First Look: nuXleus self hosted virtualisation on Windows

[M. David Peterson]

For those who consider themselves brave, and for those who have an instance of Windows 2000/XP/Vista (though Vista is untested, it *SHOULD* work just fine),

http://s3.amazonaws.com/applications/nuXleus.zip

This is ~2Mbyte download in which contains the QEMU runtime and related utilities, (inside .\QEMU directory), wget.exe, gzip.exe, and tar.exe (and related .dll's) (.\util), a home.img file (.\data) that is made available at run time (though it isn't automagically formatted and mounted as of yet -- I've got all of the code working, just need to figure out how to merge this into the rPath build process), and two batch files -- launch.bat and nuxleus.bat.

Once the archive is unpacked, if you run "launch.bat" the process of accessing, unpacking, and installing the KQEMU accelerator will begin, as well as the accessing, unpacking, conversion, installation, and startup of the nuXleus image file will begin.

The process goes something like this,

- Access, unpack, install KQEMU accelerator.
- Access, unpack, and convert the nuXleus .img file to QCOW format (significant space savings (the .img.gz file will unpack to ~ 1.7gigs, the QCOW image will weigh in at just over 300megs)
- Move the QCOW image into the .\image directory and delete the 1.7gig .img file
- Create an image overlay of the QCOW image -- what this does, in essence, is creates a new file called nuxleus.ovl which is matched up with the nuxlues.qcow image.  Any and all updates and changes to the system actually take place on the overlay file, leaving the original qcow file untouched.  This allows nicely in regards to reverting back to the base system if something goes awry -- just delete the nuxleus.qcow image and the next time launch.bat is run, it will notice that it doesn't exist and create a new one.
- After asking if you are ready, launch the nuXleus instance.

username: root
password: no password

This is simply a first take test.  I am pulling this into a ClickOnce app for Windows, a .dmg file for Mac, and a Python setup.py file for Linux, but want to work through any and all issues with Windows setup first using as simple of a setup process as possible that allows anybody who understands how a Windows batch file works to hack as they might see fit with ease and convenience.

PLEASE NOTE: I am working on getting the size of the image file down to a MUCH more manageable size of ~20megs. (basically the kernel+mini-mono+IronPython+IKVM.NET+Saxon.NET+CherryPy+4Suite+Amplee -- I have the first half finished (up to Saxon.NET) and am working on finishing out the integration of CherryPy, 4Suite and Amplee as we speak) -- That said, at the moment, I have this set to access an image which is approximately 93 megs.  MUCH bigger than will be the final image, but as mentioned, I am still working on the final image, so for now this will at very least provide something for you to play with.

Please report any issues to http://nuxleus.com/dev/ or inline to this thread.

Thanks in advance for any and all help you all can give in getting this process perfected and the launch of the first official nuXleus beta out the door!

--
/M:D

M. David Peterson
http://mdavid.name | http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2354

[M. David Peterson]

Add to the list of apps on the core image file: Python 2.4, Kamaelia, and Axon -- All three are on my list for integration, just forgot to add them to the list below.

[M. David Peterson]

QUICK-UPDATE: I'm heading out for a family reunion for a couple of days, so wanted to provide a quick status snapshot for you all to play with.

(Sylvain: What follows will seem pretty familiar, as I am simply going to copy/paste what I just sent to you in IM)

http://s3.amazonaws.com/applications/nuxleus-0.1.8-x86.img.gz

This is the raw core that contains all of the runtimes (Saxon.NET+IKVM.NET+Mono-Minimal+CPython-Runtime+Ruby-Runtime+Ruby-Libraries+Python-Libraries-via-IPCE+ClamAV+Subversion+Apache+Kernel+etc...)

Still need to add in the missing Python libraries, but those are pretty minimal, and there is still more room to nip and tuck away at this image file, which is currently sitting at 33megs compressed and ~70megs on disk size

I need to try and get a few hours sleep before leaving for my family reunion

so wanted to get this to you before to ensure you had something to play with in regards to getting Amplee+CP+etc... working

there is still some configuration to do (the network for one), but all of the utils and libraries are there, just need to be properly configured and started

this also contains GRUB as the boot loader

though you can mount it and chroot just as easily

so, anyway -- will make an attempt to find a connection over the next couple of days while I'm away so I can keep up with things, so I will look for you then

hope all is well!!!

By-the-way -- Once you have either chroot'd or fired this up via your favorite VM,

> transform
- will give you a Saxon 8.8-B XSLT 2.0 command line
> query
- same, but for XQuery 1.0
> ipy
- IronPython Community Edition r5
> python
- I'll let you guess ;) (though I still need to link in the Python libraries)
> ruby
- ditto (though the base ruby libraries are in place)
> mono
- mono 1.2.2.1 runtime
> svn (as well as all of the svn 1.4.2 utilities)
- Subversion 1.4.2
> monotorrent
- BitTorrent support via mono
> monotorrent-tracker
- BT tracker

I know there are plenty of others, but my brain is fried at the moment.  When I return in a few days, I plan to spend the time getting everything properly wired up, at which point I will provide a full system inventory.

Bye for now :D