TomW's picture

Hi all.  Beginner here at TKL-virtualization.  My background is in SMB computing. I've read through much of this sites docs and I am currently choosing TKL for my web site project base system.

My server specs are Intel E6300 CPU w/ 8 GB Ram, 160GB HDD on a Asus server board. 

The OS is your 32 bit core w/pae enabled. (I tried proxmox yesterday...didn't find it approp. I can comment on later on that if somebody asks.)   So...the above system as a base I want to apply the TKLpatch from Rik at ISOmatic which you approved so I suppose you support called virtualbox-R-pae.

Question:  In the config file he uses 127.0.1.1.   Do I run the patch or adjust the config details to 127.0.0.1 which is what it core runs as by default.  Anything else to adjust (besides being updated) on a default core install before production (?) would be appreciated too I don't want to goof up my fresh install.  BTW, I think the headless vbox based on core is a winner config after looking over many ways to do this project.

Thanks, Tom

Forum: 
Liraz Siri's picture

Headless VirtualBox is a good candidate for an official TurnKey appliance based on Rik's TKLPatch. We just have a few more things to work through before we get to that.

Regarding the IP address, that's probably a typo, but it doesn't really matter as 127.0.1.1 and 127.0.0.1 are equivalent to the same address. In fact, any address in the 127 A class network is routed to localhost on Linux.

TomW's picture

Thanks Liraz. How localhost works...forgot about that.  I'll treat it as a typo.   Is there one central place we can all discuss this master base appliance?  I know it's a hot and important topic market and beginner wise both.   The Hub is big league stuff...kinda heady I'm sure.  Good work TKL team.


Jeremy Davis's picture

But must admit I'm curious why ProxmoxVE wasn't suitable in your instance. As you are probably aware already I'm a bit of a PVE fanboy and most that have tried it (at least those that have posted back) have also found it useful so it'd be interesting to hear from someone who didn't.

PS There is a thread discussing this over here. But I don't think mention of Rik VBox headless appliance has made it into that discussion as it is quite an old thread (don't let the date of the first post fool you - it was started late 2009). On another front I know Adrian has been having a play with LXC (which will probably eventually replace OpenVZ for container virtualisation) which is probably a good canditate for the virtualisation layer of a TKL Metaserver although the downside is that it can only host Linux VMs (hence why PVE uses OVZ and KVM).

TomW's picture

Hi Jeremy.  First let me say your posts here have been really helpful for getting familiar with TKL and the approach you have taken to run a Vserver.   Proxmox ran as advertised.

Simple personal choice.  I decided I want a stack I can learn...bare metal...upward...to the top layer...the web facing apps as one integrated system for performance, biz and tech support reasons.  TKL has the lead right now in my estimation. I've on-off followed TKL for years along with the VM subject. I'm jumpin in now.  Hope to be of help by asking the right questions so that others can hook into like we all tend to do.

   My wish is for the hypervisor-VMM layer to be integrated well with the core host OS and remote-able.  Simple as possible to manage and fast.   I believe this will speed adoption of TKL as a whole solution for the widest variety of other newcomers too. :)   I don't have the luxury of ignoring Msoft either in my career so that plays in too.  Vbox, proxmox, Xen makes a implementer learn a whole application...I'd much rather just learn a few packages....say KVM-Qemu, etc.  I'm sure it will all fall in place fairly soon.  Exciting subject..maturing technologies.  Keep the posts coming Jed...good views..helpful too.  I'm impressed by alot going on here at TKL like others have wrote. 


TomW's picture

Anybody got simple instructions for installing this patch?  I read the docs on installing tklpatches both here and at Riks site and the line here at TKL that points to the patchs ends in files\....   I don't know where the .... goes to?  use wget?  apt-get?  Says to put it in a folder. Where's the folder to put it in?  I usually use MC to navigate in a terminal shell.  That I got down.  lol

We are talking beginner here.  I know it simple to do once you have done it.  ;)  We don't know the folder structure of every distro so please helps us newbies with complete instructions..not partial .....'s

If I have to use Rik's iso to get this setup I guess I will.   Thanks.


Jeremy Davis's picture

I assume that you were following the instructions here? Sounds like you're pretty close.

My advice to you is to setup your workbench before you do anything. I have found that using an Ubuntu desktop makes TKL development just that little bit easier and it has helped me learn lots about Linux in general and Ubuntu/TKL specificly. Having said that it's definately not a prerequisite and I'll assume that you're on Windows. For a Win dev workbench you'll want 2 main tools, an SFTP client (Filezilla is my favourite) and an SSH client (PuTTY is the go). I also recommend a text editor that won't mangle Linux files (Notepad++ is my preference). And finally VM hosting software (VirtualBox is my desktop VE of choice). I will assume you are using these apps, if not you may need to make some adjustments.

I think the best (and most foolproof) way to do this is to use a clean install of TKL Core as your patching environment (as the docs suggest). So if you haven't already, download the ISO and install it to a VM (you can use the VM image if you'd rather but you'll need the ISO as well). By default networking is set to NAT, change that to 'bridged'. Once installed, from the confconsole screen take note of the IP address.

Now install TKLPatch as detailed in the docs. For commandline access you can use the VM window, but I personally prefer to use SSH/PuTTY (connect to the IP you took note of). Now connect to your server with Filezilla and upload the TKL Core ISO to the /root folder. FYI the current user's home folder is often abreviated to ~

Now get the patch into the /root folder too. You can download the file using your desktop and upload it with Filezilla but I have had the odd issue with this where Win will somehow mess up the tar.gz file. So I'd suggest wget http://web.address.com/path/to/file in this case it's:

wget http://cdn.turnkeylinux.org/files/attachments/VirtualBox-R-pae.tar.gz

FYI the easy way to get this address is (in Firefox) go to the page with the desired patch (here in this case), scroll down to the download link, right-click>>'copy link location' then in PuTTY (connected already) type wget and leave a space, then right-click (right-click in Putty is paste). Then hit enter. Once it downloads you are ready to patch.

Then you just patch the ISO by running:

tklpatch tkl-core.iso riks-vbox-patch.tar.gz

(obviously put the correct names in). You should end up with a second ISO with 'patched' added to the filename. Download this new ISO to your desktop via Filezilla. Now do some quick testing in VBox and once happy that it installs without issue, burn the CD and have a crack on your hardware.

Let me know how it goes...

TomW's picture

All good suggestions...thanks for the direct patch instructions. I will use these instructions after I bork everything and reload...seems inevitiable when we're learning stacks ;)  I installed the iso from Rik last night.  I need to keep moving forward. Workbenchs and servers:  I prefer minimal installs on all this stuff to reduce attack vectors.  OS, minimum X, browser, tools...that's it.   I am using-testing both win 7 with IE8(insecure) and putty(secure) and also my fav distro's pclinuxos-minime and Archlinux w/seamonkey as workbenches.   I will also try ubuntu xfce as one too ...soon ...to keep it all the same platform-Ubuntu. Win7-IE8 renders and connects the networking-shell screens and everything the best visually so far believe it or not.  Ian Moore's phpVirtualbox is stunningly simple and beautiful. I highly recommend it.  I will model all my admin apps to look and work like his...fonts etc. 

Todays todo:  Learn secure virtual networking-need help here exposing the VM from a DMZ subnet w/ DDNS, etc.   Vbox headless VM server administration.  I have one app installed to test so far-Mindtouch-deki.  It will probably be my main public facing company-biz app with a bunch of others behind it.  Maybe joomla or wordpress if that doesn't pan out.  I want the usual set of public facing apps (forum, wiki, blog, simple top page to link to all apps for customers-public in one app hopefully.

High hopes...sunny day in Detroit, MI   Thanks Jedimaster TKL dude.  :)


TomW's picture

logged in as root on core....next step in setup right after installing from Rik's iso (rebooted) is to add the extpack for the ability to see the running app inside the phpvbox manager from the console button which is grayed out until it's installed.  I was given the option to install extpack after main install so I did.   Now when I go to install it with his command /usr/local/bin/install_extpack the answer back from terminal is :permission denied.  I would expect Rik's iso to behave nearly exactly as a TKL core would at this early point.  It doesn't. So back to core.  Even if the fixes are super simple permissions stuff for experienced linux peeps that does not apply to a beginner, imo.   We often need help with the most basic of commands in linux like free -m, netstat -na, apt-get, rc.d list, etc.

I will reinstall from TLK core and run the tlkpatch per Jeremy's post.  I am just following the steps outlined by Rik and Jeremy with the aid of all docs such as Oracle-Vbox, ISOmatics-Rik, Ubuntu server, phpvirtualbox-Ian, TKL docs-tkl owners, and of course google.  I have no other expert resources.   I will document all of my experiences so others can avoid the same issues as I go and after I compile all my notes. Others will on average have no other help besides the above.  Should be a reminder to us all when helping others that the server world ways and tools of doing things isn't like the desktop world with synaptics, pacman, apt that "just works" from the desktop.  humor.   We are dealing with complex apps like php, apache, mysql, linix os, networking-firewalls, security, bash, myriad lengthy config files, etc.  Still in it for the result...it's early.


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