Make a Java-enabled Virtual Machine Using Ubuntu JeOS

As suggested in the best practice to build a virtual appliance by VMware, Ubuntu JeOS is used as the operating system. In around 100MB, it provides a just enough OS. After installed, its VMware virtual disk file size is about 380MB.

By default, Ubuntu does not provide a root password. The root privilege is carried out using the "sudo" command. To enable root login: sudo passwd root.

Also, see how to prepare a virtual appliance from the Ubuntu community.

Adding a new virtual disk

• To add a new virtual disk, using the "Add Hardware" command in VMware web interface.
• Need to restart the virtual machine to detect the new virtual disk.
• Let's say the newly added hard drive is /dev/sdb. Use the following command to partition it: fdisk /dev/sdb. To create a single new partition, the entire size of /dev/sdb: n ENTER p ENTER 1 ENTER (default) ENTER (default) ENTER w ENTER.
• To format it: mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb.
• To mount it on an existing location, say /data: mount /dev/sdb /data.
  

See how to format a new hard disk on ubuntu forums.

Making a Java appliance

The next step will be to make it a Java appliance, with JDK, ant as well as Tomcat installed, running some Java application like Grimoires.

Ubuntu JeOS does not pre-install Open SSH server. Use the following command to install Open SSH: apt-get install openssh-server.

Then install

• JDK 1.6.0_10
  
• Apache Ant 1.7.1
• Apache Tomcat 5.5.27
• Grimoires 2.0.0

The used disk space shown by "df" inside virtual machine is about 675MB.

Setting up NAT

Assume the virtual machine has been configured to support NAT. Add the following line to /etc/vmware/vmnet8/nat/nat.conf, under the [incomingtcp] section:

6660 = 172.16.59.132:8080

where 172.16.59.132 is the IP address of the virtual machine.

According to the VMware server user guide, clicking "Refresh Network List" in the Virtual Infrastructure web interface should bring up the modified network configuration. But it does not work in my case. I have to restart VMware to enforce the new NAT configuration: service vmware restart. (Better shut down vm before restart vmware server!)

After restart VMware, and make sure the port 6660 is opened in the firewall of the host machine, access http://hostname_of_the_host:6660/grimoires from another machine.

It seems that vmware server runs a separate daemon to handle the address translation when vm is set to use NAT. So this blocks iptables' NAT configuration.

Cloning the Virtual Machine

This is something a little bit tricky.

I used the conventional way to clone it: copy the vmdk and vmx files; then add the clone virtual machine to the inventory ("Add Virtual Machine to Inventory"); when asked whether you copied it or moved it, answer copied it.

The clone was able to start up. But there was no eth0. The routing table was empty (shown by route). There was an eth1 with the correct MAC address but without IP information (shown by ifconfig). Not surprisingly, TCP/IP was not working.

My judgement was that there was no reason for the virtual network card to go wrong, so it should be due to some configuration issue.

Hinted by a post about adding a second network card to Ubuntu, I used dmesg | grep eth to check the kernel messages on booting. Then I found an interesting message: "udev: rename eth0 to eth1". After a little bit googling and investigation, I solved the problem!

udev is the device manager for the Linux 2.6 kernel series. In /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules, there were two lines:
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ...... ATTR{address}=="00:0c:29:07:6f:37", ...... NAME="eth0"
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ...... ATTR{address}=="00:0c:29:cf:c8:64", ...... NAME="eth1"

The MAC address in the first line is the one of the original vm, while the MAC address in the second line is the correct MAC address of the clone. Clearly, the first line has no effect, because there is no such a device in the system. And the second line adds the network card as eth1.

Looking at /etc/network/interfaces, it only defines lo and eth0. eth0 is defined like this:
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

There is no wonder why only eth1 was visible but did not support TCP/IP. After commenting out the first line and changing eth1 to eth0 in the second line in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules, and restarting the system, TCP/IP is working!

Summary

This is a convenient way to prepare a small footprint Virtual Machine for running Java. It can be used to deliver Java software, or as a test or evaluation environment for Java product.