1. Install Operating System

  1. Log into the VirtualBox Machines (vbox) account on DynamicsHJC in front of the keyboard and monitor, or using interactive screen sharing (see Screen Sharing Using SSVNC for details).

  2. On DynamicsHJC, download the installation disk image (ISO file) for the latest version of Ubuntu Server with long term support (LTS).

    LTS versions of Ubuntu Server receive guaranteed support (e.g., security updates) for 5 years. As of December 2016, the latest LTS version is Ubuntu Server 16.04.1 (Xenial Xerus) 64-bit, which will be supported until April 2021. The next LTS release should be available in April 2018. [1]

    You can download the Ubuntu Server ISO file here.

  3. In VirtualBox [2], press “New” to create a new virtual machine, and choose the following settings:

    • Name: biol300_2017
    • Type: Linux
    • Version: Ubuntu (64 bit)
    • Memory size: 2048 MB
    • Hard drive: Create a virtual hard drive now
    • Hard disk file type: VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image)
    • Storage on physical hard drive: Dynamically allocated
    • File location: biol300_2017
    • File size: 30.00 GB

Warning

Do not immediately start the virtual machine! If you do, you should delete it and start over, since this may result in an improperly configured network interface on the virtual machine. [3]

  1. After creating the virtual machine, select it and choose Machine > Group. Click on the new group’s name (“New group”), click Group > Rename Group, and rename the group to “2017”. Finally, drag-and-drop the new group into the “BIOL 300” group.

  2. Set up port forwarding for the virtual machine (see Port Forwarding & Bridged Networking for a more detailed explanation). This will allow you to access the new virtual machine at a temporary URL as you build it, and the wiki from the previous year can remain accessible at https://biol300.case.edu until this setup is complete.

    In VirtualBox, select the virtual machine and choose Settings > Network. With the “Adapter 1” tab selected, change the “Attached to” setting to “NAT”.

    Under Advanced, click Port Forwarding. Here you can create rules that bind a port on the host machine (DynamicsHJC) to a port on the guest machine (biol300_2017). You need to create two rules (click the “+” button) [4]:

    Name Protocol Host IP Host Port Guest IP Guest Port
    HTTPS TCP [leave blank] 8014 [leave blank] 443
    SSH TCP [leave blank] 8015 [leave blank] 22

  3. At the end of this instruction set, you will Activate Bridged Networking (again see Port Forwarding & Bridged Networking for background). To make that process as easy as possible, you should set the MAC address for the virtual machine now.

    Follow the instructions in Looking Up MAC Addresses to identify the MAC address for the BIOL 300 Wiki. In VirtualBox, open Settings > Network again, and under Advanced replace the randomly generated MAC address with the BIOL 300 Wiki’s.

    Until bridge networking is activated, the MAC address will not actually do anything other than ensure that the network interface on the virtual machine is properly configured when the operating system is installed. [3]

  4. Start the new virtual machine. You will immediately be asked to provide a start-up disk. Click the file browser icon (small folder) and select the Ubuntu Server disk image (ISO file) that you downloaded in step 2. Finally, press Start.

  5. The virtual machine will boot from the start-up disk. After choosing English as the installer language, choose “Install Ubuntu Server” and select the following settings:

    • Select a language
      • English
    • Select your location
      • United States
    • Configure the keyboard
      • Detect keyboard layout: No
      • Country of origin for the keyboard: English (US)
      • Keyboard layout: English (US)
    • Configure the network
      • Hostname: biol300
    • Set up users and passwords
      • Full name: Hillel Chiel
      • Username: hjc
      • Password: <system password>
      • Encrypt your home directory: No
    • Configure the clock
      • Timezone: America/New York
    • Partition disks
      • Partitioning method: Guided - use entire disk and set up LVM
      • Select disk to partition: [there should only be one choice]
      • Write the changes to disks and configure LVM: Yes
      • Amount of volume group to use for guided partitioning: 100%
      • Write the changes to disks: Yes
    • Configure the package manager
      • HTTP proxy information: [leave blank]
    • Configuring tasksel
      • How do you want to manage upgrades on this system: Install security updates automatically
    • Software selection
      • Choose software to install [use Space to select and Enter to finish]:
        • LAMP server
        • Mail server
        • standard system utilities
        • OpenSSH server
      • When prompted, provide a <MySQL password>
      • Postfix Configuration
        • General type of mail configuration: Internet Site
        • System mail name: biol300.case.edu
    • Install the GRUB boot loader on a hard disk
      • Install the GRUB boot loader to the master boot record: Yes

    After the installation completes, the virtual machine will restart.

  6. The virtual machine should immediately be accessible via SSH from the internet. Connecting to the virtual machine remotely via SSH, rather than at DynamicsHJC’s physical keyboard or using screen sharing will allow you to conveniently enter the remaining commands found in these instructions by copying and pasting them into the Terminal window on your own machine.

    To setup SSH connectivity from your personal computer, as well as complete some additional account configuration, visit Creating Virtual Machine Accounts and follow the instructions starting with step 2.

  7. If you are not already logged in, do so now:

    ssh -p 8015 hjc@dynamicshjc.case.edu

  8. Create an account for Jeff (username: gill) and any other TAs you would like to have sudo privileges on the server by completing the first step in Creating Virtual Machine Accounts. Instruct them to complete the remaining steps in that document to finish configuring their accounts. Account creation and configuration can also be done at a later time.

  9. Upgrade all packages:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

  10. Install these new packages,

    Package Description
    ntp Network Time Protocol daemon for automatic system time sync
    virtualbox-guest-utils VirtualBox guest utilities for communicating with VM host for time sync and folder sharing

    using the following:

    sudo apt-get install ntp virtualbox-guest-utils

  11. Shut down the virtual machine:

    sudo shutdown -h now

  12. Using VirtualBox, take a snapshot of the current state of the virtual machine. Name it “OS installed”.

Footnotes

[1]You can visit this page to see the release schedule for LTS versions of Ubuntu.
[2]As of this writing, we are using VirtualBox version 5.0.30 r112061.
[3](1, 2) In earlier versions of Ubuntu, I encountered this issue where a virtual machine initialized with the wrong MAC address required some extra work to correct the mistake when it came time to activate bridged networking. I think in more recent versions of Ubuntu the MAC address might be detected at boot time, which means ensuring it is set properly now is not actually necessary, but I haven’t tested this extensively.
[4]Although the guest ports must have exactly these values (443 and 22 are the default ports for HTTPS and SSH, respectively), the host ports were, in fact, chosen arbitrarily. You can choose any numbers you like for the host ports (up to 65536), but they must not conflict with standard ports that DynamicsHJC needs for its own services (ports 0-1024 are reserved for common applications, so you should not use values within that range) or any other virtual machine that is running using port forwarding. To access the virtual machine from off campus, you should also consider using host ports that have univeristy firewall exceptions (see University Firewall for details). For the purposes of this document, I will assume you are using the host ports listed above.