt to create a new virtual machine. If you encounter problems, please recheck that you have setup VirtualBox as a service so it starts automatically after a reboot, and that your vbox.cfg file is configured correctly. To manage VirtualBox and any virtual machines, use the command line utility VBoxManage. See VBoxManage --help . For a list of available switches for VBoxManage, see this list. Finally,
30. Open a terminal window to the SME Server and create a directory to store the virtual machine images.

mkdir -p /opt/VMs

31. Download the VirtualBox Guest Additions iso for later installation into your virtual machine guests.

mkdir -p /var/lib/VirtualBox/addons
cd /var/lib/VirtualBox/addons
wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.2/VBoxGuestAdditions_4.1.2.iso

32. Using a web browser, Go to http://yourdomain.com/phpvbox and connect to the phpVirtualBox web application.
    • From the menu provided, go to select File->Preferences.
    • Select the "General" tab.
    • Change the Default Machine Folder to:

      /opt/VMs

Creating a Virtual Machine

33. Using a web browser, go to http://yourdomain.com/phpvbox to create your 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.

    

34. Ensure you are connected to the server's internal network, then open a Remote Desktop client program.
    • On Windows, open an RDP client (run->mstsc) then type your server’s domain name, (e.g. mydomain.com), hostname (e.g. myserver), or ip address (e.g. 192.168.100.254)
35. Install the VirtualBox Guest Additions iso into 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
   

Troubleshooting

1. PhpVirtualBox throws an error attribute does not exist or method 'getVDENetwork' does not exist in the object.

   Solution: Check config.php file located on /home/e-smith/files/ibays/phpvbox/html/ and comment out the line var $enableVDE = true;

#var $enableVDE = true;

2. Virtual machine with a guest Windows XP installed takes too long to load.

   Solution: The Windows XP disk you might have used is slipstreamed with Intel ICH9 or ICH10. Uninstall iastor.sys on Safe Mode. Once you restart, it will reinstall it for you. Iastor.sys is an Intel Matrix storage manager, used to access RAID drives system driver file.