[Server-devel] The three step XSCE demo!

Thu Nov 21 15:46:05 EST 2013

Should I turn this into a wiki page?

On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Miguel González
<migonzalvar at activitycentral.com> wrote:
> I'm going to describe in detail my current dev environment. Hopefully,
> it could be useful for somebody.
>
>
> Pre-requisites
> ====
>
> I'm using a VirtualBox and installing a virtual machine with Fedora18.
>
> I'm also use vagrant to automatically manage the virtual machine.
> There packages available from its website [1]. I'm currently using
> version 1.3.4.
>
>
> Booting a fresh virtual machine
> ====
>
> The file Vagrantfile defines a basic image to download (= vagrant box)
> and allows to add configuration details like network configuration.
>
> This is a simplified but fully functional version:
>
> ```ruby
> # -*- mode: ruby -*-
> # vi: set ft=ruby :
>
> VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION = "2"
>
> Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|
>   config.vm.box = "fedora-18-x86_64"
>   config.vm.box_url =
> "http://puppet-vagrant-boxes.puppetlabs.com/fedora-18-x64-vbox4210-nocm.box"
>
>   # config.vm.network :public_network
>
>   # config.ssh.forward_agent = true
>
>   config.vm.synced_folder ".", "/vagrant", :disabled => true
>
>    config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |vb|
>        # vb.gui = true
>    end
>
> end
> ```
>
> With this command, vagrant downloads the basic image (only the first
> time) and deploys and boots up the virtual machine:
>
> ```
> $ vagrant up
> ```
>
>
> Then, to access the vagrant virtual machine:
>
> ```
> $ vagrant ssh
> ```
>
> Installing XSCE
> ====
>
> Inside the vm now it's possible to follow the install instructions
> [2]. I'm copying them below:
>
>
> Install git and ansible (for dependencies):
>
> ```
> sudo su -
> yum install -y git ansible
> ```
>
> Update ansible to use a :
>
> ```
> cd ~/
> git clone https://github.com/ansible/ansible.git
> cd ansible
> git checkout 07b59da99
> python setup.py install
> ```
>
> Clone the XSCE git repo and run the actual setup:
>
> ```
> cd ~/
> git clone https://github.com/XSCE/xsce
> cd xsce/
> ./runansible
> ```
>
> XSCE autoconfigures itself according to the interfaces it detects. If
> XSCE only detects one interface, as in this setup, it configures
> itself in "appliance mode". But the service are not reachable because
> `eth0` in the host machine is using a subnetwork.
>
> One solutions is define a port forward for every service. Other
> solution, the one I'm using currently is to add a new interface
> **after installing XSCE**.
>
> To do it, from the host machine I halt the vm, uncomment a line in
> Vagrantfile and run again:
>
> ```
> $ vagrant halt
> $ vim Vagrantfile
> ... uncomment # config.vm.network :public_network
> $ vagrant up
> $ vagrant ssh
> ```
>
> The guest machine has 2 interfaces, the internal subnet and another
> bridged to the same LAN as the host
>
> ```
> [vagrant at schoolserver ~]$ ip a
> 1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN
>     link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
>     inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
>     inet6 ::1/128 scope host
>        valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
> 2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast
> state UP qlen 1000
>     link/ether 08:00:27:f0:90:8a brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
>     inet 10.0.2.15/24 brd 10.0.2.255 scope global eth0
>     inet6 fe80::a00:27ff:fef0:908a/64 scope link
>        valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
> 3: eth1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast
> state UP qlen 1000
>     link/ether 08:00:27:ca:fe:ca brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
>     inet 192.168.0.100/24 brd 192.168.0.255 scope global eth1
>     inet6 fe80::a00:27ff:feca:feca/64 scope link
>        valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
> ```
>
> And now all the services can be accessed from the LAN by any device
> for testing, in this case, using 192.168.0.100.
>
>
> The main problem here is that running XSCE installation process again
> (`./runansible`) will mess the configuration because **it will find 2
> interfaces now**. So, before configuring the server again, disable
> eth1:
>
>
> ```
> [root at schoolserver xsce]# ifconfig eth1 down
> [root at schoolserver xsce]# ./runansible
> ```
>
>
> More..
> ====
>
>
> - To begin with a new fresh virtual machine:
>
> ```
> $ vagrant destroy
> $ vagrant up
> ```
>
>
> - Uncommenting `config.ssh.forward_agent = true` in Vagrantfile, it is
> possible to write in a git repo from the guest using host's keys.
>
>
> - Take a look to https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/pull/76 when we are
> trying to simplify adding new *roles* (services) to XSCE.
>
>
>
> 1: http://downloads.vagrantup.com/
>
> 2: https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/blob/master/docs/INSTALL.rst
>
> On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 11:01 AM, Anish Mangal
> <anish at activitycentral.com> wrote:
>> Hi Sebastian,
>>
>> You should be able to download the image from here (Thanks to Thomas Gillard
>> for uploading the file):
>> http://people.sugarlabs.org/Tgillard/XSCE.ova
>>
>> Please verify the md5sum once you have downloaded the file.
>> 56a4f141b564b0d2bd65c543a5e585c6
>>
>> About your question on dev environment I am ccing Santi and Miguel who can
>> answer it best. It may depend on what part of the server you want to
>> contribute to, but I think you should mostly be able to get away with just a
>> VM image. I don't believe anyone has tried a chroot env (though I could be
>> wrong) but it _might_ be possible.
>>
>> Also, for testing with real clients (like xo laptops) you are probably going
>> to need something for the LAN side (an access point). There are a few
>> permutations here, but I will step back and let more the technical experts
>> converse :-)
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Anish
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 10:54 AM, Sebastian Silva
>> <sebastian at fuentelibre.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks that will be simpler. Actually I'm more interested in what a good
>>> dev environment would be in order to contribute.
>>> Do I need to make a fedora chroot?
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Sebastian
>>>
>>> El 19/11/13 09:51, Anish Mangal escribió:
>>>
>>> I tried uploading it to xsce.activitycentral.com, but I ran out of space
>>> in my user dir. Normally the appliance is 1.3G, but this also has 400mb of
>>> IIAB test dataset.
>>>
>>> I'll give it another shot in another area where there is some free space,
>>> and get back.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 7:24 PM, Sebastian Silva
>>> <sebastian at fuentelibre.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi
>>>> I tried this but google drive problematic to download from as it requires
>>>> to download from a browser. Not adequate for 1.6gb. Let me know if I can
>>>> pick it up from a regular download place. Why is it so big?
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Sebastian
>>>>
>>>> El 17/11/13 20:48, Anish Mangal escribió:
>>>>
>>>>> Download the XSCE Virtualbox appliance from here
>>>>> https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3eW2YPe6koIVXRVbDhSR0xXQ1U (approx 1.6 GB)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Miguel González
> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com
> _______________________________________________
> Server-devel mailing list
> Server-devel at lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

-- 
David Farning
Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com