Linux Hands - On

Through this hands-on you will install Ubuntu Server on a vm and you will make additional two clones of the installed ubuntu server for your lab sessions in next two days.

Setting up virtualbox

Installation of virtualbox and Downloading Ubuntu iso image

• Download and install virtualbox 5.0.x
• Download Ubuntu image from the LEARN mirror
• Note down the location of downloaded iso file

Creating the VM

• Start virtualbox and Click on New button (at top-right) to create new virtual machine
• Enter name of the VM as: linux.'your domain'.ws.learn.ac.lk. You can get your domain from here

eg: linux.user1.ws.learn.ac.lk

• Select OS Type: Linux
• Select Version: Ubuntu (64-bit)
• Then click on Continue button
• Set VM's memory size to 1024MB and click on Continue button
• Set VM's hard disk option to Create a virtual hard disk now and then click on Continue
• Select disk type to VDI
• Select storage type to Fixed size and Continue
• Make sure virtual hard disk file name in following format linux.'your domain'.ws.learn.ac.lk
• adjust the disk size to 10.0GB and click on Create to create the VM

This might take couple of minutes

(Note down the location of vdi image file when virtualbox flashes it on the screen)

Setting up Network Interface

• Select the VM from left panel on Virtual box, right click and open Settings
• Click on the Network title
• On Adapter 1 While Enable Network Adapter selected choose Attached to be Bride Adapter. This virtual interface will work as the WAN port of the firewall (Can be connect from out side).

Setting up boot device and Booting

• Click on Storage title and select CD ROM icon under the Controller:IDE Click on CD ROM icon under the Attribute on the left side to select
• Choose Virtual Optical Disk File
• Locate the Ubuntu CD Image file you downloaded from the LEARN ftp
• Right click on VM to make a Normal Start VM. You should now see a separate window with Installation screen

Initial Installation options

• Select English as language for the installation wizard
• Select Ubuntu Server
• Select English for VM's OS language
• Select location by Others->Asia->Sri Lanka
• Keep locales as default United States
• Press No for configure Keyboard
• Select English (US) for country of origin for the keyboard

Now it might take sometime to detect the hardware and load the necessary Linux modules

Note that it configure network with DCHP

• Type host name as: linux.'your domain'.ws.learn.ac.lk
• When it asked, add a User by entering Your Name, your username, password
• You may select No for not to encrypt home directory
• Select Yes confirm the time-zone

Disk Configuration

Your have 10GB hard drive previously configured for your VM

• Select Manual
• Select the Disk SCSI3(0,0,0) (sda) - 10.0 GB ATA VBOX HARDDISK and Select Yes to create new partition table
• Select Free Space to create following partitions and mount them as follows. Use EXT4 for all partitions except for SWAP partition
  • a primary partition for /boot 512MB - turn on Bootable flag
  • a primary partition for Linux SWAP (two times the RAM) SWAP 2GB
  • a primary partition for Linux Logical Volume for remaining disk space.
• Then use Logical Volume Manager to create a Volume Group named as "linux" and logical volumes for followings
  • a logical volume root for / 2GB
  • a logical volume usr for /usr 3GB
  • a logical volume var for /var rest of the free space
• Get above partitions mounted as /, /usr and /var with the file system EXT4 selected.
• Then finish the partitioning and confirm it to write to the disk

Now it might take sometime to install the OS base.

Final Configuration

• At the package manager, click Continue not to use any proxy settings

Again it might take times to install rest of the packages.

• Select No automatic updates
• Select only
  1. standard system utilities
  2. OpenSSH server

Wait until it finished the installation of software

• Finally install/setup the GRUB boot loader by selecting Yes
• Finish the installation of Ubuntu by selecting Continue

VM now should restart with the newly installed OS.

You may now login using your credentials

Create the Additional VMs

You will now easily create the second VM using VM cloning. This VM is for your Web Server which will be used for hands-on tomorrow.

• First Power off/shutdown your VM
• Right click on the VM to select Clone option
• Assign new name as web."your domain".ws.ac.lk
• Check "Reinitialize the MAC address for all network cards
• And then click on Continue
• Select Full clone

This might take sometime to create the new virtual disk image (vdi) file. Note that your new VM is same as your previous one. You have to change host name, ip addresses, etc accordingly.

• When the cloning finished, start you new VM and do following to change the host name
• edit /etc/hostname file and change host name to web. You may use vi or nano editor.
• also edit /etc/hosts file to change 127.0.0.1 pc."your domain".ws.ac.lk pc to 127.0.0.1 web."your domain".ws.ac.lk

You can follow the same steps and create the third VM to use as the ldap Server. Note the following changes.

• Assign new name as ldap."your domain".ws.ac.lk
• edit /etc/hostname file and change host name to web. You may use vi or nano editor.
• also edit /etc/hosts file to change 127.0.0.1 pc."your domain".ws.ac.lk pc to 127.0.0.1 ldap."your domain".ws.ac.lk

Note: For this Hands-on you only need your pc(pc."your domain.ws.ac.lk") VM. Please shut down the additional VM's

Setting UP IP Addresses

Edit /etc/network/interfaces files to include your IP addresses in your PC Get your IP address from the IP table

iface eth0 inet static


    address 192.248.x.x 
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    network 192.248.6.0
    broadcast 192.248.6.255
    gateway 192.248.6.254
    dns-nameservers 192.248.1.161
    dns-search yourdmain 

When you completed the IP settings of both VMs, restart them and then login to confirm correct IP settings.