Virtual Plan 9 Cookbook — Section 2: Preparation

This recipe installs an up-to-date Debian Unstable (codename Sid—the breaker of toys in "Toy Story") on the project computer to serve as the virtualization host operating system for the guest virtual machine to be installed in the next section. Sid has some attributes that make it more attractive for this situation than either Debian Stable (currently codename Wheezy) or Debian Testing (currently codename Jessie):

You may have requirements that make Sid unsuitable for your project and choose to use the Stable system installed from the Debian Live USB-stick about to be created without upgrading that to Unstable. However, you will have to configure its virtual networking on your own, as the recipe's incantations do not achive the desired results.

If you project computer is less than two years old, it may not be able to use the Debian Live Stable system used to install the host system in this subsection. Take a look at the Jessie Alpha 1 release of the Debian Installer that became available on March 19, 2014 as an alternative. Although it is not a live system, it is a downloadable ISO image that follows a similar process to the Live installer application. This document may be expanded in the future to provide the recipe for using that option.

Click on the lines following to jump down to their content:

Subsection 2-1: Build Installation Media

The Debian distrbutions of GNU/Linux offers many ways to obtain and boot a system that will install Debian on a computer. In this exercise, we will download an ISO-hybrid file for the Debian Live stable XFCE version suitable for my Gigabyte X86_64 computer used to demonstrate this cookbook process. For your own project, visit the Debian Live install images page to find an image suitable for you and adjust the following URLs and filenames used in this subsection as needed.

Step 2-1-1: Download the ISO image

Point your browser at http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/ using an appropriate computer (in my case, the same computer being used to demonstrate this project running a Debian Sid XFCE system in a partition this project will ignore by and large). The top of the page should look something like this (800x600):

Scroll to the precise ISO file (for me, debian-live-7.6.0-amd64-xfce-desktop.iso) and copy its link to the clipboard. It should look something like the following image before you click to copy (under XFCE, that pop-up menu is produced by a right-click on the link you're interested in).

In a root terminal session, cd to /tmp, type "wget -c '", paste the clipboard where the cursor is, and type the closing apostrophe—it should look something like this:

Press the Enter key to start the download of about 1 GB. At the end the screen should look something like this (your bandwidth is probably different and you should adjust the expected elapsed time accordingly):

Step 2-1-2: Check the file's checksum

Scroll back up to the top and open the checksums file for the ISO image (SHA512SUMS for me)—it should look something like this before you click:

Scroll to the line for the ISO file you downloaded, select it, and copy it to the clipboard; e.g.,

Back in the root session, type "echo '", paste in the clipboard, type "' >iso.checksum"; e.g.,

press Enter, then run the appropriate checksum command; e.g., "sha512sum -c iso.checksum"—make certain there were no anomalies:

Step 2-1-3: Copy the ISO image to a USB-stick

Insert a big enough USB-stick (aka pen-drive, thumb-drive) into a USB port of the correct speed for the media, and, if necessary, determine the block device assigned to it. Then copy the ISO image byte-for-byte to it (I used the command "dd if=/tmp/debian-live-7.6.0-amd64-xfce-desktop.iso of=/dev/sdh bs=8192").

This will require many minutes—USB-1 is not recommended. Verify there were no errors; e.g.,

Run the approrpiate cfdisk command to verify the USB-stick looks bootable (in my case, "cfdisk /dev/sdh"); e.g.,

It looks like the media is ready. Enter two tabs, then Enter to exit cfdisk. Then run the appropriate command to prepare the system for removal of the stick from the USB port; e.g., "eject /dev/sdh". Now the USB-stick can be removed. I affixed an external label to mine that says, "Debian Live Stable Wheezy X86_64 Jul 2014". Last of all, delete the ISO and checksum files from /tmp unless you want to keep them around for some reason.

You now have a portable Debian Live system you can boot from any computer compatible with the flavor you selected and that supports booting from a USB-stick (some BIOS and/or boot loader reconfiguration might be necessary for that to function).

Subsection 2-2: Boot Debian Live and Check Installability

With your bootable USB-stick in hand, we move to the keyboard of the X86 platform you have made available to install the host and guest operating systems of this exercise. This move, as is the case of my demonstration platform, will be merely a figure of speech if the same physical system that was used to build the Debian Live install media in the previous subsection is also the computer into which you intend to install the Debian and Plan 9 systems of this exercise. Or it may indeed be a different machine. Either way, it may have no software already installed that that you intend to retain (that is, already or soon-to-be empty non-volatile storage) or there may be storage areas and/or one or more bootable operating systems that you want to co-exist with the new Debian host and its Plan 9 guest(s).

If, when you're done, only the new systems will be resident, you have a relatively simple installation ahead and can probably get away with just following this cookbook's recipe relatively blindly (although you are strongly urged to read and understand everything to come before you continue actually cooking your project—it's a great way to avoid starting over again). If, however, this exercise will not be taking over the computer completely, you have the responsibility to effectively utilize your system administration skills to tailor the steps in the rest of this section to produce the needed host environment to install the Plan 9 guest systems starting in the next section.

Step 2-2-1: Backup the Project Platform As Needed

If there is nothing already resident on the project computer that will ever be missed by anyone for the rest of time, you are being reasonable if you skip this step. Otherwise, back up everything not already backed up somewhere that would induce some degree of despair if it disappeared, even if there's no way it could disappear. If you do not know how to back up such data nor are interested in learning how to do that, you are strongly urged to drop this project—even more so if it never occurred to you that you ought to back up such data.

Step 2-2-2: Boot From the Debian Live USB-Stick

If an operating system is currently running on the project platform, shut it down now. If the BIOS and/or boot loader of the project computer's firmware need to be reconfigured to permit booting from a USB-stick, do that now. Insert the Debian Live USB-stick in a suitable USB port, then start a reboot. In response to the Debian Live menu allow it to default to running as a live system or explicitly tell it to do so. If anything prevents something very much like the following image from manifesting on the computer's screen, use your system administration skills to resolve the issue(s) (the Debian Support portal is an excellent place to begin seeking help).

Step 2-2-3: Open a root terminal session

If Debian or XFCE are new flavors of GNU/Linux for you, spend some time if you can spare it exploring the available applications while running from the USB-stick. To get a terminal window, first left-click on the Applications Menu icon in the upper-left corner of the screen, move the cursor to the Terminal Emulator menu item, which will highlight, and left-click on that, causing the window to open, like so:

Notice Debian Live provides an account named user without any authentication requirement, and root has no password so you cannot log on as root. Thus, an excellent habit to get into when booting a live system is to immediately set those passwords. To reset the user password without knowing it, use your active sudoer status by typing "sudo passwd user", pressing the Enter key, and responding to the two prompts with the string of characters you want to use for the user password. Then use a "sudo passwd root" command and set a password for root in the same manner. Now issue a "su -l" command to log on as root specifying the password just set when prompted.

Step 2-2-4: Examine Drives Using cfdisk

/dev/sda has no partitions so it should be the wiped IDE hard drive I installed just to develop this cookbook. Running a "cfdisk /dev/sda" command shows that was a good expectation:

Your inspection of your disks may not proceed nominally. If you reach a point where Debian Live cannot install Stable on your project computer, you cannot follow the recipe to the end of this section—you will need to research alternatives to achieve the section goal.

Getting back to the recipe, press two tabs to move from the New menu item to the Quit item:

and press the Enter key to return to the root shell prompt to continue validating the storage infrastructure. Next up on my platform is the sdb device with its five partitions, so I type "cfdisk /dev/sdb", click Enter, and get:

Oh, right—cfdisk doesn't support GPT disks. Pressing Enter does show some unformation about the disk:

but I won't have to tab twice to quit because cfdisk knows that's all I can do at this point.

Step 2-2-5: Install the parted package

Oddly enough, even though the Debian Live installer does support GPT disks, the parted command is not included at this time in the ISO. This introduces a lovely opportunity, in order to install the parted package, to show off one of Debian's package management tools, which looks like this after launching the "aptitude" command:

Before trying to install anything using aptitude, make the repository information up-to-date by pressing the lowercase "u" key (for update). Now we verify Internet connectivity is functioning properly. A lot of activity will be displayed looking something like this:

until it finishes by redisplaying the now current main screen:

Although the ISO was refreshed a scant week ago, 14 new Security Updates are available. If you press "[" now all the Security Updates wil become displayable:

They are all at status "i " meaning package installed and update not marked for installation (an "A" indicates the package will be automatically removed if all installed packages dependent upon it are removed.

If you move the cursor vertically—use the arrow keys (or lowercase "j" and "k" for vi-centric users)—you will see different information in the lower display area appropriate to the current line. Pressing the Enter key on a group line expands/collapses the line's next lower level and pressing the "[" key expands the line's entire subtree (the "]" key also collapses a group line's subtree).

Even though we're running from a USB-stick booted into a RAM file system that will evaporate when we shut down, we are still accessible via the Internet, so it's worth the small amount of time needed to install these security updates. We simply type an uppercase "U" (for upgrade) to mark all available updates for installation (it matters not where the cursor is on the screen for this command), which will change the display:

Scroll (Page Up|Down and Ctl-F|B keys also work as you might expect) through the display to see all the packages you have marked for upgrade.

Does aptitude's appearance and keyboard-centric interface strike you as deplorably unsexy?

It does?

Oh, dear.

As the saying goes, "You ain't seen nothin' yet."

You are proceding toward interacting with Plan 9. It does not support Chrome or even FireFox. There are in fact some good reasons for that condition. But Plan 9 is unashamably not UNIX and certainly not GNU; similar in many ways, but significantly different. Never forget Plan 9 exists primarily for researching operating system design. While it is highly usable in its way, and learning how it is different and why are worthy goals, do not get it into your head that it needs to be "improved" to be more like modern day UNIX. Rather, it is you that needs to be improved to be able to appreciate the positive qualities of the design and paradigms Plan 9 offers that you can show respect to the guys who created and fix it (many of whom also created UNIX before they created Plan 9—I daresay they know more than you do).

Now press the "/" key to initiate a search, which will be acknowledged by displaying the pop-up we see here:

Key in "parted" and press the Tab key, then the Enter key, which will present the following response (hmmm... this is not the package you are looking for, being already installed, but it probably explains why the installer can work with GPT drives):

Try again by pressing the lowercase "n" key:

Yes! The "p" status means uninstalled so this is what we want, thus we enter a "+" on the parted line to request it be installed. Now the status is "pi" (not installed, to be installed) and green:

Now that we have requested what we want and don't want installed, we press the lowercase "g" key to go, which brings up the Preview display:

Now we see what will happen if we press the lowercase "g" key a second time, with like-handled packages grouped together in collating sequence. The final page should look something like this:

Notice the last line is a group line for uninstalled packages that are not "recommended" (aptitude is configured by default to automatically mark uninstalled recommended packages for installation) but merely "suggested". Let's take a look at that package by typing "[":

I'll assume you might find that useful so I can show you how to add a suggested package to the list of work to be done. Press the Enter key to open the package line as a subscreen of the main display:

Having already decided to install it, we are interested in what other packages may be essential (depends), recommended, suggested, or conflicting. Scrolling through we do not encounter any red lines which indicate either something needed that isn't installed (or possibly not installable) or that is installed that mayn't be if this package is installed.

There being nothing to change our mind about installing parted-doc, we position the cursor on the final line and press "+" to mark that version as installable, then press uppercase "M" to mark it for automatic removal (if we remove parted in this case—expand the "Packages which depend on..." line to see the details), resulting in this screen:

Scroll back to the top to observe the top line also reflects the addition, and note you could have entered the "+" on that line as well:

Pressing a lowercase "q" closes the package subscreen and returns us to the Preview screen:

Pressing a lowercase "q" again closes the Preview subscreen and returns us to the Packages screen without starting the pending operations:

Pressing lowercase "g" now brings up the Preview screen again (previewing is an aptitude option that can be disabled if you wish) and verify the addition of parted-doc hasn't caused the work to be done to have gone awry in any way:

(scrolling all the way through):

If the plan looks good, make it so by pressing lowercase "g" again. After another brief round of downloading (like before to get the repository status updates):

the display returns to the shell screen so you can follow the progress of the actual package processing, something like this:

If you get the "Press Return to continue." message, package processing is finished. You can scroll this window with Shift-PageUp, Shift-PageDown, Shift-UpArrow, Shift-DownArrow, or use the scrollbar on the right. Make sure processing was nominal or resolve the errors (remember that Debian Support link?). When you comply with the message by pressing the Enter key, you return to the freshly updated Packages screen of aptitude. Press Ctrl-Home to move to the top line and collapse all the top-level groups to clean up the display which should then look something like this (nothing to install):

Press the lowercase "b" command to search for broken packages. The screen should not change. If it does, fix things until "b" stops finding anything.

Press the lowercase "q" key to quit. In response to the Really quit Aptitude? dialog, press the Tab and Enter keys.

Step 2-2-6: Examine drives using parted

Partition 2 will automatically be allocated by our project host installation, which is fine because I do not run any Linux systems as a virtual guest of a Linux host system. Right now, none of my Linux systems are running, so the RAM-disk resident, USB-stick booted system effectively owns the swap partitions exclusively. Therefore I need not be concerned about them getting (re)formatted during the install (the format is the same for all systems that can ever access those partitions). I just have to prevent more than one system from using any swap partition at the same time.

I enter a lowercase "q" and press Enter to exit parted, then look at the sdc drive:

This is the USB-stick (parted works with non-GPT drives, too). Attempting to examine the sdd, sde, sdf, and sdg drives fails with "No medium found" dialogs that are dealt with by typing a lowercase "c" and pressing the Enter. The final drive, sdh, displays as expected:

In addition to that large swap partition, the other area of significance to this project is partition 5, which is an obsolete filesystem of 81 GB that I shall use in addition to the 20 GB drive, sda. I will put a /boot partition of 128 MB at the beginning of sda and allow the remainder to be allocated into a partition the much later in this subsection for the exclusive use of the Plan 9 guest system. In addition, I will delete the sdh5 partition, then create a new 32 GB root partition for the host system. Grub will be installed into the MBR of sda and since the host system installation of grub will find all my other bootable systems automatically, letting the host system own sda's MBR is satisfactory (especially since the BIOS and boot loader of the Gigabyte allow any of the hard drives to be treated as sda with out recabling anything).

Not having encountered any unresolvable problems with either the Debian Live system or its interaction with the hardware platform, you can proceed confidently to the next subsection.

Subsection 2-3: Run the Installation Application

Step 2-3-1: Launch the installer

We are finished with the terminal emulator, so we enter a lowercase "q" and press Enter to exit parted, then type two Ctrl-D combos to dismiss it. Next we double-left-click on the Install Debian Wheezy icon to get the installer running, which, after a couple of terminal windows flash by, it should settle into the GUI. Choose the options you wish for the first three screens (all screens are shown just before clicking the Continue button):

Then the installer will load files it needs from the USB-stick, followed probing the local network and setting that up for the install (so you can allow it to use DHCP for this phase of the project. Then it returns to asking you for more parameters:

You may use what you prefer. I'm using "p9host". I don't show adding this host to your DNS zone, assuming you understand the need and know how to do that. There will also be a name for the Plan 9 virtual machine if you are setting up networking as this cookbook does, with virtual machines being visible on the same network as the host machine. There will be more on that after we get the host booted.

The next three screens define the initial non-root user for the virtual machine host system who should be the administrator of the virtual machines. You may use what you prefer. I'm using "VM Administrator" and "vmadm".

After getting the local time zone from you, it prepares for disk management, and after a short time, presents the first screen of that dialog:

First up is the empty sda disk which gets a 128 MB /boot partition. The remaining space (for the Bell Labs Plan 9 virtual machine) will be allocated later in this section. Note that everything you change is merely setting parameters for the actual operations that you will shown to review and confirm before the trigger is pulled.

The default is everything, so be sure this next screen defines what you want:

After pressing Continue, the partition chooser screen should look like this:

Note the "f" for the sda1 partition means it should be formatted. Now I have to scroll down to get to the sdh5 partition:

Now we delete the sdh5 partition and reallocate a much smaller partition for the root (/) filesystem of the host, which will contain everything beside /boot ans swap space:

Scroll down again to get to the free space just made available:

Here's the disk modifications plan. You must either punch the Yes radio button and Continue or Go Back:

After all file systems and swap space have been prepared, the lengthy installation proper begins, which takes about five minutes on the Gigabyte. Next it prompts for information about using a mirror for the Debian package repositories.

After asking about network proxies, it will configure the package manager, then GRUB. If it finds any bootable operating systems on all your disk devices, it will identify them, then dialog with you to determine where to install the boot loader. On my system, I tell it to use the MBR (of the sda drive).

After installing GRUB and finishing the install proper, it will ask about the orientation of the system clock, which for my platform is UTC.

After attending to that, it is almost finished:

After removing the live packages, it really is finished. To reboot into the new host, left-click on the Action Buttons icon as shown:

and then left-click on the Restart icon. Remove the USB-stick when requested and press Enter.

Subsection 2-4: Reboot the New Host System and Check Install

After getting your project computer to begin booting up, interact with your BIOS/boot loader as needed to get your system to use sda as the boot device. When the GRUB menu appears, make sure it advertises the system you installed in the previous subsection. If it does, you can let it default to a normal boot, or you can you the Up|Down Arrow keys to explore and test the other boot options. After you get it doing a normal boot, it should display before too long a GUI logon menu identifying the hostname you installed and the vmadm user you specified. That being so, login as that user specifying the password your defined during the installation dialogs. If that goes according to plan, you should shortly see a screen very much like that of the Debian Live desktop and almost identical to this:

The difference is the Install Debian wheezy icon is gone.

If you got to this point, you're though most of the installation validation process—a lot has do occur as planned for this much to work. Some questions remain, especially networking.

Subsection 2-5: Update Old and Install Needed Packages

sudo adduser libvirt

Subsection 2-6: Reconfigure Networking To Support Guests

http://wiki.debian.org/BridgeNetworkConnections
http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/Networking#Debian.2FUbuntu_Bridging
http://backreference.org/2010/03/26/tuntap-interface-tutorial/

Disconnect the wired cnnection using Network Manager

service network-manager stop

echo 'manual' >/etc/init/network-manager.override

brctl addbr br0

edit /etc/network/interfaces:

auto lo br0
iface lo inet loopback
iface br0 inet static
address 10.220.186.202
netmask 255.255.255.128
network 10.220.186.128
broadcast 10.220.186.255
gateway 10.220.186.129
pre-up ip tuntap add dev tap0 mode tap user vmadm
pre-up ip link set tap0 up
pre-up sysctl net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables=0
pre-up sysctl net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables=0
pre-up sysctl net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-arptables=0
bridge_ports eth0 tap0
bridge_stp on
bridge_maxwait 0
bridge_fd 0
post-down ip link set tap0 down
post-down ip tuntap del dev tap0 mode tap
# dns-* options implemented by the resolvconf package, if installed
dns-nameservers 192.168.1.1
dns-search home

ifup br0

brctl show

ifconfig -a

ping from an outside host

ssh to an outside host

Virtual Plan 9 Cookbook — Section 2: GNU/Linux Host Preparation