John Sellens john.sellens@senecapolytechnic.ca

Week 1 Class 1 May 6

Lecture Notes Notes

• Course introduction and overview
• Choose VMware or VirtualBox -- these days I will recomment VMware
  • See Virtualization notes here: tools.html
• Create an Ubuntu virtual machine
  • You will need to allocate the virtual machine 3GB RAM
  • https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop
    • If you're using a Mac, you might possibly need to use an ARM processor distribution for guest OS installation?
  • Ubuntu Desktop 24.04.2 LTS (or similar version)
  • Networking - bridged adapter is recommended, but not sure why
    • I think NAT is likely more appropriate in most cases
  • Make sure some tools are installed
    

        sudo apt install gcc g++ vim make net-tools openssh-server
        

VMware Specifics

• Install VM tools
  

      sudo apt install open-vm-tools-desktop
      

  VMware support for open-vm-tools
• If you want to run your VM "headless" you may be able to run a command like this:
  

      vmrun -T ws start /path/to/VM/VMName.vmx nogui
      

• What is the IP address of a (running) guest machine?
  

      vmrun getGuestIPAddress /path/to/VM/VMName.vmx
      

• Sharing a folder with your host machine
  • It's handy to be able to share a folder with your host. Then you can edit a file locally on your host, and immediately use it in the VM.
  • You will need to add an entry to the /etc/fstab file in you Ubuntu VM guest - run this in the guest from a terminal:

        echo vmhgfs-fuse /mnt/hgfs fuse defaults,allow_other,_netdev 0 0 | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
        

  • Then, in VMware (you might possibly need to shutdown the guest first), go to the VM menu, Settings, Options, Shared Folders, and select Always enabled, and Add a folder to share - give it a name, and choose the local (host) path to share.
  • VMware shared folder not showing in /mnt/ on Ubuntu guest

References

• See UNX511 References

Tools

• See UNX511 Tools

Links

• UNX511 section NSB class schedule
• All UNX511 section NSB class notes
• UNX511 samples at github https://github.com/jsellens/unx511_samples
• Some UNX511 section NSB class samples - code, etc

• UNX511 Course Outline Summer 2025 -- coming soon
• learn.senecapolytechnic.ca - Blackboard
• Seneca Student VPN access information: https://students.senecapolytechnic.ca/spaces/186/it-services/wiki/view/1024/vpn