• Using VM's
  • Installing VirtualBox
  • Installing Virtual Machine
    • Networking.
      • for Windows:
  • Starting the Virtual Machine
    • Change password
    • Updating pecan

Using VM's¶

Installing VirtualBox¶

The VM's are created using virtualbox (http://virtualbox.org) and are expected to be deployed on the virtualbox software. Virtualbox is free software that runs on windows, mac and linux and allows you to create and run virtual machines.

Installing Virtual Machine¶

Once virtualbox is installed you can download the virtual machine using the URL provided. Once the image is downloaded you can either double click on the ova file (which should import it) or use File->Import Appliance in the virtualbox application. This will create a virtual machine from the image.

• When asked about the Appliance Import Settings make sure you select "Reinitialize the MAC address of all network cards". This is by default not selected and can result in networking issues since multiple machines might claim to have the same MAC Address.
• After imported, MAC Address can be reinitialized by:
  • Settings -> Network -> Advanced -> click green circle to right of mac address

Networking.¶

• Before starting the virtual machine you should check the settings for network.
  • Settings -> Network
    • The machine will by default use a bridged network; this means it is a unique machine on the network that will use DHCP to request a new network address. If the request succeeds, the machine will be accessible from the outside using SSH and the IP address assigned to the machine.
    • current default for Pecan64bit.ova: If DHCP does not work, you can use NAT. This will make the outgoing connections of the machine appear to be coming from the machine where the virtual machine is hosted. You do this by modifying the settings:
      • Network -> switch "Attached to:" to NAT.
• To be able to SSH into the machine you will need to configure port forwarding
  • From Virtualbox:
    • Settings -> Network -> Advanced -> Port Forwarding.
    • Click the + (upper right) and edit the values:
      • Name=ssh
      • Host Port=2222
      • Guest Port=22
  • From command line:
    • VBoxManage modifyvm "<virtual machine name>" --natpf1 "ssh,tcp,,2222,,22"

for Windows:¶

1. install Cygwin
   • Cygwin will provide a bash terminal with X-windows
   • the remaining steps will work equally well on Windows as on Mac, Linux, and Solaris.

Starting the Virtual Machine¶

After this is done you can start the virtual machine by clicking on it in the virtualbox application and click start.

• to ssh into the machine:
  • ssh -l pecan -p 2222 localhost using above configuration
  • ssh -l pecan -p 6422 localhost pre-configured ssh tunnel for 64 bit
  • ssh -l pecan -p 3222 localhost for 32 bit

Change password¶

1. type passwd at the command line
2. enter old password
3. enter new password
4. enter new password

Updating pecan¶

1. retrieve latest version of PEcAn from repository:
   

   cd pecan
   bzr pull <username>@<server>/path/to/repository
   

2. change permissions on R library
   

   sudo chmod -R a+rwx /usr/local/lib/R/site-library/
   

3. build pecan
   

   buildpecan