BitCurator 1.5.5 VM and ISO released

[Kam Woods]

The latest release of the BitCurator environment (1.5.5) is now available at our wiki (http://wiki.bitcurator.net). Direct links and MD5 checksums can be found on the wiki, or you can follow the links below:

The BitCurator 1.5.5 Virtual Machine
The BitCurator 1.5.5 Installation ISO

This release addresses an issue with VirtualBox 5.0 preventing resizing of the virtual machine window, updates bulk_extractor to the latest master to accommodate an issue with the identification of raw disk image files in BEViewer, and updates the core Ubuntu image to 14.04.3 (kernel image 3.19.X).

The Quickstart guide can be found here on our wiki, or in the Documentation folder on the BitCurator environment desktop.

[elizabeth...@gmail.com]

Kam

I installed 1.5.1 a couple of weeks ago. Do I need to download this release or can I just can update 1.5.1 as you included the upgrade automation tool in that release. If so, how do I go about it?

Cheers
Elizabeth

[arieljacobsegal]

Hi Kam. Regarding the previous release of BitCurator, you noted that 

"The simplest way to work with earlier versions of VirtualBox is simply to create your own VM using the BitCurator 1.5.1 ISO, and replace the VirtualBox 5.0 guest additions with a different version (by installing using the standard method)."

Since the ISO is Linux Ubuntu 64 Bit, that is what I put in VirtualBox as the VM to be created. 

I did not create a virtual hard drive, but used the .iso as the virtual optical disk to start Bitcurator. However, BitCurator did not start, although

Ubuntu did. I am enclosing a number of screencaps indicating the signals received. I am also attaching a screencap of VirtualBox as set up to use the ISO. I may be 

missing a fundamental step. Could you help me understand what is needed to create the VM from the iso?

Thanks, Ariel Segal

[Kam Woods]

Ariel, you only have 12MB of video memory assigned to VM, which is probably the cause of the failed boot. Up it to at least 64MB.

FYI, those rbfstab terminations are most likely unrelated. Issues with rbfstab are ongoing; it's an older and largely unmaintained script from CAINE. As I have time, I'm working on sorting it out.

Let me know if that fix doesn't work. Your question boils down to "Live CD mode doesn't boot in a new VM in VirtualBox" which is a test case I always check with releases, but they always have at least 64MB of video memory assigned.

Kam

 

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[arieljacobsegal]

Thanks so much! BC is running OK :) 

What, if anything, is the significance of "[          1.737961] ACPI PCC probe failed." ?

I would like to have BC as a virtual machine not dependent on the iso, ideally, since when I tried to switch the virtual DVD drive to my computer's DVD drive, an error message came up as the .iso is already occupying that space.

Is there a way to convert the .iso into a .vdi / .vbox file as it is in the current VM format?

Thanks much, Ariel

[Kam Woods]

Hi Ariel,

Regarding "ACPI PCC probe failed": this message is harmless. See http://askubuntu.com/questions/584248/boot-error-acpi-pcc-probe-failed for an explanation a few replies in.

Regarding "converting an ISO to a VDI or VMDK so you're not dependent on the ISO". Your question is fuzzing together several different issues here, one of which has to do with how VirtualBox works, and one of which has to do with disk image formats. So, to answer the two primary issues:

1. ("How VirtualBox works") If you create a new VM in VirtualBox, and point it at any ISO that can be booted as a Live CD and choose to *boot as a Live CD* rather than install, and then shut down and reboot, VirtualBox will complain on the following boot that it can't find the boot image if you don't keep the ISO in the virtual CD/DVD device - because you didn't install, so it expects to boot from that ISO every time. This is true of every Live CD image, not just BitCurator.

2. ("How Virtual Machine Disk Images work") You can't convert a Live CD or installation ISO directly to a VDI or VMDK. The Live CD ISO for BitCurator is a compressed image of the operating system that is packaged in a way that allows it to be booted "Live" (simplified explanation - nothing is saved when you shut down) or installed (in which case the full machine image is saved to the .vdi file VirtualBox uses to retain the system image.

Briefly: you can convert from a raw system image to a vdi, or a vdi to a vmdk, or a vmdk to a vdi, and so on (using tools that are beyond the scope of this reply), but if you want to create your own vdi or vmdk, you must *install* the system on an appropriately sized VirtualBox or VMWare virtual machine.

See https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37765 for a similar explanation.

Hope this helps,

Kam

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