Setting Up a VM on Linux/Windows and Mac (intel chips)#

Note

You need to have a working virtual machine for the labs and the project. Therefore, you must follow this tutorial carefully in order to have a functional setup before starting projects and labs.

Installing VirtualBox#

Danger

If you have a recent Macbook (with a m1 chip), skip VirtualBox steps and go here instead.

First download the VirtualBox installer from official web page according to your OS. After finishing the download, launch the installer and follow the instruction of the installer. VirtualBox is a virtualization software which allows you to create VMs that run OSes, including Linux, on your computer without removing your currently-using OS such as Windows and macOS. In this course, we execute Linux on the VM made by VirtualBox.

Download the reference VM image#

Then download the reference VM image from this link. We use this image for the course. TAs will not be able to support if you use other VM images prepared by yourself. The image contains Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 32 bit. We use the 32 bit image in order to avoid compatibility issue in the submission platform. The default user of the VM image is student. The password for the user is also student.

Launch the downloaded VM image on VirtualBox#

We will create a new virtual machine based on the reference image:

  1. Click on the “New” icon in the toolbar to launch the creation wizard and create a new VM.

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  1. The first thing to do is to define the name, the type of virtual machine and the version you want to create. In our case, we chose to name the machine Ubuntu. The type will be Linux and the Ubuntu 32 bits version.

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  1. Next, you need to define the amount of memory and CPUs to be allocated to the virtual machine. These resources will be provided by the host system each time the virtual machine is started. You have to make sure not to go below the recommended minimum. In addition, you must also make sure to leave enough memory and CPUs for the host operating system to continue running. We recommend a minimum of 1024MB but if you have enough memory on your system, you can slide the bar up to 2048MB. You should not need more than 1 CPU but you can have more if you want.

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4. The next step is to use a virtual hard disk. Like shared memory, this is the storage space that will be allocated to the virtual machine. In this case, we will use the virtual hard disk you downloaded (Ubuntu.vdi). Click the “Use an existing virtual hard disk file” option. A new window will open. Click on the “Add” button then select the file Ubuntu.vdi by browsing your file explore (it should normally be in your “Downloads” folder).

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  1. Once you have selected the file in the file explorer, select it again in the modal window and click on the “Choose” button.

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  1. The virtual machine has now been created. You can launch it by pressing the “Start” button located at the top of the toolbar.

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  1. Once the initialization phase is complete, the console login screen appears. The password to log in is the same as the user name, i.e. student.

Danger

If your VM does not boot it may be related to the VT-x technology in most cases. To handle this issue, shutdown your (host) machine, open your BIOS settings, and enable Virtual Technology-x option. Finally restart your machine and test again.

If you still have issues, you can try to install the VirtualBox Extension Pack. This pack provides support for USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP, disk encryption, NVMe and PXE boot for Intel cards. You can try the following commands to install the extension pack:

$sudo apt-get autoremove virtualbox-dkms
$sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r` dkms virtualbox-dkms
$sudo modprobe vboxdrv
$sudo modprobe vboxnetflt

Connect to the VM via ssh#

In order to connect to a VM using ssh, we need a special network setup in VirtualBox. Four of the network cards can be configured in the Network section of the Settings dialog in the graphical user interface of Oracle VM VirtualBox.

NAT: VirtualBox act as a normal process which tries to access the web when the VM initiates a connection (default).

  • +Simple.

  • -Virtual machine not accessible from outside, not even from host.

Bridge: VirtualBox plugs itself to the real card, and acts as if you used a switch.

  • +Access from outside (from the world only if you get public IP address).

  • -Don’t work with Wifi (do not work on ULiège Wifi, but does work on ms8xx machines).

Internal Network: Network between VMs, invisible to the host or the outside.

  • +Secure communication between VMs.

  • -No access to or from host or outside (no internet).

Host private network: Like internal network but creates a virtual interface on the host too.

  • +Fine-tuning is possible (router on the host, …).

  • -Internet connection tricky to configure (create a router between virtual interface on host and the real. interface).

In our case, we will use NAT Network (default option). In order to configure this mode, click on “Setting”, and choose “Network” tab in the settings menu.

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Then click on “Advanced”, and choose “Port Forwarding”.

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Finally, click on the green “+” button, and type the following information. This allows to connect to the remove virtual machine through localhost by using the “6543” port on the host machine (your computer).

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Further details about the configuration:

  • Name: ssh (anything would be fine but try to be consistent)

  • Protocol: TCP

  • Host IP: 127.0.0.1 (localhost)

  • Host Port: 6543 (mostly any number [>1024] would be OK but remember it!)

  • Guest Port: 22 (ssh port)

Connect to the VM by ssh#

Then open a terminal and enter the following commands:

$ ssh student@127.0.0.1 -p 6543

The VM will ask your password. In that case, use the “student” credentials. Note that if you are using Windows, you can use PowerShell or CommandPrompt or putty.

Update package information#

Finally, enter the following command on your terminal app after connecting to the VM by ssh:

$ sudo apt update

In a nutshell, this command updates the package lists for upgrades for packages that need upgrading, as well as new packages that have just come to the repositories. Note that, apt update does not actually install new versions of software.

After running this command, you can install apps/utilities via the apt install command:

$ sudo apt install gcc make bison flex libncurses-dev openssh-server git curl wget bc

Danger

NEVER upgrade ubuntu 16 to ubuntu 18! Otherwise you will have some troubles with the submission platform.