r144 - 03 May 2008 - 00:35:44 - MartinCleaverYou are here: TWiki > 
Codev Web > TWikiVMDebianStable > TWikiVMComments
Codev Web > TWikiVMDebianStable > TWikiVMCommentsTags:
TWiki-VM Comments/Questions page
These are the comments moved over from TWikiVMDebianStable. The idea is not to stifle feedback or comments, but to try any keep the main instructions page just a tad bit shorter.
Please, if you see any useful tips or corrections in the following comments, please feel free to add them to the TWikiVMDebianStable page!
Comments
Comments on performance
I've just tried it to compare the performance against my (awfully slow) pure-cygwin installation. And hey - the virtual machine is significantly faster! The comparison (running ab against/twiki/bin/Main/TWikiUsers on both servers) is not really fair right now because the cygwin installation does some extra things (more plugins, external authentication), and I've replaced /usr/bin/perl by /usr/bin/speedy in the view program. But this looks very promising
-- HaraldJoerg - 17 Jan 2006
Thanks for reporting back, Harald - glad to hear numbers are not too depressing Looking at http://www.wikimatrix.org/ the other day, I'm beginning to think there might be something to gain by offering this. TWiki has been in 184538 compares according to their statistics, so there's gotta be some users out there looking for an easy way to start a wiki (and considering TWiki already). We might be successful in lowering the AdminSkillsAssumptions skills this way.
To all: I have uploaded a beta 6 (but it's entirely possible just to unzip the release file to the twiki share in the beta 5 vm, for those that want to save the bandwidth).
-- SteffenPoulsen - 17 Jan 2006
There are plenty of people who would love to have an easy TWikiOnWindows install. This approach here looks very promising.
-- PeterThoeny - 17 Jan 2006
Very neat idea... good stuff.
This does allow people to keep their TWiki install separate from Windows but what's the overhead cf. TWiki On Windows IIS or TWiki On Windows IndigoPerl?
-- MartinCleaver - 12 Jan 2006
Wikipedia:VMware mentions an overhead of about 3-6%, and I can only say, that on my machine (2.4ghz p4/1gb ram) TWiki still feels like TWiki when it's running in the vm - and indeed still feels very fast when it's on SpeedyCGI. Wikipedia:Comparison_of_virtual_machines talks about "near native speed" for Workstation and GSX, and "native" on ESX.
But then again, I have never installed TWiki on Windows, so I don't know what to expect from that kind of installation, or how to compare the two approaches. If anybody does, feel free to comment.
-- SteffenPoulsen - 12 Jan 2006
I'd be surprised if a modified TWikiInstallerWindowsContrib that installed a native IndigoPerl on Apache is not faster than the VM Ware install, but I've long advocated against the use of CygWin in favour of GnuWin32.
-- MartinCleaver - 18 Jan 2006
That's very interesting, Martin. Would you be able to post an ab or other comparison of vmware / indigo / gnuwin32 performance with TWiki?
-- SteffenPoulsen - 18 Jan 2006
Instinctively I'd have thought that a native install (Apache or IIS) would be faster than emulating an entire operating system, but I agree we should check.
I don't mind benchmarking my IndigoPerl install. Do I start by downloading the BenchmarkContrib? shown on the AthensMarks page? - Benchmark is overkill imho, if you would just post some quick findings using i.e. ApacheBenchmark that would be great.
abis included inside the VM as is. -- SteffenPoulsen - 30 Jan 2006
-- SteffenPoulsen - 19 Jan 2006
This is a really good idea, particularly since TWiki generally runs much faster on Linux than on Windows (because Windows CGI is very slow at forking a Perl process, I think). I used to test TWikiOnCygWin? on my PC against TWikiOnLinux (running remotely via an ADSL connection), and the Linux version was twice as fast - both using CGI. So I expect this TWikiOnLinux virtual machine to be quite a lot faster, even without ModPerl or SpeedyCGI.
This is also a great idea to simplify installation on Windows - given the sheer number of support issues resulting from the WindowsInstallCookbook, I'd really like a 'download one package and run' Windows installation.
Final thought: since VMware Player is completely free of charge, including commercial use, this could be a great way to distribute TWiki to large populations of Windows PCs, particularly laptops. The person preparing the VM would need a full copy of VMware, but it's not that expensive since VMware Player avoids the need to pay per-user licenses.
I used to use VMware a lot, and have always been impressed with it.
-- RichardDonkin - 22 Jan 2006
Comments on installation
I just downloaded this and installed. It's important to emphasise that there is virtually no installation effort to get a working TWiki on Windows using this approach (unlike WindowsInstallCookbook!), and no Linux knowledge is needed. You just download and install VMware player, download the TWiki VM image (long download), then run VMware Player pointing it at the TWiki VM file, and then just wait for it to boot. Once TWikiOnDebian is booted, you just click on http://twiki-vm/ and you have a working TWiki. Files can be edited via Windows file sharing and Windows editor, and most admin is through the browser anyway. Really very impressive - apart from download time, the installation time is about 5-10 minutes, most of which is waiting for disk activity and system bootup, and absolutely anyone could do it! Currently using about 95 MB of RAM, which is not bad considering Firefox often uses a lot more than that, and this is a complete running Linux system. It's also a lot faster than the normal TWikiOnCygwin used by WindowsInstallCookbook. -- RichardDonkin - 29 Jan 2006 Thanks for all of the effort you put into this, Richard. I think with the security issues "gone", or at least pushed to the "user" side of things, there shouldn't be much left to hold us back from advertising this approach. -- SteffenPoulsen - 30 Jan 2006 So far, the need to know Debian is almost zero, so no need for Ubuntu (which is a larger download) but I think we do need a few things to finalise this:- Restructure instructions above so there's a numbered list of steps, to include resetting both
rootanduserpasswords. Currently there is a list but it's not very detailed - need a 'How to Install' section. - Document exactly how to get VMware player to use NAT/host-only mode - it grabbed a real IP address from the LAN (or at least Debian did), so by default it exposes an insecure Linux host to the world with obvious passwords... (unless the user is running a firewall, which is only the case in Windows XP SP2+).
- Create security checklist - how do you shut down services,? Or perhaps release a new VM image without any services other than essential (Samba, SSH and HTTP probably all count, SMTP probably doesn't). Or document how to enable firewall filtering, which might be easier (or just include in image)?
Other comments and questions
This is a test run / idea, comments welcome. Were thinking about "compiling" a version focusing on having all plugins enabled / working - most plugins don't have a demo-url, this might be a way of providing a kind of do-it-yourself url. But I'll get back to that, perhaps. Actually having such a vm ready might ease things for someone wanting to host a plugin-site one day. Lots of possibilities in this, share your thoughts. -- SteffenPoulsen - 11 Jan 2006 Cool stuff Steffen! I would highlight that this is an easy way to get TWiki running on Windows, and also crosslink from some TWikiOnWindows topics. -- PeterThoeny - 13 Jan 2006 I thought briefly of promoting it for "real" use, but decided on keeping it at a proof-of-concept level for now. I'm a bit uncertain how much responsibility and / or support the community can or should take for this kind of TWiki distribution - that's why I'm clearly stating the lack of a "Officially Community Proofed[tm]" stamp. But if there's an interest, I don't mind throwing some work into it, discussing optimal parameter set for an intended "TWiki for Windows"-distribution. I put the access log online, so you can follow binary action: http://twikivms.forskernet.dk/access.log (only two downloads so far - I think I can guess who *g*). -- SteffenPoulsen - 13 Jan 2006 Hi, worked with this installation for two days and a night now. And it still does not work
There is still something wrong thou I have downloaded second version twiki-vm-debian-stable-4.0.1-vm02.zip,
When typing http://twiki-vm/ I'm directed to http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/TWikiVMDebianStable all the time
What am I doing wrong ? The VMware Player seems to work.
Is' it right to type root/root in the the VmPlayer? -window ?
Doing so I get this message in the VMwarePlayer? window: twiki-vm:~#
Is that right?
You are doing great work, but it seems I need some help here.
(Yes I've also tried user/user)
Are there anything more to do int the VMwarePlayer? -window before firing up my browser?
Thanks for any answer and tips&trics =)
Best Regards Ole Johnny
-- OleJohnnyBergum - 10 Feb 2006
I can't find any included file named \\twiki-vm\twiki\.htaccess.txt
-- OleJohnnyBergum - 10 Feb 2006
I'm afraid I can't reproduce these findings Ole, but it sounds like you are doing the right thing. If you try to login as root (root/root and the twiki-vm:~# prompt is right) and enter ifconfig eth0 what do you get for "inet addr"? I'm thinking you might not have a DHCP service running, which might give the kind of result you describe. You can compare the inet address you get to what you get on your Windows installation when typing ipconfig at a dos prompt (look for IP Address). The two addresses shares the first three numbers in a typical setup. Let me know what you find out, any detail will help troubleshooting this.
-- SteffenPoulsen - 10 Feb 2006
I thought Twiki was inside twiki-vm-debian-stable-4.0.1-vm02.zip
But I now more and more believe that I also shall download TWikiRelease04x00x01
Is that correct ?
If so, where should files from TWikiRelease04x00x01 be installed? Could anyone please tell me that ?
Thank you, Best regards Ole Johnny
-- OleJohnnyBergum - 10 Feb 2006
Oh, it is, and usually when you boot the VM the Linux inside it will grap an IP address from a DHCP server nearby, and things will "just work". But we need to troubleshoot a bit more on why you are having problems. Finding out about the IP address would be a good place to start, I believe.
-- SteffenPoulsen - 10 Feb 2006
My IP address is 80.111.114.211 and this is what I get for "inet addr" in VMware: inet addr screenshot.
-- OleJohnnyBergum - 10 Feb 2006
OK, this explains - the virtual machine is not getting an IP address at all, this probably means you do have a DHCP service available at your LAN. Can you cut & paste the info you get from running "ipconfig /all" in a dos prompt at your Windows box? Then we can probably figure out what setting would work for a static IP address for the TWiki VM. If you're on a managed network, perhaps you have a sysadmin available to help giving you an IP address for the VM?
-- SteffenPoulsen - 10 Feb 2006
Yes, I have a DHCP service
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b362/labelfil/VM006.gif.
Info you from running "ipconfig /all" in a dos prompt:
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b362/labelfil/VM005.gif.
This is a home computer - no sysadmin available.
-- OleJohnnyBergum - 10 Feb 2006
This virtual TWiki is a great idea Steffen, but how do I access the virtual linux filesystem via samba from my Windows environment, means: how do I connect a Windows network drive with the virtual system (which username/password?) Thanks!
- As should be mentioned above, I have added a default password for a samba connection, which is simply: login
user/ Passworduser. Should work ok? -- SteffenPoulsen - 10 Feb 2006- Thanks, that works great, must have missed this by reading through the doc. -- FJ
And yes, this is a great idea - have waited for this nearly for a year. That's way I use night and day to have it up an go. And Steffen gives great service too
- Once a TWiki-pusher, always a TWiki-pusher, I hope this will work out in the end -- SteffenPoulsen - 10 Feb 2006
-- SteffenPoulsen - 10 Feb 2006
I'm using such a simple router, very recommendable and not really costly (one can get one for less than 50 EUR)
-- FranzJosefSilli - 10 Feb 2006
Yes I am connected directly.
And yes I have a "router" here too, but it is not installed on this computer yet. This is a Belkin Wreless G Router (G54Mbps? ). Would this router do the work ? I'll tray to install this Belkin-router and I'll come back telling you the result of that. Thank you for all help. It seems we found somethin g what may be wrong here.
-- OleJohnnyBergum - 10 Feb 2006
What about these settings on the VMwarePlayer? , are they right?
-- OleJohnnyBergum - 11 Feb 2006
The Ethernet setting should be set to "bridged" - and if the Belkin is in place, then hopefully you should be running in no time now (the Belkin looks quite alright for the purpose from what I briefly skimmed in specs)
-- SteffenPoulsen - 11 Feb 2006
- Router installed.
- Router probably not right configured.
- Typed http://twiki-vm/ in my browser.
- Got the picture below in may screen
- BDW 1: Any info about how to configure the router for the VMwarePlayer? is welcome.
- It's all set, no further configuration nescessary (whee!) -- SteffenPoulsen - 11 Feb 2006
- BDW 2: Can all plugins be installed in this version ? (mean as for TWikiRelease04x00x01 )
- Most should work, some might have issues with the SpeedyCGI enabled, but that can be reported and fixed. Get the most recent plugins from SVN if possible. -- SteffenPoulsen - 11 Feb 2006
- Thank you for all your help during this Best Regards Ole Johnny / Norway
- Next: Olympic Games. Good luck to you too, but we'll beat you inn skiing and skating you know
- Sad story, that - hope we'll put you up with some resistance after all -- SteffenPoulsen - 11 Feb 2006
- Sad story, that - hope we'll put you up with some resistance after all
- looking forward to welcoming some of the VMware-crazed hordes!
-- SteffenPoulsen - 11 Feb 2006
For anyone without a router set up to provide DHCP service - try configuring your TWiki VM as follows:
- VMware window, Devices menu, Ethernet submenu, select NAT
-- FranzJosefSilli - 12 Feb 2006
Heh, beginning the "Debian advanced users"-class already? Well, an important command to know when installing software on Debian is apt-cache search. After this command you just put phrases to search for - for instance CPAN packages typically can be found by entering something like:
-
apt-cache search perl lib cgi sessionorapt-cache search perl lib sha1- and then, when you find what you are looking for, you can install it using: -
aptitude install libcgi-session-perloraptitude install libdigest-sha1-perl
apt-cache search imagemagick will present you with some imagemagick-related packages, and either you can really just install all of them from one end (if in doubt), or you can be selective if you know what to go for (i.e. aptitude install imagemagick).
That'll be a quick introduction, ask away on specific problems. BTW: All aptitude install commands needs to be run as root.
-- SteffenPoulsen - 12 Feb 2006
Hm, aptitude install tetex-bin and aptitude install imagemagick fail with
Media Change: Please insert the disc labelled 'Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 r1a _Sarge_ - Official i386 Binary-1 (20051224)' in the drive '/cdrom/' and press enterwhich is somehow funny, cause I was able to do
aptitude install tetex-base without a problem. Where can I set the URL from where aptitude can download the necessary data?
-- FranzJosefSilli - 13 Feb 2006
Oh, that's me forgetting to remove an important line from /etc/apt/sources.list after installing. Just delete the line starting with deb cdrom:. After this you need to run aptitude update and you should be OK (this will refresh sources list, leaving out the CD-ROM source).
You can also run apt-setup which will help you add new sources or delete old sources.
-- SteffenPoulsen - 13 Feb 2006
Many thanks! Now everything works as expected (till now will report further problems as they appear). This is really awesome (and so easy, even for a Debian greenhorn like me)
-- FranzJosefSilli - 14 Feb 2006
Has anybody got this version running under GSX server? I'm not able to start the virtual machine. It doesn't even shows the BIOS. Other virtual machines run perfectly.
-- RoyMeister - 14 Feb 2006
What is the error you get, Roy? If it just seems to "halt" or "lock" (nothing happens), try shutting down the console session and re-connect to the server again - it has happened to me once that the machine then would pop up and run as expected. Don't know if this relates to your experience, though. Could you give more detail?
-- SteffenPoulsen - 14 Feb 2006
I don't receive a specific error. When I start the VM when I'm watching the VM-details pane the sceen blinks for a second and then it shows the VM-details pane again.
The VM seems to run because in the inventory list it shows the TWikiVMDebianStable machine with the green play button on it.
Another virtual machine (RHE 4) runs perfect.
-- RoyMeister - 14 Feb 2006
I think you can just disconnect and re-attach to it, then. Use "open virtual machine" and select it (from the menu) and you will see it running - and it will probably work as expected. Can't explain why this happens. Try to disconnect local a-drive and cd-rom drive from the machine, perhaps?
-- SteffenPoulsen - 14 Feb 2006
Can't get the ImageGalleryPlugin to run on twiki-vm although Imagemagick works (cause LatexModePlugin needs it and runs) and the Image::Magick perl interface needed by ImageGalleryPlugin is shown to be installed in configure (if I add it manually to the list of optional perl modules) with version 6.0.6 and the Plugin is listed as enabled in the Plugins section of configure. But it DOES NOT appear in InstalledPlugins, no matter what I try (and I tried hard, believe me).
Can't get the localisation of the user interface to run either, although all corresponding settings in configure seem to be correct.
I give up for today and hope for some enlightenment over night. - Strange, today I just set local to the correct
de_AT.iso885915@euroafter I had restarted the twiki-vm yesterday before giving up and voila, now everything works. Guess this must have been some kind of memory problem. I blame Windows.
de_DE.ISO8859-1 (check locale -a from ssh login into your Debian VM to see what you have installed, and install this if you have original VM version).
This is done through configure - you shouldn't need to set anything else other than enabline {UserInterfaceInternationalisation}, and the languages (translations) that you want to have available.
One thing to note is that the 'choose language' form in the UI has some character set issues, and might need a bit of work.
Curious to know Steffen's download figures btw...
-- RichardDonkin - 15 Feb 2006
Franz, I have a feeling what you have experienced, is a sideeffect of the view script running with SpeedyCGI. - That's what I suspected after the magic night.
- I fear this speedup also conflicts somehow with the session handling, cause the log out function sometimes doesn't work
- All in all it's fun to run a TWiki on a virtual Debian box under Windows. -- FJ
configure or TWikiPreferences won't really take effect until either the VM is restarted or you log in as root and do a killall speedy_backend. Both approaches will kill "old configuration" and allow new perl processes to spawn with correct configuration on board. (The non-working plugin I won't have time to dig into at present, sorry - perhaps you might ask for help in the plugin topic?).
Richard, regarding download figures at "mirror1" :-), you are free to inspect the statistics available (access.log | awstats | mrtg) - but in short there has been some action now, a couple of hundred downloads so far - not bad at all! (We will be needing the numbers from the USA mirror if we want to get an exact view, though).
Btw, on inspecting the TWiki.org awstats it looks like vmware.com is the #1 referrer (origin) in February, 824 clicks. Very happy with all of these numbers - good for TWiki.org
-- SteffenPoulsen - 15 Feb 2006
Hm, God I'm silly ;-), I can't figure out how to get ShorterURLs with the ShorterUrlCookbook on my twiki-vm. Guess it's so stupidly simple that noone has bothered to write it down clearly and understandable. I don't want to disturb people with the useless /twiki/bin/view part of the URL, just for viewing some topic in some web. Can this be done easily on twiki-vm? - This should not present any real challenges, never tried it myself though. Most "standard" apache modules can easily be aptitude'ed if nescessary to support chosen rewriting scheme. -- SteffenPoulsen - 19 Feb 2006
- The problem wasn't to install modules, it had been to chose the right rewriting. I'm running a compromiss (will post it when I hav tested it some more) -- FJ
- The problem wasn't to install modules, it had been to chose the right rewriting.
- For using the VM in a larger company there is the need for changing the hostname of the debian machine. With the ability to switch the hostname, more than a single VM could run in parallel on different machines. But I face the problem that simply switching debian's hostname is not enough. Samba access works, but the name lookup (DNS) is not aware of the new hostname. Who knows what's missing? What is the procedure to touch all necessary settings?
- I suppose that the most often use will be running the VM on a Windows PC. When running the VM in a Windows domain a NTLM based authentication should be part of the standard VM. Most time of my TWiki installation efforts I spent in getting TWiki authentication to work... I vote for supporting NTLM right from the VM image. At least there is the need for a step by step explanation if NTLM authentication is not present by default. Can somebody give advice?
- Just a short comment: Regarding 1) you might want to give some feedback whether the procedure Richard added helped you out? 2) is definetely a valid point, and very interesting. I know KennethLavrsen is using this kind of setup in production and he promised to do a doc on how he gets this to work with Active Directory. It's probably not that simple, and one setup might have subtle differences to another, but it would be interesting to get started on this one. Please hint Kenneth that his knowledge is asked for? -- SteffenPoulsen - 19 Feb 2006
twiki-vm-debian-stable-4.0.1-vm02.zip, and another 53 as of 21:45 PST 18-Feb-2006 for a total of 402 in roughly six days.
I have since installed awstats and set up a script to keep backup copies of my logs, hopefully I'll have better numbers in the future
- That's great, Jason! Never thought the VM would be this popular, this is impressive. Thanks for sharing the load. -- SteffenPoulsen - 19 Feb 2006
hwclock doesn't fix this... Very odd, don't have time to debug, but interested if anyone else has seen this. Discussion in TWikiVMWrongDate perhaps?
-- RichardDonkin - 19 Feb 2006
Thanks for contributing once again, Richard - much appreciated :-). I added a suggestion on how to solve the date/time issue in TWikiVMWrongDate.
-- SteffenPoulsen - 19 Feb 2006
Is there anything that needs to be done, other than setting up your VM networking mode to get this to run? I keep getting directed to this website when I enter in http://twiki-vm/ in my host machines browser.
-- PaulMiller - 19 Feb 2006
This sounds very much like the problem Ole is having, but I'm afraid I'm a bit blank on what is happening in your setup. One thing I could imagine, is that somehow the direction that should take place (the "samba" name lookup) is not happening, and what is going on instead is something in the lines of "google-for-'twiki-vm'-and-direct-browser-to-first-link-found".
It would be helpful, if you could do a ping twiki-vm from the command line at the host (with the VM running), and report the result. I'm afraid that the ping command will return something like "could not find host twiki-vm" (which it really shouldn't! :-)), but lets see what it says. Please try both NAT and bridged networking modes out, and see if you get the same result. BTW: Do you have "Client for Microsoft Networks" enabled on the connection for the VM?
-- SteffenPoulsen - 19 Feb 2006
Well, I did get the "could not find host twiki-vm" on the ping attempt, and also checked that "Client for Microsoft Networks" is running on the connection for my VM (incidently, it is running on all of my connections). I have had this same problem on my machine at work also. I tried to run the VM there using VMware Desktop and get the same result. Right now, I am using the VMware player, and still cannot get it to work. I have logged into the vm as root, but am not really an linux type of guy, so I don't really know what to do once I get in there Aside from the issue I am having, this really does seem like a wonderful product! I can't wait to get it working and start using it. Great job!
-- PaulMiller - 19 Feb 2006
In trying to troubleshoot my non-working installation further, I have a few more questions. Shouldn't I be able to see Samba and sshd listed if I do a lsmod? Not only can I not reach the webpage in my vm, I am not able to see the share from my host either. It seems as though things are not configured correctly in the vm, but take that with a grain of salt. Like I said in an earlier post, I am not really a linux type of guy.
-- PaulMiller - 21 Feb 2006
its sounds to me like the problem you are having is a DNS issue - the twiki-vm hostname is simply non-existant for your host system. I also have this problem on my linux host, and so need to work out the ip address that was assigned to the virtual machine, and then use the full path (to avoid the twiki-vm redirect http://192.168.167.128/twiki/bin/view works for me but its quite likely to be different on your system.
For the demo i'm giving, i've added X to the virtual machine, with it logging in and starting firefox pointing at twiki-vm right from boot - i'll publish it soon.
-- SvenDowideit - 21 Feb 2006
Excellent initiative, Sven! If you're building on top of twiki-vm-debian-stable-4.0.1-vm02.zip (making a v03?) or preparing another 2.6 kernel VM, please include the TWikiVMWrongDate modifications.
Paul, if you would perform the same trouble shooting steps that Ole has done above, that would allow us to start helping you on your problem. Either you can upload small screenshots like Ole did, or you can just cut'n'paste your findings in verbatim text. Thanks.
-- SteffenPoulsen - 22 Feb 2006
Paul, you need to do ps -ef to see running processes, which is what will show you sshd and smbd (part of Samba). lsmod is to show kernel modules loaded, e.g. for particular hardware.
-- RichardDonkin - 22 Feb 2006
Sven, You the man! That worked for me. At the same time, I switched from NAT to Bridged mode, but I had been using bridged mode before, and had no luck. I had tried going to the IP address before, but did not have the full path to the Twiki html files. I assume that since I have to use an IP address on my host, instead of the DNS name, I should be able to add the DNS entry into my hosts file on my host machine, and that will let me use the twiki-vm name instead of the IP address, at least on this machine only.
-- PaulMiller - 22 Feb 2006
I've used the vm on my laptop for 2 days - thank you very much, worked like a charm! Yesterday I had a hard shutdown due to a battery issue. When I restarted VMware player, I discarded the old saved state and rebooted the vm. Now, debian is not able to get an IP from DHCP anymore. I tried different network modes in VMplayer as well as several reboots of the vm, and it fails every time. ifconfig is showing an IPv6 assigned to eth0. Anybody seen something like that? Thank you very much!
-- MarkusSchmidt - 23 Feb 2006
Glad to hear its useful, Markus Well, I'm not really sure what might be going on here, but let's try to troubleshoot it a bit. First of, if you try to obtain a new IP manually (using /etc/init.d/networking restart as root), what kind of error message do you get?
This could be related to your DHCP server, thinking the old IP was never really released properly or similar (hence the server not allowing a new IP to be obtained). If this is a simple ADSL router, perhaps you can release the given IP by entering the routers web interface and try to find the proper place for this somehow. - A simple power cycle of the router might also bring something.
-- SteffenPoulsen - 23 Feb 2006
I've got a similar issue with two different VM's based off Debian. Neither seem to be able to use eth0 even when I manually configure it. The Ubuntu based Browser Application works fine for both NAT and Bridged mode. I can't get packets in/out with either NAT or Bridged mode on Debian.
-- TimSHarvey - 02 Mar 2006
Perhaps instead of using raw Debain, it'd be better to use Ubuntu or Mepis distributions since they have many more networking drivers that work out-of-the-box, including the ndiswrapper incorporating windows drivers?
-- RyanKnoll - 02 Mar 2006
Please feel very free to experiment with other distributions. I am most comfortable with supporting Debian, but there's plenty of room for TWikiVMUbuntuAdventurousAardvark? or TWikiVMMEPIS? as alternative offers here, if you are up for providing such an initiative.
I'm wondering, regarding the network issue, if switching to a 2.4 kernel solves the problem? (aptitude install kernel-image-2.4-686 .. you know the drill).
-- SteffenPoulsen - 02 Mar 2006
I'll play around with it some more. It definately seems like a Debian issue as other linux distro VM's work with networking. The TWikiVMDebianStable works on my laptop at work just fine... strange. So it could be something to do with my windows network configuration too although both are almost identical. I have a local network with a DHCPD but it doesn't report getting any offers and configuring the network manually doesn't work either
-- TimSHarvey - 03 Mar 2006
I don't think Tim's issue is a network driver problem - VMware provides a single standard Ethernet device, which should work with any Linux distro. However, if Ubuntu works better for some reason, we should figure out why and replicate on Debian if possible. Most likely this is a VMware issue not a Linux distro issue, so the VMware knowledge base and VMware Player forums might help.
Download size for the VM is already large - if we go Ubuntu or Mepis, it would be good to make a stripped down version that's a similar size if possible.
-- RichardDonkin - 03 Mar 2006
BTW: Did anybody read about the VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge? A 4.0.2 with a good set of plugins would do a nice bet for an allround appliance for "the everyday doc needs". Would probably take at least compiling a new doc-set making the VM appear as a integral "appliance", but sure worth a thought
First prize is $100.000 with the criteria having the most weight being: "What does the appliance do and what unique value does it provide to the intended audience (50%)". I sure find it an interesting challenge, I am sure it will do the FOSS community a lot of good.
-- SteffenPoulsen - 03 Mar 2006
Such an appliance would definitely need some indexing engine as SearchEnginePluceneAddOn preinstalled cause many people misuse TWiki as document management system. -- Better misuse than not use at all, I always said.
-- FranzJosefSilli - 03 Mar 2006
Finally got it working - its a VMWare Player issue apparently: I have a 'Microsoft Loopback Adapter' installed for another app (virtual enet interface) and VMWare Player is attaching to that instead of its own virtual interfaces. I simply had to go into that adapter and disable 'VMWare Bridge'. No idea why this wasn't an issue with Fedora Core under VMWare
-- TimSHarvey - 04 Mar 2006
Hi! I love your package (heh). I updated your documentation, there was a 'typo' for the apt-get install update (it said upgrade), and also there was nothing in the Changing Hostname that told people about the Apache redirect.. after changing hosts using your steps people end up coming straight to this page, as their browser attempts to redirect them to twiki-vm/bin etc, with no such host the "i'm feeling lucky" web search approach dumps you right here.
-- DavidWall - 06 Mar 2006
Thanks, David - feedback is much appreciated Actually, the correct apt-get option for security-upgrading the Debian OS is "dist-upgrade" - I updated the line above, and changed all apt-get commands to using the never & better aptitude command in the proces.
Thanks for spotting both this and the hostname issue!
-- SteffenPoulsen - 06 Mar 2006
If I visit:
http://twiki-vm/twiki/bin/view/TWiki/WikiWordI get:
'500 Internal Server Error'and /var/log/apache2/error.log says:
AccessControlException: Access to CHANGE TWiki.WikiWord for TWikiGuest is denied. access not allowed on webIt occurs after I have visited:
http://twiki-vm/twiki/bin/view/TWiki/LatexModePluginSo I guess there is something wrong with the LatexModePlugin? . I sometimes get an error message like:
Twiki LatexModePlugin error messages: Error! multiple equation labels 'eqn:one' defined. (Eqns. 1 and 1)Has anybody any idea what I am doing wrong? Otherwise its all working fine as far as I can see (after some hours work to get some plugins going). -- TeunVanDenDool - 06 Mar 2006 Thank you for feedback, Teun! When experimenting with the VM (i.e. adding new plugins) you should definetely change the first line in
/home/httpd/twiki/bin/view to not using speedy but just straight perl - change the first line into #!/usr/bin/perl -wT.
Then, when you have verified that the behaviour of the installation is OK with i.e. the new plugins, you can try to enable SpeedyCGI again and see what happens (for better response times when browsing). Remember to kill old speedy_backend processes before trying to use speedy again.
I have not tried to reproduce your finding related to the LatexModePlugin, but if the problem goes away when you're running straight perl, you should report it at the plugin homepage as a modperl / SpeedyCGI issue (or you can report it directly in Bugs:WebHome). If the problem still exists when running straight perl, though, I'll take a look at it.
-- SteffenPoulsen - 07 Mar 2006
Your answer crossed my attempt because I already found remarks about SpeedyCGI and 'killall speedy_backend'. Unfortunately it didn't help. I am of to work now but I will try this evening to start all over again (reinstall TWikiVM? and the LatexModePlugin? ) because I discovered some more weird things (missing log file names in the configuration files which make it difficult to debug). Maybe something went wrong along the way. Now that I know better what to do I will give it a clean start.
-- TeunVanDenDool - 07 Mar 2006
I did a fresh install: - VMware was already installed.
- unzip twiki-vm-debian-stable-4.0.1-vm02.zip
- Load the vmx file in VMware (with a new identifier).
- Check that twiki-vm is up and running.
- Check that the configuration is fine (including log file names).
- ssh as root into twiki-vm
- aptitude install libmd5-perl
- aptitude install libimage-info-perl
- comment the cdrom line in '/etc/apt/sources.list'
- aptitude install tetex-bin (156 Mbyte after install!)
- ghostscript (gs) is already installed.
- aptitude install imagemagick.
- Unzip the LatexModePlugin? in the twiki root directory.
- Add the following lines at the bottom of '/home/httpd/twiki/lib/TWiki.cfg':
- $TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{LatexModePlugin}{latex} = '/usr/bin/latex';
- $TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{LatexModePlugin}{dvips} = '/usr/bin/dvips';
- $TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{LatexModePlugin}{convert} = '/usr/bin/convert';
- There is an installer in the LatexModePlugin? but the manual doesn't tell I should use it and it now works fine without. The previous time I did run the installer.
- Enable the LatexModePlugin? in the twiki/bin/configure
- change speedy to perl in /home/httpd/twiki/bin/view
- killall speedy_backend
Access denied Access check on TWiki.LatexModePlugin failed. Action "CHANGE": access not allowed on web.The configure file is still OK and there are no warning or debug files in the data directory. I can display other Plugin pages. So I suppose its not a perl/speedy problem. -- TeunVanDenDool - 07 Mar 2006 I also did an installation on a Windows 2000 system (sort of Indigo-Perl installation). It has exactly the same problem. So I think that the problem lies in the LatexModePlugin? . I am going to post a message there. -- TeunVanDenDool - 08 Mar 2006 The cause is that TWikiGuest? cannot view the page. But any other user can. -- TeunVanDenDool - 11 Mar 2006 Hi. This is a newbie question. I have TWikiVM? running well on Windows XP Home. I would like to try to install a skin not included in the package, but since the debian that comes with TwikiVM? has no browser, how to I get the tarball into the Debian file system? The skin I am looking at is at : http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/SimpleBlueSkin I know this is a newbie question. Stephan, this is an amazing achievement. Thanks for all the terrific work. -- JimS? - 11 Mar 2006 Hi Jim! Heh, we were all newbies once
Well, I'm unsure if you have problems getting to the TWiki installation directory using the instructions in TWikiVMDebianStable#Network_Neighbourhood_file_shari? If yes, we'll have to look into that (you might get lucky by following some of the earlier threads on getting this to work), but if it already works as is, then the installation is simply a matter of following the instructions given in SimpleBlueSkin ("Installation"). I think WinZip works alright for unzipping the tar.gz file, but else my own preference for this kind of Windows file operation tend to be "Total Commander" from http://www.ghisler.com/. I know this utility will handle this archive type with no problems.
-- SteffenPoulsen - 11 Mar 2006
Hi Steffen. Thanks for the advice. Sorry about the bad spelling of your name.
file://twiki-vm/ is not pulling anything up. I will have to find out more.
If I do get file://twiki-vm to work, are you saying I handel the download like any other in windows? I am assuming I need the tarball, not the windows.zip file because this is all in linux.
I think if I could get file://twiki-vm to show, i'd be there. Thanks for the reply Steffen.
-- JimStrupp - 11 Mar 2006
Jim - You're correct.. if file://wikihost was working, then you'd be all set. the Samba share lets you work with the wiki filesystem just like any other directory in your file system. You could unzip the skin, then just drag the folders into the TWiki install location.
-- DavidWall - 13 Mar 2006
Steffen - I've appended some basic instructions for MailerContrib to the Mail Configuration section of your document, thought it would be helpful for some people. My markup is messy and could do with elaboration but it gets the point across. HTH
-- DavidWall - 13 Mar 2006
David - Thanks. Any thoughts on how to get file://wikihost/ aka file://twiki-vm to work? I've been looking in the threads above and dont see much on it.
-- JimStrupp - 13 Mar 2006
The Samba configuration should be correct straight away, it's very generic. Are you on a workgroup? Are you able to access your wiki directly in a browser? (ie: http://twiki-vm) If so, Samba should be ok.
If you are on a workgroup other then 'workgroup' you may need to change your config.. first check that samba is actually running.
In linux: -
# ps -ef | grep smbd - Look through process table for
smbd- this is Samba. - If it's not running, try
# shutdown -r nowand see if it starts on reboot - edit your samba config,
# pico /etc/samba/smb.conf.. try changing the workgroup to be the same workgroup your machine operates on, then ctrl+O, then ctrl+X, then# shutdown -r now
# ls /var/log/samba .. is there anything there?
-- DavidWall - 13 Mar 2006
I can access http:twiki-vm/ directly, without having to enter the ip address. I do not know if I am on a workgroup other than workgroup - where would I look? - I'm that new. But my smb.conf file says the workgroup is "workgroup". I'll look in the samba logs for something too. Thanks David.
-- JimStrupp - 14 Mar 2006
To determine if you're on a workgroup in Windows 2000/XP, hold your WIN key, and press PAUSE, go to Computer Name, it should state your workgroup in there. The default workgroup when you install windows is called WORKGROUP but it is frequently changed. I have no idea if/how that would effect your ability to connect to Samba.
-- DavidWall - 14 Mar 2006
Thanks David. Workgroup was something else and I changed it, but it did not affect the ability to access file://twiki-vm/ from the browser. Go figure.
Steffen - Has there been any prior knowledge or discussion about problems with accessing the twiki file system through the browser, and if so, where might I find it? Thanks all.
-- JimStrupp - 14 Mar 2006
Actually, thinking of it, i.e. the firefox browser blocks this links pr. default. So if you're on firefox you need to visit this page: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Links_to_local_pages_don't_work and follow instructions to disable this blocking feature.
But let's try something else as well: If you go to Start -> Run and write "\\twiki-vm\twiki" does that perhaps bring up the twiki installation share?
-- SteffenPoulsen - 14 Mar 2006
I have the same problem in IE too. Run and write "\\twiki-vm\twiki" returns a message "Network path not found"
-- JimStrupp - 15 Mar 2006
Sorry, out of ideas on that one. Next step would be to run through the debugging steps mentioned above (as i.e. Ole did), noting IP addresses of both the Windows installation and the VM. Post results here and I'll have a look.
-- SteffenPoulsen - 15 Mar 2006
I've got another newbie question, and I haven't seen on this. Maybe it's just late and I'm tired...
First, the thing that took longest on this install on my XP Professional Laptop was the download. Everything else went swimmingly. Much easier than the WindowsInstallCookbook that I used on my desktop. Way to go!
However, I would now like to get all my TWIKI pages from the desktop to this new Debian Stable version on my laptop. I can't seem to find the files this version creates. How do I move things over?
Thanks
-- PaulShort - 18 Mar 2006
TWiki VM's data directory is /home/httpd/twiki/data - you can use Windows file sharing, or ssh/scp, to transfer your Windows TWiki's data over - just transferring any new webs under your data directory is enough if all your changes are in new webs.
If you've made changes to standard TWiki webs such as Main or TWiki, you need to figure out the list of changed topics (WebChanges will help) and then whether you can simply copy the topic .txt files over (don't forget the RCS .txt,v files if you want version history), or need to merge the changes into the new base versions. You might find it easiest to get the new TWiki 4.0 topics into one directory, and the old ones in another directory, both on Windows, and then use a suitable visual diff tool to help make the merges - one OpenSource tool that looks good is WinMerge. This [[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=+site:twiki.org+TWiki+move+new+server search for 'move to new server' may also help.
For more details on the TWiki configuration, see #TWiki_Configuration section here. On the Windows TWiki, if you followed the WindowsInstallCookbook, your data directory is c:\twiki\data (which is same as /twiki/data in the cookbook's CygWin setup).
Generally, to find your TWiki data directory, you should use the configure script (http://twiki-vm/twiki/bin/configure) on TWiki 4.0 (i.e. TWiki VM) or the older bin/testenv script on earlier TWiki versions.
(I've also updated the documentation sections above to mention host-based firewall options in the Security Setup section.)
-- RichardDonkin - 18 Mar 2006
Suggestions for added/removed packages in this VM: - Drop netatalk and various other marginally useful packages, focusing on what's needed to support web server admin and Perl development
- Install
perl-doc
apt-get in the security upgrade instructions has been replaced with aptitude - latter does seem like a nicer tool, but it's more to type! Might be good to have a simple 'security-upgrade' script under the ~root/bin directory to handle the required commands.
It would be good to have an easy way of just upgrading TWiki, but I guess that's more of a general UpgradeTWiki question - latter should work but I like apt a lot.
-- RichardDonkin - 19 Mar 2006
Richard, thanks for the pointer. I was having a brain cramp re: virtual machines on Windows.
I did get my WIKI from the desktop to my laptop, but not with the versions. I copied all the files over, and could see the pages, but when I tried to edit them, it wouldn't save. I couldn't resolve the versions. I ended up copying only the text files, and that works. It means I've lost the versions, but for this it is no big deal. I'm not going to chase it anymore, but don't know if anyone else has had trouble copying pages from another installation.
-- PaulShort - 19 Mar 2006
Hi,
I think I must be doing something wrong. I downloaded and installed the VMWare Player, I downloaded the TWiki file, I pointed the VMWare to the Twiki file, it loaded up, I logged in and...nothing happened. Pointing IE to http://twiki-vm/ does nothing but give me a 'cannot find server'. What am I doing wrong?
-- DamianKelleher - 20 Mar 2006
Huh. Disregard. Resetting the Virtual Machine did the trick. Thanks anyway
-- DamianKelleher - 20 Mar 2006
Another question.
I've got the TWiki up and running, everything is fine there. I'm changing around preferences and etc to get a better feel for what is happening. One thing though - nobody can access the TWiki.
I've set the ethernet to connected and bridged, and reset Debian just in case. Didn't seem to work.
My concern is not to get the TWiki working on the outside internet, it is more as an intranet. But I can't find it. ifconfig in VMware gives me an 'inet addr' for eth0, which I assume is the IP, but that doesn't work. The 'lo' (local loopback) is set to my computer's ip - could that be the problem?
-- DamianKelleher - 21 Mar 2006
Hello,
I'm sure everyone (anyone?) is getting sick of me by now. Oh well. I managed to figure out how to make myself visible to others, which is grand. I have a new question - yes, I might fix it myself beforehand, but probably not.
I'm doing a bulk registration. At the moment with just one registration, so I can test it. I get this error every time:
Access Denied
Attention
Access check on BobSmith? failed. Action "CHANGE": access not allowed on web.
Contact wiki@wikiPLEASENOSPAM.com.au if you have any questions.
Related topics: TWikiGroups? , TWikiAccessControl?
I've added the topicchange, topicview, etc permissions to the TWikiAdminGroup? everywhere, just in case (Main, TWiki, etc), but it doesn't seem to help. Is this a problem of VMWare, or am I doing something wrong?
-- DamianKelleher - 21 Mar 2006
An interesting update.
I did a table with the user 'bob smith', and I put in front of FirstName? , LastName? and WikiName. This stopped any errors, but when the registration page comes up, it says no registrations.
Strange.
I realise this is probably outside the scope of the VMWare discussion, but...?
-- DamianKelleher - 21 Mar 2006
To MartinRowe: Thanks for the new download mirror!
-- RichardDonkin - 29 Mar 2006
np. I guess it will be a bit slower than the Denmark or US mirrors, but it's still popular - around 10 downloads/day since adding it. As well as the standard 220Mb zip I've put up a 7zip compressed version that shrinks the VM down to 131Mb - don't know if that's worth adding to the other mirror sites...
-- MartinRowe - 31 Mar 2006
With the popularity of Wikis, proof of concept in my company took about 5 minutes. Within 30 minutes, I had imported this into my ESX infrastructure for others to evaluate. I give it 1 week before I am asked to make this production in my environment. I am sure others are wondering what I am about to ask. I realize that this was not specifically designed for production, but what would it take to make this production from aspects of security, database, expected growth, etc?
-- BillDean - 01 Apr 2006
I think the main issue to go production is security (enable a firewall or stop lots of services), and ensuring that you have a SpeedyCGI setup that works well and can be updated when you get new TWiki versions (i.e. kill speedy backends on upgrades).
Also, knowing how to do upgrades is useful - both of Debian for security reasons, and of TWiki. Taking the TWiki VM using 4.0.1 and doing a 4.0.1 upgrade is a good idea. It's also a good idea to learn how to apply patches provided in TWikiSecurityAlerts.
Quite a lot of this is about AdminSkillsAssumptions - if you know Linux it makes it a bit easier, but you don't need to know a great deal and the setup is very much standard TWikiOnLinux.
-- RichardDonkin - 03 Apr 2006
I'm running vmserver on win2k3.
i've got a win2k3 server running PHPbb on virtual machine, it's running fine, folks are posting etc.
i've got the twiki-vm setup and running, on the host i can pull up the site, on the other virtual machine, i can pull up the site. But nowhere else.
any ideas?
-- LorenMcnett - 05 Apr 2006
nevermind. excellent product ya've got here.
-- LorenMcnett - 05 Apr 2006
Glad you like it, let us know how you get on.
-- RichardDonkin - 05 Apr 2006
I'm now using this in a production environment, and I upgraded to TWiki4.02. It all works great, currently have about 40 users. Just an FYI for a success story.
It's not available on the internet, it's used in an Intranet environment.
-- DavidWall - 11 Apr 2006
Thanks David, always great to have feedback! Even though it is an intranet environment, you might want to think about adding your install to TWikiInstallation - we simply love to hear about TWiki installations out there
To all: I won't be doing a 4.0.2 release of this, instead I'll save some energy for a 4.0.3 update with hopefully some more shipped by default (Plugins/PluginsTestedOnTWiki04x00 says 66 plugins are now TWiki4 compatible, gotta activate some of all the gold hidden in there :-)).
In the meantime, if you want to upgrade the VM yourself, follow the upgrade guide (it's mostly overwriting what is already there, but a few preferences and group files need to be preserved).
-- SteffenPoulsen - 18 Apr 2006
Hm, the virtual machine has a relative short lease-time for the IP address fetched by a local DHCP server (e.g. local rooter). So the address chances from time to time with the result that I have to reconfigure the firewall on my local rooter. How do I set up the client to use the DHCP server only once, on system startup (or where do I specify a much longer lease time?).
-- FranzJosefSilli - 23 Apr 2006
Have found a solution myself. Just edit /etc/network/interfaces and specify a static address instead using dhcp. Mind the broadcast address and the network mask! -- Maybe there should be a section about Network configuration in the docs above.
-- FranzJosefSilli - 23 Apr 2006
Would be lovely! Feel free to add what you find
-- SteffenPoulsen - 23 Apr 2006
-- JaredWillardson - 24 Apr 2006
-- JaredWillardson - 24 Apr 2006
I just wanted to say this is awesome!
I have one question if I may. I am trying to setup Backup Exec 10 program to automatically save changes to the Twiki and I am not sure what file on the C: drive these are saved to. Do you know? thanks!
-- JaredWillardson - 24 Apr 2006
Jared, the virtual machine's data is all contained in the directory where you unzipped the .ZIP file - includes an .vmx file for example. Just back up that directory and all your TWiki VM state is saved.
-- RichardDonkin - 29 Apr 2006
Thank you for your help! I just wanted to make sure I had the correct files.
-- JaredWillardson - 01 May 2006
Awesome work! This is as close to a "plug-n-play" solution as you can get. I got TWiki up and running in no time. And the supplemental information found on this page is concise and very useful.
Thanks a lot!
-- DysonLuong - 05 May 2006
Jared and others:
DO NOT set your backup software to automatically process the VMWare file. It will crash the virtual machine; this is a known issue and is frequently brought up on the VMWare site.
You should set it up to backup when the vmware server isn't running; otherwise it will break
-- DavidWall - 10 May 2006
IS there an easy way to migrate the TWiki site you create using this VM to a real production server running TWiki? I tried to just tar the /home/htpd folder and put it in my /var/www/ folder on my Debaian server but I got nothing but the surrounding frame of the page ... Looks like all the internal frames are missing i.e the body, the side panel, etc
-- ChrisHowe - 16 May 2006
I must say that this is the easiest way that we have foundto deploy TWiki. Not only that the installation was easy, but the author has ensured that every step is well documented.
I must say that even an ametuer like me can install TWiki like a Breeze...
Keep up the great work!!
-- SucharithMenon - 17 May 2006
Hello developers!
This Twiki-in-an-appliance rocks!! Talk about a god-send; to be able to have it up and running in a few minutes, and then ready as an company's internal wiki with just a little more effort (as mostly detailed above. I plan to augment it to show how to set to a static IP).
Quick comment: This page is getting long with comments (like this one, ironically). There are some useful comments (like "don't back up the VMWare file"), but some of the early ones have been addressed. Is it possible for a moderator to go in and clean those up, so that the page isn't so long and confusing? Including this one...
-- RickVanderveer - 17 May 2006
Hey all... just loaded up 4.0.1-vm02 on Win2k3 R2 Enterprise under VMware Server Beta 3. Came up with no obvious problems. Good job all. Hadn't used twiki in a while... looks terrific!
- unable to install VMware tools
- doing this as a matter of course... typically huge performance gains
- refer to installing vmware tools on linux
- basically get to the point where it says I don't have suitable vmhgfs modules (whatever that is) and it needs a C compiler and kernel header files
- um, are the kernel header files installed? if so help a brother out
)
-- NickSkitch - 20 May 2006
Rick, feel free to refactor comments - ideally just put all comments in TWikiVMComments, and include any useful tips here in existing or new sections.
-- RichardDonkin - 23 May 2006
Twiki installed in 15 minutes on corporate prototyping machine.
Very impressive.
I plan on Twiki'n a collabrative technical knowledge base, call/escalation work flow, and HR Onboarding/Access Administration Portal. The instantaneous debianVM-Twiki installation made it easy to convince managemet and staff that using a Wiki based system for our KM and CRM demands is definately the way to go. This product far and a way the best candidate platform to build our system. After trying many systems from XAMPP to WAMP to Devside etc etc... Twiki.org and specifically Codev/TWikiVMDebianStable have lapped the competition. The KM/CRM/CMS/ERP are beggining to merge with software like TwikiVMDebian? . -- JohnBusciglio - 24 May 2006 John - glad this is working well for you, and great to see that it helps you convince management to go with a Wiki approach! Nick - to solve the
apt-get issue where it asks for a CD, just comment out or delete the line mentioning 'cdrom' in /etc/apt.sources - this is the list of places where apt will look for files when trying to install a package, and the TWiki VM package originally included this by mistake. I think Steffen may have already fixed this in a later version, or at least he said he was going to - see his comment earlier.
-- RichardDonkin - 24 May 2006
-- Contributors: RickVanderveer
Discussion
-- RickVanderveer - 24 May 2006 one small issue I run into on my corporate prototype that is somewhat frustrating, and am sure its 100% networking on the corporate end... Our DNS will not resolve 192.168 IP addresses. It seems the DebianVM? prefers to setup on 192.168. At one point, DebianVM? did pull a valid private IP that registers in DNS 172.31 and was able to resolve host from anywhere in the country. But for whatever reason, I am unable to successfully duplicate this. It seems random. We cant really go static until we get appropriations, and we cant get appropriations until we see our team leads using the Twiki successfully. I can explain the DNS/DHCP vs DNS/Static issue, but in theory if I cannot have the Leads collaborating for a week or two with succesful results, then I cant get appropriated. Any skillful DebianVM? help would really be appreaciated, or any networking work-arounds that reject a 192.168 and force/waitfor DHCP to assign a 172.31 address would rock. Any ideas? -- JohnBusciglio - 26 May 2006 I think this may be a VMware issue - VMware seems to create VMnet* ethernet adapters that have addresses such as 192.168.94.1 and 192.168.184.1, and you may be using NAT mode. If you have used NAT as recommended, you will need to use one of the other VMware networking modes so that Debian can allocate an IP address from your corporate DHCP server (hopefully 172.31.x.x) rather than from VMware's built-in DHCP server (intended for addresses that are 192.168.x.x and local to your Windows PC). Give this a go, and do also try the VMware forums - there is a huge user base there so I'm sure someone can help. -- RichardDonkin - 30 May 2006 John, You might want to try switching the VMware ethernet controller to 'bridged'. I think this will allow Debian to pull an IP from your corporate DHCP server (and since Debian is configured for DHCP, it'll rightly go out and grab one). -- RickVanderveer - 30 May 2006 This is GREAT! I have an old 2004 install of Twiki - how would I go about migrating content from that (it's running on an old Red Hat machine) to this VM version running on our Windows server? -- JimPriest - 01 Jun 2006 Jim, I'm not practiced at doing this myself, but you might try simply copying the files from your /twiki/data/ folder into the TWikiVM? folder. You'll have to adjust other config settings in other places on the VM. Also, search the twiki.org site, I'm sure there's another page that describes how to back up a twiki site. -- RickVanderveer - 06 Jun 2006 Has ANYONE had success integrating Windows authentication with TwikiVM? ?? I know I'm not alone with this need. I've tried following the instructions here ModAuthSSPICookbook and here GettingWindowsLoginPassedToTwiki? and here TransparentAuthentication and here WindowsInstallModNTLM all with no luck. I always get anInvalid ELF Header error. Is this because the mod_auth_sspi.so file is compiled for Windows or something? Is there anyone who can compile it for linux (sorry, my experience in Linux is a bit rusty)? If anyone can help me get this working I promise I'll write up detailed instructions!
-- RickVanderveer - 06 Jun 2006
Ok good news, its very simple to get VMware to pull a valid IP off of a corporate 172.31 switch. Go into services and disable VMWare NAT Service and VMware DHCP Service. I am running in host only mode.
Also, disable or delete the 2 VMware network adapters that were added to Network Connections. BTW this is WINXP SP1 Slip Streamed with hand picked SP2 updates (no firewall or TCPIP.sys limit).
Yay!! everyone thanks for the input. Now ned to figureout how to change the machine name in VMware so I can have my base URL look like http://TierOne.MyLOB.MyCompany.com instead of MyCompany? .com.
Also need to fix my redirect. Ihave all that under control I think.. any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.
-- JohnBusciglio - 07 Jun 2006
Jim, re migrating TWiki content, the best thing to do is read up elsewhere on TWiki.org about topics like 'migrating to new server', 'TWiki upgrade', etc - Google is your friend There is a well defined upgrade procedure from TWikiRelease04Sep2004 to the new DakarRelease (TWiki 4.0), see the TWiki04 web for details.
-- RichardDonkin - 08 Jun 2006
When I first installed the VMPlayer and Twiki it slowed down my network access very significantly. I was using Windows XP connected to SBS Server 2003. After some experimentation it seems that removing 'Microsoft windows client' and 'file and printer sharing' from the network services for the installed VMWare virtual ethernet adapters solved the problem. Hope this helps others.
-- RogerLai - 22 Jun 2006
I'm with RickVanderveer - I can't get mod_auth_sspi to work with this configuration. Apache is at version 2.054, and i'm using a release of mod_auth_sspi compiled for this apache release, but get the Invalid ELF Header error as well. Any ideas?
-- DavidWall - 04 Jul 2006
Rick, David - It's best if you post a question over on Support initially, or try TWikiIRC - if that doesn't help, try a topic on Codev (I'm sure there's an existing one somewhere, try Google:mod_auth_sspi+TWiki.)
I've commented over on ModAuthSSPICookbook.
-- RichardDonkin - 05 Jul 2006
Has anyone tried SvenDowideit's graphical add-on to TWiki VM?
-- RichardDonkin - 05 Jul 2006
I have uploaded a new version of the VM today, based on TWikiRelease04x00x04. Other changes are:
- Upgraded to new Debian version (3.1)
- Using 2.4 kernel instead of 2.6 kernel (2.6 has issues in some configurations)
- Debian development environment on board (for compiling Apache modules, etc)
- VMwareTools pre-installed (resolves TWikiVMWrongDate, adds more effective network driver)
- Initial redirect from http://twiki-vm/ to the
Main.WebHomepage will work without configuration, including for hostnames other thantwiki-vm - All mail activity suspended by default
Could you try to inspect the file using a command line tool in the vm, such as tail -200 /var/log/apache2/error or less /var/log/apache2/error, pasting a few lines from the contents?
Sounds like a bad case of the re-directs or similar going on, but let's see it in writing.
BTW: If you need a good fast tool for viewing large files in Windows, you could try something like Total Commander from http://www.ghisler.com/. It has an excellent viewer that will nicely display most of what is thrown at it (it's at F3 in the GUI).
-- SteffenPoulsen - 10 Jul 2006
I love the VM, but have a redirect problem under certain situations that is similar to one mentioed above in a 10 February posting. In my case I'm running twiki-vm-debian-stable-4.0.1-vm02 in Bridged mode on a small home LAN. When I try to access the TWiki installation using ONLY the dynamically assigned IP address http:\\192.168.1.206 , it redirects me to http://twiki.org . However, when I type a full URL to the topic I want such as http://192.168.1.206/twiki/bin/view, it works correctly. Also, once I'm into the twiki-vm, I don't have any redirection problems.
Maybe there is some redirection being done strangely on the twiki-vm root directory? Any suggestions?
-- DaveFoster - 11 Jul 2006
Thank you for your fast response steffen!
but i am so impatient :-(( i have allready deleted the error file. i hoped that this will minimize the folder size of the twikivm-debian folder! but it didnt!
So i have solved the problem in another way. i have reinstalled the TWikiVM? in a new folder. after that i have filled my old topic with copy&paste in the new TWikiVM? .i am so lucky that this has worked. but unfortunately we dont know the reason of the problem. i am sorry about that. but thank you for your help again.
-- PatrickSchwachulla - 11 Jul 2006
Updated my UK download mirror page with the new 4.0.4 version. I've also put on a self extracting (7-zip) archive which reduces the file size by over 100Mb.
-- MartinRowe - 11 Jul 2006
VMware Server is now released - no longer Beta. Good news for people who want to do production deployments of TWiki VMs!
-- RichardDonkin - 12 Jul 2006
This is great news!
I noticed that were some rumours that a Mac OS version might be on its way as well for the MacTel architecture (http://www.macosxrumors.com/articles/2006/04/07/vmware-ceo-confirms-mac-version-plans/). Clearly this is just rumours sofar, but I'm impressed by the amount of ongoing activities in the whole virtualization area; it is indeed very busy.
-- SteffenPoulsen - 14 Jul 2006
1.) This VM is totally awesome. I just spent the better part of the day migrating my Win32 based TWiki to this VM -- and it rocks.
- Excellent! We're totally subject to flattering -- SteffenPoulsen - 25 Jul 2006
- Honestly, you have no idea how cool this is. And it's waaaay faster on the VM than on the Windows box. -- StevenColbert - 25 Jul 2006
- Initially I have worried myself a bit with what kind of feedback this machine would get, so I have tried to limit liability on and risk to the TWiki community. But I think feedback has been far more positive than negative so far, so I'm also interested in how to open this machine more up / take it to the next level. As I have stated in the TWiki VM discussion thread at vmware.com I am thinking about offering a parallel version with more features on board - along the lines you mention. My time for now is limited, but late August I will probably be able to give this some more thinking. A really important need for this to succeed would be to figure a way to script the setup procedure of the extensions, so the future creation of the VM from scratch could be as automated as possible. This also allows for keeping the setup utililies in SVN, and working on the scripts from there. Any ideas that you have in this direction I would be very interested in hearing! (Working code = instant bonus points :-))
- I have posted an inquiry on the vmware forum to hopefully get some input on what other folks did to this end. -- SteffenPoulsen - 26 Jul 2006
- This sounds like the VM is without internet connectivity when you are trying this. If you are running in NAT'ed mode, I think you will need to supply a gateway / run a NAT service on the PC that will provide connectivity to the VM. Alternatively, if you have a DHCP service+router in your environment, just restart the VM in bridged mode and it should be able to install htmldoc without further ado. And remember,
aptitude install htmldocis the next generation package tool - That's the weird thing - it is run in Bridged Mode. It does pick up an IP Address from my DHCP server with no problem, so that's working. Thanks for the tip re: aptitude too. UPDATE Problem solved: http://www.faqs.org/docs/securing/chap9sec91.html -- StevenColbert - 25 Jul 2006
# Now set default access rights. Order Allow,Deny Allow from all Deny from env=anonymous_spiderSince I have added a block in the twiki_httpd.conf file to block all users not from a certain IP range, is this block of text necessary? Also, I changed:
<FilesMatch "[^/]*\.html$">
SetHandler blabla
allow from all
</FilesMatch>
to
<FilesMatch "[^/]*\.html$">
#SetHandler blabla
#allow from all
</FilesMatch>
Is that the right thing to do with this setting?
-- StevenColbert - 25 Jul 2006
Regarding twiki_httpd.conf you can really just delete the sections you don't see fit. Only the sections referred to elsewhere is nescessary.
- OK - thanks for this Steffen... seems that it wasn't really a TWikiVM? issue but I appreciate your comments anyway -- StevenColbert - 25 Jul 2006
- Install HTMLDOC (for the GenPDF? plugin)
- Enable mod_rewrite (to help secure the /pub fodler attachments)
- Add two lines in the twiki_httpd.conf (see above line)
- Install a few more plugins (maybe all Dakar-supported plugins can be installed)
- Install a few CPAN packages to support various plugins
- To install HTMLDOC, it's a one line command.
- To enable mod_rewrite, it's a one line command.
- Obviously the .conf file is just an edit to the base file
- Dakar plugins. I can download all of them, and get them sorted into one tarball. Then all you would have to do is extract the one file when you build the TwikiVM? .
- The CPAN packages list I'll have to update once the plugins are all downloaded.