How To Create Virtualbox Template

How to Use Oracle VM VirtualBox Templates

by Yuli Vasiliev
Published July 2012

How to download, import, and configure Oracle VM VirtualBox Templates in Oracle VM VirtualBox.

This article explains how to employ Oracle VM VirtualBox Templates in Oracle VM VirtualBox. Information technology is like to the commodity that explains how to fix an Oracle VM environment to employ Oracle VM Templates, but it describes how to download, install, and configure the templates inside Oracle VM VirtualBox, instead of on bare metal.

About Templates for Oracle VM VirtualBox

Prebuilt programmer virtual machines (VMs) for Oracle VM VirtualBox offer a quick mode to install and experience entire software stacks packaged into deployable appliances, providing a expert style to exam new software. Moreover, the power to run multiple VMs, each in an isolated surroundings on a unmarried physical server, allows y'all to utilize the available computer resources much more than efficiently.

OTN is all about helping you become familiar plenty with Oracle technologies to brand an informed conclusion. Articles, software downloads, documentation, and more. Bring together up and become the technical resources you need to exercise your job.

As an example, this article uses the Oracle VM VirtualBox template for Oracle VM Manager that is described in the "Quick Showtime Guide for the VirtualBox Template for Oracle VM Manager."

Note: To see the entire list of available programmer VMs, visit the Pre-Built Developer VMs (for Oracle VM VirtualBox) page on the OTN Website.

A template for Oracle VM VirtualBox consists of a invitee operating system and any software components preinstalled on this guest Bone, as well equally configuration information required for deployment. The guest OS of the template is Oracle Linux 5.seven. The preinstalled software components include Oracle VM Director three.0.3 demo installation, Oracle WebLogic Server 10.three, and Oracle Database, Express Edition elevenk.

Annotation: According to the Read Me First document that accompanies the Oracle VM VirtualBox Template, the template is designed for testing and development purposes only. Using information technology in production is non supported.

Prerequisites

Before you lot can install the Oracle VM VirtualBox template for Oracle VM Managing director that is discussed in this article, you need to have Oracle VM VirtualBox iv.1.viii or later installed on your host operating system. At the moment, Oracle VM VirtualBox is available for a number of operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Oracle Solaris, and Linux. For further details, check out the Oracle VM VirtualBox downloads folio. Equally for the other software prerequisites, your system might crave you to install some additional packages earlier starting the installation of Oracle VM VirtualBox. For more information, refer to the Oracle VM VirtualBox User Manual.

Also, brand certain that your hardware is capable of running the template's virtual machine. In particular, the virtual car is preconfigured with four GB of RAM for optimal running of the software. Therefore, Oracle VM VirtualBox must be able to classify this amount of retentivity every fourth dimension the virtual machine is started. Moreover, make sure that your host system has at to the lowest degree 15 GB of free deejay space for the template—when installed, Oracle VM VirtualBox requires about ten GB and five GB is required for the template'south .ova archive.

Downloading and Importing the Oracle VM VirtualBox Template

Download the .ova file for the template using this link. Put the downloaded file into the home directory of the user you are logged in every bit and then it will exist visible to Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager (the Oracle VM VirtualBox GUI) for importing.

Bold you lot have already successfully installed Oracle VM VirtualBox, launch Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager from the Commencement menu of your operating system. In Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager, choose File -> Import Apparatus to launch the Appliance Import Wizard, which will walk you through the import process.

During this process, y'all'll be able to modify the suggested settings of the virtual auto being imported, and so you lot will be asked to accept the license terms. After the import has completed successfully, you should see the icon of the newly created virtual machine in the left pane of the Oracle VM VirtualBox Managing director window, as shown in Effigy one.

Figure 1. Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager Later Importing the Template

If y'all select the VM'due south icon, its settings will be displayed in the right pane. Click the Settings button to edit the settings. For your convenience, the settings are grouped in categories. If you demand, for example, to edit the network settings of the virtual machine, you tin can click the Network icon at the left and so go to the settings of interest on the right.

Many setting categories are further subdivided. For example, to change the number of virtual CPUs in the virtual machine, yous'll demand to select System in the left pane and then click the Processor tab in the right pane, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure two. The VM'due south Settings Dialog Box

Turning dorsum to the network settings, it's important to note that Oracle VM VirtualBox allows you to choose between several networking modes when it comes to configuring a networking adapter plugged into the VM. Which option you should choose depends on the requirements of the software components running on your VM. Thus, in this particular example, yous take to have into account the network requirements for Oracle VM Manager.

Only as a reminder, Oracle VM Manager is a key component of the Oracle VM architecture, and it is designed for configuring and managing Oracle VM Servers, networks, and other VM-related resource that might be located on different machines on your physical network. Also, it is of import to emphasize that each Oracle VM Server must be installed on a dedicated machine. What this means in practice is that Oracle VM Manager must take a network connexion to each of those VM servers' hosts.

The considerations above make up one's mind the appropriate networking mode for the network adapter to be used. It's fairly obvious that the Not attached, Internal networking, and Host-only networking options are not suitable here. Instead, you need an option that allows you to prepare routing between the VM and the balance of the network. For such cases, Oracle VM VirtualBox offers the Bridged networking option, which allows y'all to create a virtual network interface on the guest, communicating ultimately through a physical network adapter installed on the host. Such a virtual network interface is given its own IP accost and tin can exist accessed by other machines on your network as if it were a physical device. To learn more than nigh the networking mode options in Oracle VM VirtualBox, see the Networking in VirtualBox blog.

Launching a Template's Virtual Machine

To start the virtual automobile, select its icon in the left pane of Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager and click the Commencement button. The VM'due south console appears, in which you should run into the process of booting the VM into Oracle Linux, the guest operating system (see Effigy 3).

During the offset boot, yous're prompted to enter the root password and the network settings. The arrangement will try to determine the IP information for the specified interface automatically through DHCP. If it fails, you lot'll be prompted to enter a static IP address likewise as the other network-related data.

Figure iii. Setting Upwardly the Network Properties During the First Kicking of the VM

Oracle VM VirtualBox comes with a built-in DHCP server, which you lot have to configure before you can apply it. When using the Bridged networking option, however, it's recommended to not employ the built-in DHCP server, because information technology might conflict with other DHCP servers available in the network.

Configuring a Template's Virtual Machine

Templates come preconfigured to run the included software optimally. As you learned in the preceding section, well-nigh of the configuration work on your part has to be done during the kickoff kick of the template'due south VM. Nevertheless, y'all might need to change some settings later. For case, y'all tin modify the IP accost of the VM using standard Linux procedures performed on the guest, as shown in Figure four.

Figure 4. Irresolute the Network Configuration of the VM Using Standard Oracle Linux Tools

If you just desire to change the IP address of your virtual network interface until the finish of a current VM's session, y'all tin can do that through a last using the standard Linux ifconfig control, as follows:

# ifconfig eth0 192.168.100.4 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

Before you lot can run the command above, notwithstanding, you'll need to reconnect to the guest every bit root because, by default, yous're connected every bit the ovm user.

Using a Template's Software

Now that yous have the VM running, you tin use the software it offers. In this particular case, you can play with Oracle VM Manager. This software is designed to manage an Oracle VM surroundings, which may contain one or several Oracle VM Servers running on different physical machines and logically grouped into a server pool or pools, storage repositories, virtual machines, networks, and other resources.

Earlier launching Oracle VM Director, it'southward recommended that you familiarize yourself with the information provided in the Read Me Start document, whose icon can be found on the guest's desktop. After that, launch Oracle VM Managing director past double-clicking the Oracle VM Manager Login icon located a bit higher on the desktop. Then, to log in, you can use the following login and password pair: admin and Welcome1 (encounter Figure v).

Figure 5. Welcome Dialog Box of Oracle VM Manager Running in the VM

It's important to note that launching Oracle VM Manager from within its VM, as discussed higher up, is not the only pick you lot accept in about cases. Strictly speaking, your options depend on the networking mode you're using. Thus, with the Bridged networking choice, you might invoke Oracle VM Managing director from within whatever node on your network. The only requirement is that the browser you're using must meet the requirements of Oracle VM Manager.

While a detailed discussion of Oracle VM is outside the scope of this article, in cursory, the first thing you lot might want to exercise with the help of Oracle VM Manager is to discover one or more already installed Oracle VM Servers in your Oracle VM environment.

If you desire to install an Oracle VM Server in your system for testing purposes, please note that this software takes over your unabridged hard drive, thus requiring a dedicated motorcar. Besides, for storing your Oracle VM resources, including VM files, you'll need to have an Oracle VM storage repository that might be installed, for example, on an NFS file server or on a storage server exposing raw disks.

If yous have these components installed in your organization, the first series of steps you might desire to perform with Oracle VM Manager could be the post-obit:

1. Discover one or more than Oracle VM Servers.
two. Create a server pool or pools.
3. Add together the discovered server(south) to the server pool(south).
four. Register a file server or a storage assortment.
five. Create a storage repository for storing your Oracle VM resources.

It's important to annotation that the steps above are the same steps you normally would consider after a regular installation of Oracle VM Manager. In other words, there is no difference in this regard between running Oracle VM Manager on a regular Linux host and running it within Oracle VM VirtualBox. Think, though: According to the Read Me First document that accompanies the Oracle VM VirtualBox Template, the template is designed for testing and development purposes only. Using it in production is not supported.

It'southward interesting to notation that Oracle VM Manager is not the only software component available through the VM existence discussed here. Beginning of all, information technology'south the guest Os, Oracle Linux, that provides the ability for yous to use other software components or even install new ones, loading installation packages from the network or local devices using CDs/DVDs or USB devices. Before you tin can use USB devices from Oracle VM VirtualBox guests, though, brand sure to include the operating system user yous're logged in every bit to the user group vboxusers. If y'all're an Oracle Linux user, the Oracle VM VirtualBox installer should take automatically created the vboxusers group.

Conclusion

The purpose of this article was to give you a quick look at Oracle VM Templates for Oracle VM VirtualBox and demonstrate how easy it is to obtain a template and then import it into Oracle VM VirtualBox to create a VM. And then, you lot learned how to configure the template's VM in compliance with the requirements of the software that runs on the VM.

About the Author

Yuli Vasiliev is a software developer, freelance writer, and consultant currently specializing in open source development, Java technologies, business organisation intelligence (BI), databases, service-oriented architecture (SOA) and, more recently, virtualization. He is the author of a series of books on Oracle engineering science, the most contempo one being Oracle Business organization Intelligence: An introduction to Business Analysis and Reporting (Packt, 2010).

Revision 1.0, 07/11/2012