How to install and configure Cern Virtual Machine (CernVM) on your laptop

Install a Virtual Machine on your laptop: CernVM

See talk by Pere Mato, slide 14: 17 March 2009

CernVM beginner's guide: CernVM beginner's guide

Windows

1) Download vmware player here

Unzip and put CernVM in fixed place. For example C:\Program Files\CernVM
Start vmplayer from desktop
Open CernVM from C:\Program Files\CernVM
Open in browser: http://192.168.204.128:8004/
                 (your number might be different!)
Create account. For example: use lxplus username and password
Virtual organization: lhcb
Change memory allocation in vmware player
  -> troubleshoot
     -> change memory allocation
         -> 1024 MB

2) Create shared data folder on your laptop

Make folder C:\Data
Change properties of C:\Data
   -> sharing
     -> network sharing without wizard
       V share
          name: Data
       V allow 

Edit the 2kB VMware configuration file (in C:\Program Files\CernVM\ ) and add:

sharedFolder.maxNum = "1"

sharedFolder0.present = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.enabled = "TRUE" 
sharedFolder0.readAccess = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.writeAccess = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.hostPath = "C:\Data"
sharedFolder0.guestName = "data"
sharedFolder0.expiration = "session"

usb.autoConnect.device1 = ""

NB: after editing the configuration file, restart VMware Player

In VMware:
  -> Share folders
     -> o always enabled

Add the following line to /etc/fstab:
sudo emacs -nw /etc/fstab
     .host:/ /mnt/hgfs vmhgfs defaults 0 0

sudo ln -s /usr/sbin/mount.vmhgfs /sbin

I edited Phi.py and put input data location: /mnt/hgfs/data/Bs2DsK_1.dst )
Data can be found here:
/afs/cern.ch/lhcb/group/calo/ecal/vol10/DATA
(or ask Niels or Vanya for a copy...)

Starting CernVM

Start VMware Player (don't select 'Open', but 'Recent')

Login to your CernVM with your SSH.

MAC

I have succesfully tried using VirtualBox, from Sun Microsystems. It is free, it works. Follow more or less the instructions in the ATLAS CernVM wiki

Download and untar CernVM 1.20

Get the one for VirtualBox from here. Unzip and untar it. And figure out where in your file system it is. This will be the boot image "disk" for the operating system so VirtualBox will need it for booting. This must be done *before* the VirtualBox step.

Get and set up VirtualBox

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads Install it following instructions run it and follow https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/Atlas/CernVMGuideVirtualBox I went for ~1542MB memory as my laptop has 4GB.

Name:                 CernVM
OS Type:              Linux 2.6
Base Memory:          1532 MB
Video Memory:         6 MB

Hard Disks
IDE Primary Master: cernvm-1.2.0-x86.vmdk (Normal, 5.24 GB)

I had some problems getting it to find the disk image. I did lots of clicking around and it worked in the end. I cannot replicate the "locate the vmdk file" snapshots in the ATLAS VirtualBox wiki exactly. Maybe I'll try again to see.

For network setup, I used NAT following these instructions

Then I followed the rest of the steps here