achernar

A development and testing machine with a web-based automated test system using SconeServer.

Description

What it does

achernar is a primarily a development and testing machine. Its main features are:

Performs automated building and testing of source distributions via the web-based TestBuilder system. This allows the scheduling of source code to be downloaded, or obtained from CVS or Subversion repositories, built and automated tests run. This could be used as part of a larger network of TestBuilder based virtual machines, to quickly test code on a variety of platforms.
It can be logged into and used directly as a regular console-based developer machine. This includes all the usual development tools, despite its relatively small size (159MB when compressed). This makes it a very handy "fresh" machine to have around for a variety of development purposes.
It can also be logged into via Samba (for transferring files) and SSH. X applications can also be run if required, by logging in from a machine running an X server and using X forwarding.

How it was built

achernar is based on Slackware Linux 10.2. The size of the system was optimized by selecting to install only packages required for use as a development machine, for example, games and multimedia applications were avoided. Space was saved for development tools and useful libraries, without which it would be difficult to use the machine for building and testing most code.

The latest Linux kernel was configured and built, selecting only the required drivers for VMware machines. Compiling in SCSI and filesystem drivers eliminates the extra complexity of an init ramdisk. Once the kernel was installed and working, previous versions and source trees were removed to save some considerable space.

The VMware tools were installed to enable all the functionality of the virtual machine.

The most interesting bit is SconeServer and the TestBuilder system, as this is something I have developed myself. SconeServer is a modular network server framework, of which TestBuilder is a module. The TestBuilder module was actually written specifically to be used within a virtual machine. Setting up the TestBuilder system was fairly straightforward, a special user and group were created, as well as an area to put the builds, which could require large amounts of disk space.

I decided to create seperate disks for system, temp and data. The system disk contains the operating system, the temp disk (mounted at /tmp) is a nonpersistent disk which can be used for temporary storage, and the data disk (mounted on /mnt/data) contains user home directories and TestBuilder builds. The data disk could be replaced with a larger disk if required.

Finally, a simple system configuration interface was written using perl, and installed so it appears when the appliance is booted. Most importantly, this allows the user to easily see what IP address the machine has in order to connect to it.

How to use

The appliance will attempt to get an IP address from a DHCP server on your network when it boots, which should be displayed on the "Welcome" screen once the boot is complete. You can also configure the network
manually using the "Configure network" option if you don't use DHCP.

To get started using the TestBuilder system via the web interface,
simply point your web browser at the IP address given on the "Welome" screen. For further information, click on the "TestBuilder docs" link on the left hand side, which also contains links to all the SconeServer documentation.

To start using the appliance as a regular development and/or testing machine, press Alt-F2 to switch to another virtual console where you will find a normal login prompt. You can login as scone (password: scone).

Licences

Slackware Linux distribution: GPL
SconeServer: GPL

Last updated: 05/24/2006

Operating system: Slackware 10.2 with Linux 2.6.16.17

Applications installed:
SconeServer 0.6.0 Emacs 21.4 GCC 3.3.6 GDB 6.3 CVS 1.11.20 Subversion 1.2.3

VMware Tools installed: Yes

Size: 159 MB
Torrent available: Yes
(What is BitTorrent?)

Primary account
Username: scone
Password: scone

Submitted by: sconewedge

Download link provided by the submitter, not VMware. Report broken downloads here.

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