VASTBox
A complete software development infrastructure based on Apache, Subversion and Trac
Description
1. What does the appliance do, and what are its uses and benefits to the intended audience in the VMware community. The judging panel is interested to know what is unique about this appliance, why users will want to download and run it, and how they will use it.
The VASTBox Virtual Appliance provides a complete software development
infrastructure based on Apache, the Subversion version control system and
the Trac web based project management suite. All three products are
tightly integrated but setting them up individually can be quite a feat.
With VASTBox a developer only has to set up one system, not three, so they
can spend their time writing great software instead of chasing down
configuration instructions across all over the web.
Developers will use VASTBox to:
* Manage their source code with the Subversion version control system
* Share a common source code repository with other team members
* Track issues with the Trac issue tracking feature
* Use the Trac wiki for documentation and collaboration
* Manage schedules and milestones
* Access any of these services via Apache from anywhere they can connect
to their VASTBox VM over the web.
VASTBox is ideal for small teams working on a tight budget, developers
working on personal projects, and developers with limited hardware resources.
Running on a VM means that access to the developers most crucial services,
version control and issue tracking, does not hvae to be tied to any particular piece
of hardware. It is also a great way for developers on older version control
systems and bug trackers, such as CVS and Mozilla, to experiment with new
software development tools without jeopardizing their current solutions.
2. How was the appliance built, summarizing the steps involved. Describe what optimizations were made, for example any changes you made to the underlying operating system to optimize it for size or functionality, or any special application configurations you made that increase the usefulness of the appliance.
VASTbox is built on a minimal debian install. Apache and Subversion were
both installed from the stable Debian packages. Trac was installed from source
to get the latest plugin support, required for the TracAdmin plugin. I wrote
custom batch scripts to handle initial configuration the first time the VM
is started.
I chose Debian after working with Fedora Core, Gentoo, and Linux From Scratch.
I was more comfortable with FC4 but Debian was significantly smaller. Debian
provided a happy medium between VM size and ease of configuration. I'd like
to see if LFS or Gentoo could make a smaller VM but didn't have enough time to
focus on that for this release.
The main optimization made was running a program to zero out empty space on
the HD, which someone posted in the VMware discussion forums. Doing this
significantly reduced the size of the VM.
Although I put a large amount of work into developing a web based administration
interface for the system it was not ready to release in time for this contest.
I will add it in a later edition of VASTBox. In particular I plan to add a
web based user management interface, as well as the ability to import CVS
repositories.
3. Detailed instructions to start using the Appliance and the location of any other documentation.
Setting up VASTbox is pretty easy. A script will take you through
initial setup the first time you log in. The script will ask you
to:
* Change the root password
* Configure networking
* Set the password for the Trac web based administration interface
After setting these things you will see URLs for the SVN repository
and Trac web based project management system. One known issue at the
time of this writing is an extraneous space in the middle of the URL.
After this setup script you will probably want to SVN and Trac user
accounts. Simply run the vastbox-add-user script with a username and it
will prompt you for a password. Enter and verify a password and the
account will be set up. The accounts are stored in /srv/vastbox/auth/users,
at this time to remove a user that file must be edited manually.
To use Subversion you will want a subversion client. VASTBox give a
very simple scheme for the Trac and SVN urls:
http://hostname/svn/ and http://hostname/trac/.
More information on using Subversion can be found at the project home page,
http://subversion.tigris.org/
and the web home of the O'Reilly Subversion book:
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/
More about Trac can be found at:
http://trac.edgewall.com/
A great site with lots of Trac extensions, such as calendars and blogs and
tagging, can be found at:
http://trac-hacks.org/
The TracAdmin package w
More information on VASTBox can be found at http://www.vastbox.com/. Be sure
to check there for updates!
4. The names of any licensed operating systems, applications, or other components in your appliance, and the licenses (names or URLs) under which you are using them.
Debian GNU/Linux Licenses -- http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/
Apache License -- http://www.apache.org/licenses/
Subversion License -- http://subversion.tigris.org/project_license.html
Trac License -- http://www.edgewall.com/trac/license.html
Last updated: 05/27/2006
Operating system:
Debian GNU/Linux 3.1
Applications installed:
Apache 2.0.54
Subversion 1.1.4
Trac 0.9.5
VMware Tools installed:
Yes
Size:
100MB MB
Torrent available:
Yes
(What is BitTorrent?)
Primary account
Username: root
Password: vastbox
Submitted by: jblocksom
Download link provided by the submitter, not VMware. Report broken downloads here.
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