JMU UUG virtual machine build script

This is a set of Ansible roles that can be used to configure a Linux Mint or Ubuntu system for JMU computer science courses. It is primarily used to deliver the Unix Users Group virtual machine, but can be run outside that VM using instructions later in this document. Extended end user documentation about using these tasks and the VM is available separately.

Installed packages and features

Common

• Filezilla
• JDK/JRE 11
• SFTP connection to stu
• Shortcuts to re-run tasks
• Unzip
• Vim with GTK3 extension
• VM management script
• JMU wireless printing

CS101 / CS149

• Mint packages (basic-prog-pkgs role)
  • libreoffice
  • logisim
  • meld
  • sqlite / sqlitebrowser
  • thonny

CS159

• Eclipse (with checkstyle plugin)
• Visual Studio Code (with Java and checkstyle plugins)

CS261

• Mint packages (adv-prog-pkgs role)
  • Compilers and interpreters
    • build-essential
    • g++
    • gcc
    • gdb
    • graphviz
    • logisim
    • valgrind
  • Code editors
    • astyle
    • bvi
    • check
    • gedit
    • indent
    • nano
  • Source control
    • git
    • gitg
    • mercurial
    • meld
• y86 tools
  • Assembler (yas)
  • Reference solution (y86ref)
  • Reference solution manual page (y86ref(1))

CS361

• Mint packages (adv-prog-pkgs role)
  • Compilers and interpreters
    • build-essential
    • g++
    • gcc
    • gdb
    • graphviz
    • logisim
    • valgrind
  • Code editors
    • astyle
    • bvi
    • check
    • gedit
    • indent
    • nano
  • Source control
    • git
    • gitg
    • mercurial
    • meld

CS430

• Ruby
  • ruby
• Haskell
  • haskell-platform
• Prolog
  • swi-prolog

CS432

• (essentially same as CS261)

Manual use of these Ansible roles

This project was developed on and for Linux Mint, and receives occasional testing on Ubuntu. It may work on other Debian-based distributions, or may require minor modifications. If you find a case like this, feel free to open an issue to discuss what changes would be needed, and how they can be incorporated. Adaptions for distributions that do not use apt will require more extensive modifications, and would likely need signficant justification for inclusion.

If you have a Mint or Ubuntu instance (VM or laptop) that you built yourself, and wish to use this project to get started with JMU CS software, follow these steps:

apt-get install ansible git
git clone https://github.com/jmunixusers/cs-vm-build
cd cs-vm-build
ansible-playbook -i hosts -K -t TAGS local.yml

or directly from GitHub:

ansible-pull -U https://github.com/jmunixusers/cs-vm-build --directory /tmp/cs-vm-build --purge -i hosts -K -t TAGS

where TAGS is a comma separated list (with no spaces) of cs101, cs149, cs159, cs261, cs361 and/or cs430 as appropriate.

Building the UUG VM

To build the UUG VM, configure a system with git, Oracle VirtualBox, Hashicorp Packer, and approximately 20GB of free disk space. VM builds are tested regularly on Linux and Windows hosts, but feedback on other platforms is always welcome.

Due to difficulties with Packer packaging, this VM is frequently built with the latest version of Packer available directly from Hashicorp. Check the main.pkr.hcl file for the current minimum version required.

Once the prerequisites are installed, change into the cs-vm-build/packer directory and execute packer build -only "*.mint" .. This will take a considerable amount of time, depending on host resources available, but should output progress indicators along the way.

The build process can be customized by passing parameters to the packer build command using the -var flag. The supported parameters are:

• git_repo - the repository containing the setup scripts to run before exporting the VM appliance. Defaults to https://github.com/jmunixusers/cs-vm-build.
• git_branch - the branch of the above repository to choose. Defaults to main.
• headless - whether or not to show the desktop session during installation. Defaults to true.
• audio - choose the host driver to use. Defaults to pulse for Linux, or specify dsound for Windows, coreaudio for Mac.

Building beta images

A large number of variables can be overridden at once by passing a var-file to Packer. An example of this is provided as mint-beta.pkrvars.hcl, and can be used like this:

packer init .
packer build -var-file=mint-beta.pkrvars.hcl -only "*.mint" .

Packer allows further overrides, with precedence given to the last option in the command. For example, to build a beta image on Windows, use this command:

packer init .
packer build -var-file=mint-beta.pkrvars.hcl -var 'audio=dsound' -only "*.mint" .

Building Ubuntu images

Native support is available for creating an Ubuntu variant of the image (and in fact, all previous commands have specifically excluded Ubuntu image builds). By default, the packer configuration will build both a Mint and Ubuntu VM. Try it with:

packer init .
packer build .

Much as with the previous commands, you can build only an ubuntu-based image by running:

packer init .
packer build -only "*.ubuntu" .

Support for building beta variants of Ubuntu images is not currently supported.

Contributing

Feedback and involvement is always welcome in JMU UUG projects. The issue tracker on this repository is a great place to start, whether you're looking for previous design discussions, want to ask a question, or would like to contribute additional functionality. The UUG can also be reached via Twitter or check our upcoming meeting schedule. For more suggestions on getting involved, please see the CONTRIBUTING document.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT license. See LICENSE for more information.