Revision as of 00:13, 10 February 2014

Astronaut Server/Client Installation Instructions

This is an guide for installing an Astronaut Client in a Virtual Linux Machine, with a Windows Host Machine.

This guide will be broken down into a couple of different components, and will offer overall:

1. How to setup and run the Virtual Machine in VMWare Workstation (or Player)
2. How to install the Astronaut Server
3. How to test the Astronaut Server
4. How to install the Astronaut Client (Windows)
5. How to convert the Virtual Machine into a Virtual Appliance (VMWare Workstation only)

Setting up the Virtual Machine

The first step in this procedure is to make sure that you have a virtual machine, running some form of linux to install to. This guide has been tested and works for Ubuntu Server 12.04 running on VMWare Player 6 and Workstation 10.

Since VMWare Player is free and Workstation is only offered on a 30 day trial, it is recommended that you use VMWare Player first, since any machine created on player can be run on Workstation.

Download VMWare Player 6 (or Latest Version)

VMWare is a virtualization platform and though there are support for many OS's, VMWare Player is for Windows only.

VMWare Player is free and shouldn't be confused with VMWare Player Plus. The free download can be found at this link:

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/6_0%7CPLAYER-601%7Cproduct_downloads

Once downloaded, simply run the .exe to install. Follow the instructions and agree to the terms of the license agreement.

Simply hit next and the installation wizard should do the rest, congratulations, you now have VMWare Player installed.

• Note you cannot have Workstation and Player installed on the same computer, you must use one or the other.

Installing Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a free distro of Linux that offers a variety of releases to choose from. There are multiple types but for this, Ubuntu Server 12.04 will be used for this guide. The download for this, and any supported distro, can be grabbed off of the main site.

but here it is for short.

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/server

There are other FTP servers setup for Ubuntu flavors, simply google the version you want if this doesn't fit and grab the download, it should come in a .iso format and should be rather large (upwards of 600MBs) so make sure you have space and a good internet connection before downloading.

The next step is to start up VMWare Player and click on the "Player" button in the top left-hand corner of the screen, then navigate to "File" -> and hit "New Virtual Machine".

• or simply hit "Ctrl + N"

On the window that pops up and should be titled "New Virtual Machine Wizard", there should be three radio buttons. Make sure that the middle one titled "Installer disc image file(iso)" is selected.

Then hit "Browse" and navigate through the file system to the Ubuntu Server .iso file which should be in the Downloads folder of Windows. Hit next and move on to naming the machine.

The next window should have a

Full Name: This is what the computer will be called from within the VM
Username: This is the primary user (note: this is not the root user but will have sudoer access)
Password: This is the password for the main user
Confirm: This is to confirm the password

Please fill out this form and hit next again.

The next window is the name of the VM, this is what VMWare will recognize the Virtual Machine, simply name it "Astronaut-Server"

The next window is used to determine the specs of the machine, unless you want a bigger alotted space just hit next.

The final window is an overview of hardware, unless you know exactly what you want, don't mess with any settings, and don't allocate more RAM than your computer has available.

Hit "Finish" and wait for the wizard to finish your brand new Ubuntu Server.

Install Astronaut Server

Now that you have installed the Ubuntu server, get it started up in VMWare Player, and wait for it to prompt for your username. Enter in the Username and Password (Password will not display any characters, this isn't a glitch so much as a security measure), to log in.

Once logged in, there are a couple of things to take care of before installing astronaut, it's time to prep the virtual machine.

Preparing the machine

The first thing to do is make sure that all drivers are up to date run:

sudo apt-get update

Wait for it to finish then run

sudo apt-get upgrade

• when prompted (y/n) type Y to give permission to install files

Finally type

sudo apt-get autoclean

Once all of this is done, the machine is prepped and up to date. Whenever running a linux system, at least Ubuntu, it is a good idea to run these commands every couple of weeks to keep the machine running and up to date.

Install Astronaut Server

This is the trickiest step to get right, it is a good idea to document every step that you take from here on out to make sure that you set it up correctly.

Test the Installation

Install the Astronaut Client

Convert the Virtual Machine to Virtual Appliance