Options for getting and using the bookware- Download a VM image compatible with the free VirtualBox software (for Intel-based Macs, Windows PCs, or Linux computers). This option is completely free, thanks to support from Google and Microsoft (see below) for hosting the image file.
- Use Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud to deploy the VM image in the cloud.
- Otherwise, the Amazon Web Services Free Tier gives you 1 year of access to a Micro instance, which is sufficient to do the coursework, but may be a bit sluggish. You can also pay approximately US $0.08 per hour for access to a dedicated Small instance, which would be faster.
- Start from a free "bare bones" VM image and run our setup script to install all the courseware. This option is not recommended unless you are experienced with Unix-based installation procedures. There's no point-and-click here—you must be comfortable using Unix command-line utilities and troubleshooting the error messages that might appear.
The following table indicates which version of the VM goes with which version of the textbook:0.9.1 of the VM adds Guest Additions and RottenPotatoes pre-included. 0.9.1 of the AMI adds RottenPotatoes pre-included. If you downloaded 0.9.0 but would like RottenPotatoes, you can download it here. When you add it to your VM or EC2 instance, run tar -zxvf rottenpotatoes.tar.gz, which will then create the rottenpotatoes folder.
If you have version 0.9.1, please also run chmod -r +r /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems after setup.
| Book version |
Downloadable VM image name |
Amazon AMI name |
Amazon AMI ID |
<= 0.9.1
|
saasbook-vm-0.9.1.zip
|
saasbook-0.9.1 |
ami-b1597ef4 (US West, N. California region) |
Running the courseware on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) This is recommended if running a virtual machine on your computer is too slow. This page has instructions for AWS setup tailored for the SaaS course.
Downloading and running the courseware on your own computer
- Download and install the free VirtualBox on your host computer, which can be any Intel-based Mac, Windows PC, or Linux box
- Download the VM image (~1.4 GB zipped) from one of the following distribution sites (Note: use table above to determine correct file to download):
- If you have a BitTorrent client, you can download the .torrent file here.
- Google AppEngine (or a download manager to go directly to the .zip since it's a large file) (thanks to Maggie Johnson, Director of Education & University Relations at Google, for underwriting this option)
- Box.com direct download link (note that this requires a UC Berkeley login to access)
- Please also note- if you encounter an issue unzipping the VM (default unzip software may not be sufficient on older operating systems), 7zip is a free unzip program.
- Run VirtualBox and click the New button to create a new VM.
- When the VM Wizard appears, select the following options:
- operating system: Linux
- version: Ubuntu
- RAM base memory: at least 1024 MB
- Select "Use existing hard disk" and choose the .vdi file you downloaded in step 2
- The Appendix in the book, as well as this screencast, explains how to set up, boot and log in to the VM, which contains all the packages and code necessary to do the various exercises and programming assignments used in the book and the course (Rails 3, Ruby 1.9, a collection of many gems, and various browsers and other client-side software, all of which is free/open source).
- The VM's root (administrator) password is saasbook - you will need to supply it when doing certain administration tasks, such as any command line that begins with sudo.
- Make sure you have network access by opening the Firefox browser (icon located along left screen edge when VM is running) and visiting a popular site such as Google.com. Here is troubleshooting information if you have networking issues.
- Highly recommended: enable Shared Folders and Copy/Paste, which allows you to view and edit files residing in the VM image using an editor on your host computer and to copy and paste text between the VM and your host computer.
- In VirtualBox, choose Devices > Install Guest Additions
- Enable Shared Folders and Copy & Paste
(Unsupported) Rails-Dev-BoxThe Rails-Dev-Box is a "Virtual Machine for Ruby on Rails Core Development", which can be found here. It allows the user to run a few commands and have a virtual machine for Rails development up and running very quickly. Users may need to go through additional setup steps in order to have the full software stack provided in the saasbook Virtual Box VM.
(Unsupported) To download a smaller “blank” VM image and set it up yourself
- Download and install the free VirtualBox on your Intel-based Mac, Windows PC, or Linux box.
- Download the 32-bit Ubuntu 11.10 installation image (iso) from http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu
-
Open Virtualbox, click "new", choose "next"
-
Enter the name you want for the VM (we suggest "saasbook"), and choose Linux and Ubuntu (32-bit) for the OS and Version
-
Allocate at least 1024MB for memory
-
Choose "Create new hard disk", choose "VDI" filetype, then "Dynamically allocated"
-
Specify where to save the .vdi file, and allow 10GB for the virtual disk (you may allow more or less, depending on how much you will add to the image and how much free space you have on your hard drive)
-
Choose "Create"
-
Your VM should now show up in VirtualBox; select it, and start it.
-
The First Run Wizard will appear; choose "Next"
-
Navigate to the Ubuntu .iso file you downloaded in step 2, and boot from it
-
Choose "Start", and click through any VirtualBox prompts (you may wish to read them and follow their advice)
-
Ubuntu should now be running; select your language and choose "Install Ubuntu" (You can select "Download updates while installing" if you wish, but it will make the VM larger and slow down the installation; we don't recommend it.)
-
Select "Install this third-party software", and continue
-
Select "Erase disk and install Ubuntu", and continue
-
Select "Install Now"
-
While Ubuntu is configuring, set your location and keyboard preferences
-
In the "Who are you?" dialog, enter the following:
-
Your name: saasbook
-
computer's name: saasbook
-
username: saasbook
-
password: saasbook
-
Log in automatically
-
Choose "Continue", wait for Ubuntu to install
-
Click "Restart Now", and when prompted to remove installation media, choose "Devices" > "CD/DVD Devices" in the VirtualBox menu and make sure that no media has a check mark next to it (if one does, just click it to unmount it); press <ENTER> to continue restarting
-
When restart is complete, in Terminal window say sudo passwd root and set root password to saasbook
- when prompted, choose to run the program with "Autorun Prompt"
- when done, eject the media by right-clicking on it in the launcher and selecting "Eject"
- if there is an icon that looks like a PCI card in the upper right, click it and install drivers
- (Optional) Remove unnecessary shortcuts on launcher, add one for terminal
- (Optional) Remove unnecessary folders in home folder
- set gedit ("ed") as default text editor with "sudo update-alternatives --config editor"
- Give the following command to download our configuration script:
- wget -O configure_image.sh http://pastebin.com/download.php?i=WTXF7g7F
- Run the script (warning: this script may need manual fixes): . configure_image.sh
- Highly recommended: enable Shared Folders and Copy & Paste as described in step 6 of "To download the prepopulated VM image" above. This screencast may help.
- Open Firefox, go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/web-developer/, click "Add to Firefox"
|
|
