Installation of JeOS is done the same way you would install any other OS in VMware/KVM, but here are a few thing to consider:
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If you plan on shipping a virtual appliance, do not assume that the end-user will know how to extend disk size to fit their need, so either plan for a large virtual disk to allow for your appliance to grow, or explain fairly well in your documentation how to allocate more space.
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Given that RAM is much easier to allocate in a VM, RAM size should be set to whatever you think is a safe minimum for your appliance.
Another option for installing a JeOS virtual machine, is to use ubuntu-vm-builder. If using a local mirror ubuntu-vm-builder can significantly reduce the virtual machine creation time. It also allows you to add extra packages during the install process, set the IP Address, etc. See the section called “ubuntu-vm-builder”.
The following example is based on using VMware server:
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Create a new virtual machine.
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Click next.
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Select Custom configuration, click next.
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Select Linux, pick Ubuntu in the version drop down menu, click next.
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Pick a name for your virtual appliance (use something that makes sense for your product), click next.
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Pick one processor (always default to the lowest configuration you think your users may have), click next.
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Letting the machine be private is a good secure basis, click next.
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Pick the minimum RAM you think your appliance will need (this can be changed easily by the user later on). Click next.
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Bridged networking might seem a sensible default to simplify user set-up later on, click next.
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Do not use default SCSI at this point, use IDE, as SCSI drivers are not included in the kernel. Click next.
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Pick a disk size that makes sense for your virtual appliance. A minimum of 8G seems reasonable, particularly if you do not pick allocate disk space now. Split the disk into 2Gb files makes sense if you want to allow storage on FAT volumes. Click next.
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Pick where you want to store the disk image, click Finish.
Once your machine has been defined, you need to start it, but before you do that you need to tell it to boot from the ISO image you downloaded earlier. The installer for JeOS is very similar to the Ubuntu Server Installer, but as we are preparing a virtual appliance, there are a few steps that we want to change from a regular install.
As a virtual appliance that may be deployed on various very different networks, it is very difficult to know what the actual network will look like. In order to simplify configuration, it is a good idea to take an approach similar to what network hardware vendors usually do, namely assigning an initial fixed IP address to the appliance in a private class network that you will provide in your documentation. An address in the range 192.168.0.0/255 is usually a good choice.
When you arrive at the screen Configure your network asking you to provide a hostname for this machine:
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Press escape to access the network configuration menu.
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Select Configure network manually in the next screen.
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Enter a fixed IP address and other network information in the subsequent screen.
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Once this is done, the installer will continue to its next steps automatically
Partitioning of the virtual appliance will have to take into consideration what you are planning to do with is.
As stated before, do not pick one of the LVM choice as it will fail, LVM not being provided by default on JeOS at
this time. Because most appliances will run as server, using separate /home, /usr,
/var and /tmp partition would make sense.
Again setting up a virtual appliance, you will need to provide a default user and password that is generic so that you can include it in your documentation. We will see later on in this tutorial how we will provide some security by defining a script that will be run the first time a user actually logs in the appliance, that will, among other things, ask him to change his password. In this example I will use 'user' as my user name, and 'default' as the password.
