CNT4603 — 2015 Summer
Assignment 3
Journals Due Tuesday, June 16, at the beginning of class.

Assignment: VirtualBox and CentOS 7




Your objectives are to install VirtualBox on your Debian server, and then install CentOS 7 as a virtual server inside of VirtualBox. First, install VirtualBox. You can install a full version of VirtualBox from VirtualBox.org, or you should be able install it from a Debian repository.

Next, pull down an ISO of CentOS 6.5. I have cached a copy here in the lab and I recommend you try it first.

However, if you are interested in playing with all of the different possibilities for ISOs and downloads, look at the download area of CentOS.org. (For instance, you might try a bittorrent version — it sometimes can be quite fast.)

Now use the "create a new machine" option on VirtualBox; use a VDI (not a real partition) and this disk image doesn't need to be very large (30 gigabytes is more than sufficient). Give the machine only one processor and 1 gigabyte of memory. Make sure that your new virtual server's network device is visible to the lab (do not use an internal-only or NAT configuration). Here's a screen shot of roughly what your network configuration should look like for your CentOS server:

See the VirtualBox networking documentation for more information about your choices.

As to the new virtual server's internal configuration, you don't have to install any graphical interface, but please do so if you like. For an ip number, please use your ip number + 30, so, for example, if your real Debian machine is using 192.168.26.101, please use 192.168.26.131 for the new virtual machine.

For software for your new CentOS instance, I would recommend installing as little as possible in the installation stage. You won't need a graphical interface for anything you do on your CentOS server, so you don't need to install one initially. You can choose "Basic Server" as your configuration; when you boot the first time, it will look something like this:




A journal is due for this assignment. Make sure that you document in your journal all of the steps that you went through, following the guidelines on the class home page.

Please turn in a printed copy of this assignment at the beginning of class on Tuesday, June 16.