Ubuntu/Debian package

[Jesse B. Hannah]

Since I have yet to find one, I'm currently working on a .deb package
of phpVirtualBox for Ubuntu/Debian. I'm using the structure of the
phpMyAdmin package as sort of a template:

* Main file tree in `/usr/share/phpvirtualbox`
* `config.php` and Apache configuration file in `/etc/phpvirtualbox`
* Apache configuration file symlinked into `/etc/apache2/conf.d/
phpvirtualbox.conf`

It will also:

* Create a user `vbox`, belonging to the `vboxusers` group with home
directory `/etc/vbox`
* Adds the `/etc/default/virtualbox` file required for `vboxweb-
service` to work, configured to run as the `vbox` user and with log
file `/var/log/vboxwebsrv.log`
* Changes ownership and permissions of `/etc/vbox` and the log file to
the `vbox` user
* Starts `vboxweb-service`

I've almost finished testing this setup and will share the end product
here once it's ready for wider testing, and I welcome any other
suggestions or requests anyone might have. The only request I have is
that a .tar.gz or .tar.bz2 format download be made available. I can
get along without it, but it will make it much easier to maintain an
up-to-date package.

Thanks,

–jbh

—
Jesse B. Hannah
http://jbhannah.net/

[Jesse B. Hannah]

Actually, it seems having only .zip downloads available will work, so
there's no pressing need to upload in a new archive format. :) I'll
post a link to the package for testing once I've got one ready.

[Ian Moore]

Hi Jesse,

I started to do this a while ago, but found I didn't have the the time. I would really prefer it if the package installation prompted for a username / password rather than assuming the user "vbox." It's pretty common that someone already has virtualbox installed when they install phpvirtualbox. The chances that they run virtualbox as the user vbox are pretty slim. I can send you what I have so far if you'd like. I also would not use /etc/vbox as the user's home. A virtualbox install can grow pretty large and I wouldn't want to assume for them that / is a large partition.

I don't want to sound like I'm being too picky here. I greatly appreciate the time and and effort you have put forth.

Thank you!

[Jesse B. Hannah]

Ian,

The package I'm building is mostly based on my own setup right now—virtualbox-4.0 from Oracle on a headless server, running vboxweb-service sandboxed as vbox, and with a directory on another partition mounted at /etc/vbox. My personal preference is to have it run as a sandboxed user, but prompting for an existing user and password (with a warning that it would be stored in cleartext in the configuration file) is easy to implement, as well as asking for and setting permissions on a specific storage directory, with vbox and /etc/vbox as the defaults. Basically, it can all be easily abstracted down to default values and prompting the user during installation, and I'll definitely keep that in mind as I work on this.

–jbh

—
Jesse B. Hannah
http://jbhannah.net/

On Saturday, 28 May 2011 at 06:20, Ian Moore wrote:

> Hi Jesse,
>
> I started to do this a while ago, but found I didn't have the the time. I would really prefer it if the package installation prompted for a username / password rather than assuming the user "vbox." It's pretty common that someone already has virtualbox installed when they install phpvirtualbox. The chances that they run virtualbox as the user vbox are pretty slim. I can send you what I have so far if you'd like. I also would not use /etc/vbox as the user's home. A virtualbox install can grow pretty large and I wouldn't want to assume for them that / is a large partition.
>
> I don't want to sound like I'm being too picky here. I greatly appreciate the time and and effort you have put forth.
>
> Thank you!
>