Whiteboard

I (Daniel Serodio) have started work on an Alfresco appliance. I'll be posting my installation notes here, and after I've reached a usable installation I plan on making a TKLPatch.

Since Turnkey Linux is based off Ubuntu 8.04.3 at this time, there's no Ubuntu (or Debian) package for Alfresco, so I'm doing a "manual" install from the Alfresco-Community-3.2r2-Linux-x86-Install package.

I thought using the Tunrkey Tomcat Appliance would be a good start, but Alfresco 3.2 needs Tomcat 6, so I uninstalled Tomcat 5.5 from Turnkey and used the bundled Tomcat 6 from Alfresco.

Preparation / Prerequisites

First, I created a VM with 1024 MB RAM (Java is memory hungry) from Turnkey Linux Tomcat.

Then I installed gnupg (apparently needed to add the GPG key from byobu's PPA repository):

apt-get install gnupg

Then I installed byobu from its PPA repository. First, I created /etc/apt/sources.list.d/byobu.list with the following contents:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/byobu/ppa/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/byobu/ppa/ubuntu hardy main

Then I installed the public key, then byobu itself

apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com F430BBA5
apt-get update
apt-get install byobu byobu-extra

I found that Alfresco 3.2 needs Tomcat 6, so I had to uninstall the ubuntu package

apt-get remove --purge tomcat5.5

I replaced Ubuntu's default GCJ with Sun's Java 6:

apt-get install sun-java6-sdk
update-alternatives --set java /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/bin/java
update-alternatives --set javac /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/bin/javac

Installed MySQL to be used by Alfresco

apt-get install mysql-server

Installed OpenOffice, ImageMagick and pdf2swf

apt-get install openoffice.org-headless openoffice.org-java-common imagemagick swftools

Created /etc/init.d/openoffice.org with the following contents:

#!/bin/bash

# Boot open office so that Alfresco can do transforms.
#
# Based on http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Runnin..._From_Terminal
# and adapted for Ubuntu Linux by Daniel Serodio
#
# chkconfig: 2345 55 25
# description: OpenOffice Headless
#
# processname: soffice

# source function library
. /lib/lsb/init-functions

RETVAL=0

SOFFICE_PATH='/usr/bin'
SOFFICE_ARGS1="-nofirststartwizard -nologo -headless "
SOFFICE_ARGS2='-accept=socket,host=localhost,port=8100;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager'
SOFFICE_PIDFILE=/var/run/soffice.bin.pid

start() {
       log_begin_msg "Starting OpenOffice.org"
       $SOFFICE_PATH/soffice $SOFFICE_ARGS1 $SOFFICE_ARGS2 >/dev/null 2>&1 &
       log_end_msg $?
       pidof soffice.bin > $SOFFICE_PIDFILE
       echo
}
stop() {
       log_begin_msg "Stopping OpenOffice.org"
       kill $(cat $SOFFICE_PIDFILE)
       log_end_msg $?
}
case "$1" in
       start)
               start
               ;;
       stop)
               stop
               ;;
       restart)
               stop
               start
               ;;
       *)
               echo $"Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"
esac
 

Alfresco Installation

I unpacked the installation file in /opt and renamed the resulting directory from Alfresco to alfresco (Iowercase folder names are easier to type).

Then I fixed Alfresco's shell scripts:

perl -pi -e "s|\@\@ALFRESCO_HOME\@\@|/opt/alfresco" /opt/alfresco/*.sh
perl -pi -e "s|\@\@JAVA_HOME\@\@|/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun" /opt/alfresco/*.sh

Then I changed the location of Alfresco's data files from /opt/alfresco/alt_data to /srv/alfresco and setup Imagemagick and pdf2swf install locations, by editing /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties:

perl -pi -e "s|^#?dir_root.*$|dir_root=/srv/alfresco|" /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties
perl -pi -e "s|^#?img_root.*$|img_root=/usr|" /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties
perl -pi -e "s|^#?swf.exe.*$|swf.exe=/usr/bin/swf2exe|" /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties

Notes

Tools to assist in using ATA over Ethernet

http://packages.debian.org/lenny/aoetools
http://debian.oregonstate.edu/debian/pool/main/a/aoetools/aoetools_26-1_i386.deb

virtual AoE blade emulator

http://packages.debian.org/lenny/vblade
http://debian.oregonstate.edu/debian/pool/main/v/vblade/vblade_16-1_i386.deb

It should be possible to save/backup and restore the state of an appliance to/from Windows file share, NFS or S3. See how JumpBox do this for reference.

Implementing this allows us to easily migrate an appliance from one machine (development) to another (the "cloud")

A light Desktop type appliance specifically designed for portability and customisation (with whichever tools you want). As suggested by David in this post: http://www.turnkeylinux.org/forum/ge...e#comment-2585

Probably aimed at development and/or support work?

Someone please elaborate more....

The Developer Desktop Use Case:

As a software developer, we all have a favorite operating system (eg ubuntu :), window manager (gnome) and set of tools and compilers (emacs, gcc, javac ) etc... 

When need to work in multiple sites or, heaven forbid, work at home.  When we move around, we keep having to synchronise our tools and data.  Even worse, if ubuntu is our favorite desktop at home and we work in Windows desktop shop, we are miserable all day long. 

If you could download a TKL Desktop Appliance with a sort of bootstrap desktop.  Then personalise it a bit.  After savig it as a VMware image you could carry it around on a usb stick or pocket drive and have the same environment where ever you work so long as you have vmware player. 

Beta released

The TurnKey Linux Customization Mechanism has been released under the name TKLPatch. The updated design, installation, and usage details see http://www.turnkeylinux.org/docs/tklpatch

Overview

This page documents as yet unimplemented ideas for an easy customization mechanism for TurnKey Linux appliances. Our goal is to develop a dead-simple way in which an existing generic product could be extended/tweaked by a given end-user to tweak the system for their needs.

Example tweaks:

• adding a repository
• tweaking a configuration file
• adding data files
• adding a package

Design goals

• very simple technically to reduce barriers to entry
• make sharing of tweaks possible and easy, to encourage tweakers to publish their tweaks
• well designed mechanism (simple, generic and powerful)  

Design

Web registry of extensions

A web registry of extensions (with download links) sorted according to votes? (recommend, don't recommend).

If there isn't anything we can use off the shelf perhaps we can begin by maintaining a registry of recommended extensions ourselves via the CMS - people can notify us of their existence via email or via the forums.

Advantages

• incorporate good developments upstream to the generic products
• establish opensource ecosystem of extensions (let a thousand flowers bloom)
• increase size of audience
• satisfy long tail of special needs

Full featured groupware aplpiance to replace Exchange and Lotus Domino.

Summary

Businesses today need a simple, full featured, cost effective suite for collaboration that does not lock them into a certain platform or product. Unfortunately items such as Exchange and Lotus continue to be the solution of choice. This isn't because Exchange or Lotus are great but due to open source alternatives are timely to setup, configure and integrate into existing systems.

Citadel is the simplest groupware server to setup and manage. Citadel provides a wealth of functionality such as email, calendaring/scheduling, address books, bulletin boards, mailing list server, instant messaging, multiple domain support and even includes a modern AJAX-style web interface. Citadel also supports most major mail clients natively or via third party plugin.

Setup Overview

The following assumes the following:

A working installation of TurnKey Core, updated and patched of course.

A fully qualified domain name, (optional).

Installation Instructions

1. Citadel requires a few items from Hardy repos. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sources.list and uncomment the repos EXCEPT hardy-backports.
2. Add Citadels repo to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sources.list. Repo URL: deb http://ubuntu.citadel.org/ubuntu/ hardy main
3. Update APT: apt-get update
4. Install Citadel: apt-get install citadel-suite
5. Follow the prompts and accept the defaults.
6. Once the install is done open the servers IP in a browser and login to Citadel with username Administrator and leave the password blank.
7. On the left hand menu select Administration -> User account management -> Add, change, delete user accounts. Select Administrator and set the password.

At this point the server is good to go. You can either allow users to create accounts or manually add them yourself. Citadel works with most mail clients. A plugin for Outlook is available here.

Notes

You can change the default message that gets sent to new users. So maybe we want to create one for TurnKey?

Integration with Spamassassin and ClamAV is possible but I haven't done much research in this area. This link provides some information on using Citadel with Spamassassin and ClamAV.

There are themes available but I haven't seen many. There is one that is very simple and easy on the eyes that I would like to possibly use for TurnKey. I want to have the TurnKey appliance to look different than a default install.

Lastly I appologize for the extermely long delay. I did a lot of research on the numerous groupware suites out there and found that NONE of them are as simple to install and deal with as Citadel. When comparing suites I focused on the following items:

• Ease of installation
• Ease of management
• Minimal dependencies
• Core functionality (limiting use of 3rd party software)
• No "crippleware" or "trialware", software must be open source
• Development activity (If its not being worked on or progress is too slow we don't want it)
• Stability
• Interoperability

So after messing with over 10+ groupware suites, Citadel was the only one I kept going back to. Also, look forward to a email archiving solution!

TKL iFolder Server was originally suggested by James Drew in this thread.

iFolder is a file sharing service similar to a private DropBox. It is open source. The homepage is here and is on Wikipedia here.

Unfortunately iFolder is not in the Ubuntu repos and does not have an offical .deb either. The server app is available as a tarball or .rpm here. The client software is also available there as a tarball, .rpm and Win .exe.

Some (more) documentation re Ubuntu can be found here. Also there are instalation instructions for Ubuntu here

Installing iFolder

I have spent a fair bit of time trying to install v3.8 of the iFolder Server software (from source). Initially I tried using TKL Core (8.04) as the base but there was a problem with an unmet dependancy when trying to build (from memory it was to do with a python package which TKL uses a Debian package which whilst newer than required wasn't recognosed as an apropriate apckage). So I persevered with a vanilla 8.04 server (I figured once working I could then look at how to get it to work on top of TKL).

Unfortunately even after much stuffing around I had to give up. But in my travels I discovered a PPA that has v3.6 for Hardy. I figured as long as it works with the latest client then that may be acceptable until the new TKL release (where the current instructions for the latest build should work).

So I went to work installing (again just into vanilla Ubuntu Server 8.04) I still haven't got it working but it seems close. Here's what I did:

Add PPA to source.list.d

echo '# Repository for iFolder (3.6) PPA' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ifolder-ppa.list


echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ruiboon/ppa/ubuntu hardy main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ifolder-ppa.list


echo '# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ruiboon/ppa/ubuntu hardy main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ifolder-ppa.list

Update and install packages

apt-get update apt-get install simias apache2 libapache2-mod-mono mono-apache-server2 a2enmod rewrite

Configure, using the Ubuntu guide here, its pretty much the same for 3.6 as 3.8. Start the cong with this command:

simias-server-setup

Then restart apache.


/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

That all goes ok, but it doesn't work :( When I browse to ip-of-server/simias10 I get this:

Error 500:

Server Error in '/simias10' Application

/usr/lib/simias/web/bin/FlaimWrapper.so

Description: Error processing request.

Error Message: HTTP 500. System.DllNotFoundException: /usr/lib/simias/web/bin/FlaimWrapper.so

Stack Trace:

The current state of play

Considering I have spent a huge amount of time trying to get this to work and have basically got nowhere. I will shelve this until the new 10.04 based TKL is out (which probably should be soon hopefully)

Overview

Step by step I will explain how to build Mirth Connect Appliance from Turnkey Core. Now I have one running on VMWare Server. Next step I like create LiveCD and using Debian sources.

What is Mirth Connect?

1. Access to Turnkey-Core using console (IP of your virtual machine). Remember your default password is turnkey
   

   ssh root@172.16.17.130

2. Install Java:
   

   1. Move java file

      mv /jdk-6u14-linux-i586.bin /opt
      

       

   2. Run Java to install

      cd /opt/
      ./jdk-6u14-linux-i586.bin

   3. Create simbolic link

      ln -s /opt/jdk1.6.0_14 /opt/java

3. Install Mirth Connect
   1. Run Mirth to install

      ./mirth-1.8.1.4211.948-linux-installer.bin

   2. Setup Mirth

      cd /opt/mirth
      /opt/java/bin/java -jar mirth-1.8.1.4211xxxx-setup.jar script.xml

      Your Mirth install on /opt/Mirth (careful with uppercase and lowercase, on linux is diferent Mirth and mirth)
   3. Mirth config to run on reboot
      

      ln -s /opt/Mirth/mirth-daemon /etc/init.d/mirth-daemon
      update-rc.d mirth-daemon defaults
      

   4. Set JAVA_HOME on Mirth, edit file: /opt/Mirth/mirth-daemon add next lines at top:

      export JAVA_HOME=/opt/java
      PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

4. (Optional) set JAVA_HOME on your user (root):
   
   1. Edit file: /root/.bash_profile and add next lines:

      export JAVA_HOME=/opt/java
      PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

5. Reboot system:

   shutdown -r now

Checkings

Check Mirth installation

Go to Mirth at http://172.16.17.130:8080/ (IP of your virtual machine)

Note: Your client need have Java JRE and user/pass default is admin/admin

Check Webmin access

Go to Webmin at https://172.16.17.130:12321/

Future

• I like to write this machine on LiveCD and create image
• Run Mirht with another user, I don't like run with root user.
• Run on Debian Image for more stability, from scratch maybe...

Samba can be used as a domain controller but configuring such a beast is really hard work. A general network services appliance preconfigured as a drop in replacement for a windows domain controller and general authentication server would be really useful.

Notes

I've heard Samba4 will have native support to be a 2k3'ish DC. I'm working more and more w/ OpenLDAP to act as a proxy for other LDAP servers like AD, so I'll help out where I can. Also look into other LDAP servers like OpenDS, Penrose, Fedora DS and maybe even Sun One, (its free but only has binaries for MS and RPM based distos). Mabe even incorporate items like phpLDAPadmin as the webui or bundle jXplorer considering its a desktop app that runs on Linux and Windows.
-- Patrick

Overview

OpenGoo is an Open Source Web Office (see http://www.opengoo.org/about.html for more info)

I have started working on setting this up as an appliance (based on Turnkey Linux LAMP)

I currently have this working quite well. I haven't spent a lot of time testing yet but it all seems to be ok.

These instructions assume that you have a working install of Turnkey LAMP (I used a virtual machine in VirtualBox but that shouldn't make any difference).

Setup using Webmin (can be done remotely via web browser)

To use these instructions you will need to log into your Turnkey Server from a web browser. On a default Turnkey LAMP setup you'll need to browse to https://your.appliance.ip:12321/ and log in. If you'd rather use the console, see below.

1) To be able to upload files to your server using Webmin you will need to install the zip/unzip packages.

• Select Software Packages (Sytem > Software Packages)
• Update packages - click <Upgrade Now> (bottom of the page)
• Install new package - Select Packages from APT - write zip unzip then click <Install>

2) OpenGoo requires a php extension that isn't included with Turnkey LAMP by default so you need to install php5-gd as well.

• Install new package - Select Packages from APT - write php5-gd then click <Install>

There are a number of dependencies that will need to be installed, but Turnkey Linux will take care of sorting all that out.

3) Download the OpenGoo zip package (if you haven't already). http://www.opengoo.org/downloads.html

4) Upload OpenGoo

• Select File Manager (Tools > File Manager)
• Click <Upload> (you may need to allow pop-ups)
• <Browse> to OpenGoo.zip
• Upload to /var/www
• Select Yes (or Yes and delete) - Uncompress ZIP or TAR file
• Click <Upload>

5) Change ownership (permissions) of /var/www/opengoo directory. To make OpenGoo 'automatically' upgradeable you will need to change ownership of the whole folder.

• Still in File Manager (Tools > File Manager)
• In the left pane, click var then www now in the right pane click on opengoo
• Click <Info>
• Change Ownership to www-data and set it to apply to This directory and all subdirectories (drop down at the bottom). Click <Save>

If you would rather not allow full web server write access and are happy to install OpenGoo updates manually you can just set the permissions of the indivdual folders. The folders are all located in /var/www/opengoo. They are

• /config
• /public/files
• /cache
• /upload
• /tmp

Now Install OpenGoo (see below)

Setup using Console (logged into local Turnkey server)

1) To keep the instructions inline with the above Webmin method, install the zip/unzip packages.

apt-get update 
apt-get install zip unzip 

2) Install php5-gd

apt-get install php-gd

There are a number of dependencies that will need to be installed, but Turnkey Linux will take care of sorting all that out.

3) Download the OpenGoo zip package (if you haven't already). http://www.opengoo.org/downloads.html

4) Upload OpenGoo.zip to /var/www using your preferred method eg ftp, rsync etc. Then unzip

unzip /var/www/opengoo.zip

you can then delete the .zip package if you'd like.

5) Change ownership (permissions) of /var/www/opengoo directory. To make OpenGoo 'automatically' upgradeable you will need to change ownership of the whole folder.

chown www-data:www-data /var/www/opengoo

If you would rather not allow full web server write access and are happy to install OpenGoo updates manually you can just set the permissions of the indivdual folders.

chown www-data:www-data /var/www/opengoo/config
chown www-data:www-data /var/www/opengoo/public/files
chown www-data:www-data /var/www/opengoo/cache
chown www-data:www-data /var/www/opengoo/upload
chown www-data:www-data /var/www/opengoo/tmp

Now Install OpenGoo (see below)

Install OpenGoo

Now comes the easy part!

Using your web browser, browse to OpenGoo: http://your.appliance.ip/opengoo/

Just follow the instructions at http://wiki.opengoo.org/doku.php/installer, its pretty straight forward.

For more info please read the OpenGoo Manual (http://wiki.opengoo.org/doku.php/Home) - User's manual first, followed by the Administrator's manual (scroll down).

Please msg me if there is something I've missed or something that needs a bit more clarification (especially if its before I get a chance to get back and tidy up)

Good luck!

Important Note: These instructions apply only to 8.04/Hardy based TKL (up to and including 2009.10-2). They do not work on the new 10.04/Lucid based beta. Unfortunately as Ubuntu have dropped support for OpenVZ (both as guest and host) it's a little tricky to get 10.04 running as an OpenVZ guest. Once I have it confirmed working I will post a separate TKL Dev Wiki entry. In the meantime, if anyone else wants to play with it, the best looking instructions I have found so far are a blog post here.

Below are the steps that I took to create an OpenVZ Template of (Ubuntu 8.04/Hardy based) TKL Core/LAMP/MediaWiki. This information will be superceded once the TKL devs produce official OpenVZ tempates, but until then this works for me (so far) and hopefully it will work for you too.

Disclaimer: Be warned I am somewhat of a Linux noob! Most of this information I got off the OpenVZ wiki and a few other sources (including google) and with a huge amount of time and patience I patched it all together and have produced a working template.  I can not guarantee this will work for you and I have not done extensive testing yet so I can't even be sure mine works 100%. In other words proceed with caution!

This may work for other TKL appliances and it may even work on other customised Ubuntu or Debian systems but I can not guarantee it. So far I have tested:

• TKL-Core 2009.10
• TKL-LAMP 2009.10
• TKL-MediaWiki 2009.0? (previous stable release)
• TKL-Fileserver 2009.10
• TKL-PDC 2009.10

I have heard that Java doesn't play well with OpenVZ by default (so the Zibra appliance may not work without some tweaking). Please see here for more details. There is also a link to some pre-created templates made by xtrac568

I have developed a script which basically does all these steps automatically. It isn't very professional (just writing it was a huge learning curve!) but I am happy to share if you'd like a go at it. - JedMeister

Install Turnkey Core Appliance

This first step is pretty straight forward, proceed as you would for any TKL instalation. I suggest you use a virtual environment (eg VirtualBox/VMware/KVM/others...) but it should still work if you install to hardware .  I'm using the KVM componenet of Proxmox VE (not that it should matter).

I use SSH to to access my base system but if you are doing this on hardware then you can do it from a local terminal. I do not recommend you do this from Webmin.

Customise system

Update/Install/Tweak anything you want to include in your Template.

Please note that the steps below may make your host system unusable (unless you know what you are doing and can undo the steps or avoid the destructive ones). If you wish to maintain the current system, please do a full system backup prior - especially backup anything of importance!

Edit sources.list (if required)

nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sources.list

Save  (Ctrl-o in nano) and exit (Ctrl-x in nano).

Tweak packages and cleanup

apt-get update
apt-get remove module-init-tools xkb-data busybox-initramfs libvolume-id0 eject

apt-get install quota bzip2 wget localepurge

Upgrade

I don't think its necessary, but I did an upgrade. As a general rule I avoid upgrade, and rather just update individual packages when there is security risk, bug-fix and/or additional functionality I require. In the past I have experienced problems after an upgrade so I don't really recommend it on anything other than Core. Also TKL does a regular automatic security update (through cron_daily). Seeing as I was using Core (not too much to go wrong or break) and for the sake of completeness, I did a full upgrade on this install.

First I made sure that we have got rid of any orphan packages and then I did the upgrade.

apt-get autoremove

followed by:

apt-get upgrade

Fix problem with Ubuntu procps

When I originally wrote this, there was a bug with Ubuntu procps. To solve this I replaced the Ubuntu procps with the latest version from Debian Sid (procps>=1:3.2.7-8 at the time of the original post). Please note that this package will not update (using apt) and the package listed may be replaced. If you get an error message from the wget line below check the Debian packages for the latest one.

It may be possible that this step is no longer required (if Ubuntu have also upgraded to a new version) but I have not checked so I have left this step included until I can confirm the Ubuntu bug no longer exists. If you are able to confirm or deny whether this is true before I do, please feel free to edit this page or post in the TKL forums (or even PM me).

I used procps_3.2.8-8 from the Internode mirror (because I'm in Australia and this is my ISPs mirror). There are a list of mirrors here: http://packages.debian.org/sid/i386/procps/download Simply replace the url in the wget line below.

wget http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/debian/pool/main/p/procps/procps_3.2.8-8_i386.deb
dpkg -i procps_3.2.8-8_i386.deb

After it has installed fine, the .deb can be removed.

rm /root/procps_3.2.8-8_i386.deb

Mod to support IPv6

ln -s /bin/true /sbin/modprobe

Disable sync() for syslog

sed -i -e 's@\([[:space:]]\)\(/var/log/\)@\1-\2@' /etc/syslog.conf

Fix /etc/mtab

rm -f /etc/mtab
ln -s /proc/mounts /etc/mtab

update-rc.d -f mtab.sh remove

update-rc.d -f acpid remove
update-rc.d -f amd remove
update-rc.d -f checkfs remove
update-rc.d -f checkroot remove
update-rc.d -f clock remove
update-rc.d -f hdparm remove
update-rc.d -f klogd remove
update-rc.d -f keymaps remove
update-rc.d -f kudzu remove
update-rc.d -f lm_sensors remove
update-rc.d -f microcodectl remove
update-rc.d -f netplugd remove

Set hostname and /etc/hosts

echo "localhost" > /etc/hostname
echo "127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost" > /etc/hosts

Remove nameserver(s)

> /etc/resolv.conf
echo 192.168.1.60 > /etc/resolv.conf

Clean up packages, udev and logs

apt-get clean
rm -fr /lib/udev

cd /var/log
> messages; > auth.log; > kern.log; > bootstrap.log
> dpkg.log; > syslog; > daemon.log; > apt/term.log
rm -f *.0 *.1

Package Template

Collect files required

nano /tmp/excludes.excl

.bash_history
/dev/*
/mnt/*
/tmp/*
/proc/*
/sys/*
/cdrom
/media/*
/usr/src/*
/var/cache/apt/*
/lost+found

tar cpf /tmp/template.tar / -X /tmp/excludes.excl

mkdir /tmp/template
tar xvf /tmp/template.tar -C /tmp/template

Install bzip2 (optional)

apt-get update
apt-get install bzip2

Recreate /var/cache/apt/archive/partial & create /dev/pts/ & /dev/shm/

For apt to work you need to recreate the apt cache partial directory (the /var/cache/apt/ contents were excluded). These other directories are required too.

mkdir /tmp/template/var/cache/apt/archives
mkdir /tmp/template/var/cache/apt/archives/partial
mkdir /tmp/template/dev/pts
mkdir /tmp/template/dev/shm

Disable getty

On a usual Linux system, getty is running on a virtual terminal, which a container does not have. So, having getty running doesn't make sense; more to say, it complains it can not open terminal device and this clutters the logs.

Disable running getty.

rm /tmp/template/etc/event.d/tty*

Clear fstab

> /tmp/template/etc/fstab

Create /dev/ptmx /dev/urandom /dev/random & /dev/null

mknod --mode 666 /tmp/template/dev/ptmx c 5 2
mknod --mode 444 /tmp/template/dev/random c 1 8
mknod --mode 444 /tmp/template/dev/urandom c 1 9

mknod --mode 666 /tmp/template/dev/null c 1 3

Copy /dev/ttyp* and /dev/ptyp*

cp -a /dev/ttyp* /dev/ptyp* /tmp/template/dev/

Disable old network interface (optional)

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

nano /etc/network/interfaces

Package final template

Even though I am using bzip2 compression, I use the .tar.gz extension as Proxmox will only find .tar.gz templates. If you aren't using Proxmox you can choose to use the .tar.bz2 extension if you'd rather. If you are using gzip compression substitute 'z' for 'j' ie tar czvf .....

cd /tmp/template
tar cjvf /tmp/ubuntu-8.04-tkl-core_2009.10_i386.tar.gz *

Possible bug with /dev/urandom

On starting the VM in the boot log it complains that "cannot create /dev/urandom: permission denied". It looks like this is a permission issue.

All the documentation I have read regarding OpenVZ templates suggests that 444 is the correct permission for this file. Even if you delete and recreate the file it still complains.

I will leave it as is for now

References

http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Migration_of_servers_to_Proxmox_VE
http://wiki.openvz.org/Physical_to_container
http://wiki.openvz.org/Ubuntu_Hardy_template_creation
http://howtoforge.com/how-to-convert-physical-systems-and-xen-vms-into-openvz-containers-debian-etch
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=617225&highlight=openvz+template+running+server

and lots of googling for minor points.

Note to Devs

When it comes time to create the official TKL OpenVZ, from what I've read the best way would be to simply use the info contained here: http://wiki.openvz.org/Ubuntu_Hardy_template_creation

Copy of blueprint notes proposed by Daniele Medri on launchpad

Originally posted by TheBlackSheep (Chris) on the forums

I've been looking to evaluate Pentaho CE and thought this might be useful for anyone involved in a similar project - it looks like a great product but a little difficult to find all the information together so I thought I'd try and make some notes as I went along to help others embarking on a similar project.

Ok you'll need the "CORE" Ubuntu appliance ISO.

I downloaded Sun's VirtualBox to host some of these turnkey appliances - makes it very easy to start and stop virtual systems whilst you are configuring/evaluating the particular appliance (although I've only tried this on WinXP (cough!) currently, I must do same on a full Ubunut server install). Using VirtualBox or VMWare or whatever, create a new virtual machine, call it whatever, "Pentaho" for example, if that's what it will be, accept the defaults for a Ubuntu linux device.  Once the base virtual machine has been created by Virtual Box before starting it up you first need to ensure the Network is set to bridged - this will get a DHCP ip address from the local network when the virtualmachine boots, next go to the CD/DVD-ROM and point this to the "Core" turnkey appliance ISO you downloaded earlier.

Now start your virtual machine and it should, after a few seconds, start booting into the appliance.  After a further few seconds, you'll get a menu screen with some options on it - choose the "install to hard-disk" and then just accept all the defaults. You'll need to setup a root password, eventually the sysem will be installed and it will need to reboot.Just before you do, unmount the CD/DVD from the "Devices" menu.  then reboot.  Eventually it will boot into your new virtual server and give some new menu options about network configuration etc.  Make a note of your ip-address here, you're going to need it later.

Quit out of the menus until you're back to the command "login" prompt, login using "root" and the password you created when you installed the core system.

If necessary set the relevant keyboard (this is necessary for piping and redirection via the console on non-USA keyboards etc)

   dpkg-reconfigure console-data

(some users might also need to reconfigure language too - "dpkg-reconfigure locales"

INSTALLING JAVA6 RUNTIME
Note: I'd tried using the "Tomcat" turnkey appliance installation prior to this and some of pentaho did work but I was also getting port conflicts on the Tomcat5.5 that comes with the Pentaho installation and in the appliance so I decided to go with a "core" appliance installation and install just what was necessary for Pentaho to run.

you're going to need to download some files from the repositories, if you're sat behind a proxy you might need to add the following lines to your "bash.bashrc" file in /etc/

      export http_proxy=http://<user>:<pass>@<proxy-server>:<port>/
      export ftp_proxy=http://<user>:<pass>@<proxy-server>:<port>/
     

You'll need to change the user/pass and proxy server ip address appropriate for you obviously.

(you'll need to logout for these to come into effect so just type "exit" and then login again - you could type bash to rerun
the shell but then you'd be running a shell within a shell and your outer shell won't have these settings so it's easier just to exit and login again)

The sun-java runtime is in the mutiverse so you're going to need to change the turnkey list of repositories to include the "multiverse"  to be able to download the JRE, to do this just take out the # from the multiverse line in the two main repositories (in the core appliance I downloaded the first block of repositories point to the turnkey repositiories, the second and third blocks point to the standard ubuntu ones - just take out the # on these 2nd and 3rd blocks for the multiverse ones), these are held in the file;

     /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sources.list

which you'll need to edit with vi or vim, once this is done type;

     apt-get update

this will update the list of packages that are available to download and which should now include the "multiverse" ones, followed by (I didn't check here to see if there is a Turnkey Multiverse repository which might be more appropriate)

     apt-get install sun-java6-jre
better
(if you get 403 Forbidden errors, try re-editing the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sources.list and changing all the http's to ftp and then rerun "apt-get install sun-java6-jre" - this worked for me with the proxy I was using)

when the Java is installing you'll see a licence option on the console which you'll need to ok for it to actually install. Eventually, your prompt will return.  Now we need to setup the environment so Pentaho knows where Java is, just type

    cd /usr/bin

and type;

    ls java

you should see a file called java listed, if it's there just type

    java -version

and hopefully you'll see the version of java listed as 1.6 and some copyright stuff from Sun.  Now go back into the bash shell configuration file and add the following line at the end of the file (use vi/vim etc);

     export JAVA_HOME=/usr

once you've got back to the prompt, type "exit" to logout and then log back in and type;

     echo $JAVA_HOME

hopefully you'll see;

     /usr

(Note I initially set JAVA_HOME to /usr/bin as that's what I thought it should be based on some searches on google but then Pentaho will look for it in /usr/bin/bin/java which obviously isn't correct)

If not retrace your steps and check the relevant files.

Now download the version of pentaho you're wanting to install - I downloaded "biserver-ce-3.0.0-STABLE.tar.gz" to my local PC.  You then need to get this across to your virtual server and in this case I used Webmin which is part of the core appliance setup.  Open a browser and open the URL

    http://<server-ipaddress>:12321/

you'll probably get errors about security certificates, accept/get/override these until it gives you the Webmin web-based login dialog box.

Login as your root and the password you set when you first installed the "core" linux appliance.  From the menu choose "Tools"->"Upload and Download", then switch to the Upload tab.  Using one of the browse buttons find the Pentaho package you downloaded and then just click on the upload button, a progress dialog will appear showing this file going across to your virtual server.  Webmin will let you know when it's finally completed.

Now go back to your bash console on the virtual server.  Create a folder off the root folder (i.e. /) called "pentaho" (i.e. "mkdir /pentaho")and move the file you just transferred via Webmin to it (note: this is just a personal preference, if you need to remove stuff later it's always easier if it's boxed off in a separate folder somewhere rather than trying to traverse a scattered file system to remove mutiple files/folders).
 
In your new folder ("cd /pentaho"), type "tar -xvf biserver-ce-3.0.0-STABLE.tar.gz", a whole raft of folders will appear as the relevant compressed files are extracted.  At the end of this, if you type "ls -al" you should see the compressed file together with two new folders called "biserver-ce" and "administration-console".  In each of these are two folders there should be some scripts for starting and stopping the relevant service, go into the biserver-ce one (i.e. "cd biserver-ce") and do an "ls";

You'll see the "start-pentaho.sh" script, at the prompt type "./start-pentaho.sh", you'll see a few messages but after a few seconds the server will (hopefully :-)) have started.

Run up a browser on your PC and type "http://<server-ipaddress>", with any luck you'll be presented with the "Pentaho" user login window

Similarly, back in the virtual machine console, just press return to get back to a prompt and then do a "cd ../admin*" to go into the "/pentaho/administration-console" folder.  At the prompt, type "./start.sh" and the admin console should start up.

Now open another browser window/tab on your PC and navigate to "http://<server-ipaddress>:8099/", you should get the Admin console window and a request for the username and password login parameters.  Type "admin" and "password" and then login, you should then have the option to create and manage the users using the administration sections.
You should also be able to see that the Pentaho service is running by the "Server Status" icon above the central frame (it will have a red-X on the icon if the service is not running).

To exit from the administration-console press Ctrl-C, I get the impression this should only run when you need it.  Also there doesn't seem to be any necessity to run the shutdown script ("./stop.sh") to stop it (as there would be with pentaho itself) as the CTRL-C seems to stop the service running.  EDIT: I had a process go awry at one point and I had to switch to a different console (ALT-F2) and ran the ./stop.sh which seemed to work eventually so perhaps it is there for good reason.

That should at least have got you started.

Now shutdown the services and navigate to "/pentaho/biserver-ce/tomcat/webapps/pentaho/WEB-INF", here vi/vim the "web.xml" file and change the relevant context entry from "localhost:8080" to the address of the server as in;

...
<context-param>
    <param-name>base-url</param-name>
    <param-value>http://<ipaddress>:8080/pentaho/</param-value>
<context-param>
...

and then restart the server, although the sample reports were sort of working without the above, I noticed some of the charts were looking for the images that had been created for them on "localhost" (i.e. they were looking on the local PC and not on the server), hopefully this fixes that.  Note: I had a little trouble here for a minute or so not sure what I'd
done but pentaho wouldn't let me login as a user I'd created using the administration-console web utility (it kept giving me authentication errors). Eventually after stopping the service a couple of times and restarting it it let me in and the reports seemed to start working.

One side issue of setting this ip-address is that to run the google api demo you'll need to register the ip address with google - there's a link in pentaho to do this directly although you will need to edit a file within the pentaho configuration to get this to work from there on in.

MS SQL Server access - I downloaded the JTDS sqlserver driver from Sourceforge (just google it for the relevant URL if you need this) - once you've got the file extract the " jtds.1.2.2.jar" file and put this in "/pentaho/biserver-ce/tomcat/common/lib" and the "/pentaho/administration-console/jdbc/" folders which is where the other JDBC drivers appear to be held.  Then stop and start the services (at least the console anyway) hopefully the driver will now appear in the drivers option on the "Add Data Source" in the administration console. Look at the website documentation (it's actually in the driver compressed file too) to get the right format for the URL.  Note I couldn't get this to work with the localised EXPRESS version of SQL Server but it seemed to work fine with the server versions.  I tried the m$ one too but it just gave errors (available from their website) wehn I tried to connect - if anyone knows how to configure these properly I'd be grateful.

All-in-all it seems a good BI suite and if you're comparing a commercial Reports/BI suite with what there is in the OpenSource arena then it's definitely worth a look.  Even if you decide to go with a commerical option for support reasons  there's always the commercial version of Pentaho (and it comes with documentation too!).

Chris

Goal: A php accelerator should be integrated as a standard feature of all web appliances.

Notes

All LAMP based TurnKey web appliances should come with a php accelerator pre-integrated.

A PHP accelerator typically reduces server load and increases the speed of PHP code anywhere from 2-10 times, depending on factors such as the inherent execution time of the PHP application and the percentage of source code actually executed on a given request

The leading candidate is xcache, for which a package already exists in Ubuntu hardy universe (php5-xcache)!

Its written by the extremely skilled programmer who is also behind lighttpd, and he wrote XCache after studying eAccelerator and APC.

The other alternatives eaccelerator and APC are a bit more problematic.

eAccelerator is very good (also written by a technical genius) but has a licensing problem. Also, from what I've been reading XCache performs somewhat better.

APC is supposedly the future (supposed to be integrated into PHP6 by default), and written by the official php team but I've been reading quite a few reports regarding stability issues (segfaults and such under
high load), and there is also the conflict of interest with a Zend commercial offering that makes me suspect that is the reason APC isn't what it could/should be.

References

• Benchmarking Drupal with PHP op code Caches. APC vs eAccelerator vs XCache

Notes

UPDATE: A TurnKey Redmine appliance was made available in the 2009.10 release thanks to these notes.

These are the steps I followed to get Redmine running on the "TurnkeyLinux Rails Appliance".

# CD to the directory containing the `railsapp`
cd /var/www/

# Stop the running mongrel cluster so we can fiddle the `railsapp`
/etc/init.d/mongrel_cluster stop

# Shuffle already installed app so we can replace it
mv railsapp{,.orig}

# Update APT sources and install required packages
apt-get update
apt-get install subversion libsqlite3-ruby libdbi-ruby libdbd-sqlite3-ruby libxml-ruby rake

# Check out the 0.8 version of redmine into the `railsapp`
# (I used r2743 - YMMV)
svn co http://redmine.rubyforge.org/svn/branches/0.8-stable/ railsapp

# Copy over the mongrel cluster config
cp railsapp.orig/config/mongrel_cluster.yml railsapp/config

# Make PID temp directory so that Mongrel can monitor instances
mkdir railsapp/tmp/pids

# Modify your database configuration
cat <<EOF >config/database.yml
production:
adapter: sqlite3
dbfile: db/redmine.db
EOF

# Make sure you have rails 2.1.2 installed
gem install --no-rdoc --no-ri --verbose -v=2.1.2 rails

# Perform initial database configuration
cd railsapp; rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV="production"; cd ..

# Optionally (recommended) load default data
cd railsapp; rake redmine:load_default_data RAILS_ENV="production"; cd ..

# Give the apache user access to our stuff
chown -R www-data:www-data railsapp

##########
# Plugins
#
# These are optional of course. Uncomment the lines to add them.

# Make sure git is installed
# apt-get install git-core

# Simple CI - Reads an RSS feed and colors entries based on regex
# svn co svn://rubyforge.org/var/svn/redmine/plugins/simple_ci vendor/plugins/simple_ci

# Graphs - see the progression over time of issues
# git clone git://github.com/bradbeattie/redmine...phs-plugin.git vendor/plugins/redmine_graphs

# Vote - vote on issues
# Note that I used a forked version of this project; if the forker doesn't pull changes
# you may need to customize this git URL to point it to the original project
# git clone git://github.com/jimmyz/redmine_vote.git vendor/plugins/redmine_vote

# GroupIssues - group issues by status/effort/etc.
# git clone git://github.com/Ubik/redmine_issues_group.git vendor/plugins/issues_group

# Migrate all stuff for plugins
#rake db:migrate_plugins RAILS_ENV="production"

# End of plugins stuff
#######################

# Start the mongrel cluster running the new `railsapp`
/etc/init.d/mongrel_cluster start

The vision (or more acurately - my vision) is a TKL VE (Virtual Environment) based on the idea of a "Master Server" somewhat like Proxmox VE. Basically a platform for TKL appliances to 'live' (virtually - ie as VMs) together thus making TKL a complete modular server environment.

This could either be installed virtually or on hardware which then has the various required TKL appliances (server components) installed within 'containers' (using technology such as OpenVZ or similar). This has a dual-edged appeal as it reduces hardware load associated with multiple VMs and also allows for a modular configuration which gives increased stability and the potential for redundancy. It also allows for developement and trialling of new products & ideas before having to commit your business to them. The other great thing is that if you mess something up completely and corrupt your LAMP webserver (for example) it doesn't bring your whole business to a standstill, only the functions that that individual VM was serving. I am currently using Proxmox VE which I find brilliant and basically fulfills the "master server" role on my hardware (as defined above). (I robbed this paragraph from a forum post if it sounds familiar or doesn't quite fit with the rest of this page).

As I see it, it could go one of two ways (and limitless variations of these):

1. Available as 32 or 64 bit - Ideally installed to hardware but also suitable for install within a virtual environement. Probably using only OpenVZ or similar container based virtualisation. Specifically designed to host TKL appliances (although could also host other Ubuntu/Debian based distos quite easily, even other Linux distros with a little tweaking).
2. A more 'generic' VE based more closely on what Proxmox acheives. Possibly x64 only. Aimed ideally at hardware install (although still possible for install in virtual environment), perhaps including KVM (or similar) so other OSs (such as Windows) could also be installed.

My personal preference would be for 1. as I would like to see a product that is specifically targeted at TKL appliances and is clearly different to Proxmox. However I think the option to be able to host alternate OSs via KVM is a bonus (this really only applies to hardware installs).

In the meantime, when I get a chance, I will have a play with Installing Proxmox on top of TKL Core (not sure if it will work as Proxmox is designed for Debian Lenny x64).

I note with interest that Webmin have a number of clustering modules available (have a look on this page) that could be very useful for administering this server configuration.

Tutturu is appliance based on turnkey lamp for automatic multimedia publishing via podcast and bit torrent protocol. Please note, its currently not ready for general usage.

Based on drupal6 (with media mover module and torrent client Torrentflux-b4rt) is capable of publishing any media parsed by ffmpeg. Currently its outdated to turnekeylinux project and bit torrent clinet is going to be swapped for rtorrent/wtorrent.

If you are interested in checking it out mail szczym@obin.org

Dump from 20.02 contains /var/www/*, databases and packages from dpkg -l

You dont need to install all packages into appliance as there are many vlc components, that been needed for direct stream from torrent web interface. Actual process of publishing takes place after the cron run from drupal.

More info

Resources

•  http://sem-group.net/search-engine-o...-live-without/
•  http://wordpress.org/support/topic/261349
•  http://op111.net/70
•  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/browse/popular/
•  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/browse/top-rated/
•  http://blog.nicasiodesign.com/wordpr...lugin-reviews/

WP Forum

Plugins suggested by Figaro

• contact form 7
• Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu
• Global Translator
• Sociable
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

WP-hackers mailing list

@ThomasScholz

• Google XML Sitemaps

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/...map-generator/
Tells search engines which entries are most relevant.

• HeadSpace2 SEO

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/headspace2/
Fine tuning of meta data. Very busy development.

• AddQuicktag

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/addquicktag/
Costumizing for the editor.

• Search Everything

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/...ch-everything/
Enhances WordPress (poor) internal search engine.

@Paolo Tresso

Shameless plug: my plugin upload+ avoid troubles with non-allowed characters into uploaded file's names.
I think/hope it's worth a look.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/uploadplus/

Other should-have plugins:

• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/
• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/...-one-seo-pack/
• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/
• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/...ne-video-pack/
  

Linked-In

Source

@WillKemp

• Statpress is a definite.
• All-in-one SEO pack's worth looking at, as is Headspace2 if you want something more complicated.
• Podcasting.
• WP Security Scan.
• Google XML Sitemaps.
• Akismet.
• One of the contact form plugins. Secure Contact is ok, but its captcha system is practically unusable.

Ewan Lauder

Hello,
At the moment my default install goes.. (plus starting point template)

• RB Internal Links
• Role Manager
• Excerpt Editor (works a treat - so flexible)
• Get Recent Comments
• HeadSpace2 (as above comment - SEO on steroids)
• List category posts

Also quite often -

•  
• NextGEN Gallery
• Post Thumb Revisited
• Executable PHP widget (Caution..)
• Social networking plug-in - um, name escapes me!

And interesting - if not always essential, lol -

• WP Cumulus (mesmerising tag cloud)
• WP-SNAP! (if you need to build a glossary)
• WP Smart Sort (sort posts, categories etc by custom fields you add - fantastic for using Wordpress as CMS)
• Maintenance Mode - privacy on the test server & great for client

Oh, and as Will says, a contact form.

Glenn Haggard

• wp-supercache - converts your website to HTML for faster rendering.
• cforms - great for inserting forms into website.