Setting up a home test environment for Notes/Domino 8.5
Michael Brown March 24 2009 11:55:48 PM
Part 1 - Download and install VirtualBox for your OS.Part 2 - Installing Fedora Linux in VirtualBox
Part 3 - Installing Windows in VirtualBox
Part 4 - Networking for VirtualBox machines
Part 5 - Installing Domino on Fedora Linux
Part 6 - Installing Notes on Windows
Part 7 - Notes/Domino Administration 1 - Setting up an ID Vault
Part 8 - Notes/Domino Administration 2 - Setting up new users
Part 9 - Notes/Domino Administration 3 - Cross-certifying users from other domains
Part 10 - Notes/Domino Administration 4 - Running Domino as a service on Linux
Part 11 - Remote Access Administration 1 - SSH
Part 12 - Remote Access Administration 2 - Running Domino in terminal mode with Screen
Part 13 - Housekeeping 1 - Backing up VirtualBox disk images
Part 14 - Housekeeping 2 - Copy files via VirtualBox Shared Folders
Introduction
Wouldn't it be great if you could have the server and the client all running on the same box, without them clashing in any way? Even better, if you could have multiple versions of server and client,, and even have them running on different platforms? Thanks to the marvels of virtualisation software, such as Vmware and VirtualBox, you can now do exactly that. This short series of articles aims to show you how.
I know that it's possible to run the Notes Client and the Domino Server directly on the same Windows box, but that's kludgy at best; the Windows Registry will ensure that you come to no good eventually. And what if you want to change versions of either client or server, or you want to test out Roaming Profiles but also need the Designer or Admin clients (which are not compatible with Roaming Profiles)? You're going to be doing a lot of deinstalling and reinstalling to test out all those scenarios unless you use virtualisation.
Server and Client Running in VirtualBox Machines
The graphic above shows a Domino 8.5 server and running a Notes 8.5 client running in separate VirtualBox machines on the same PC. The two VirtualBox instances have separate IP addresses and can "see" each other in a networking sense. So, the client and access the server, blissfully unaware that the server is on the same box as itself.
In my test set up the Domino server runs in a Fedora guest machine and the Notes client runs in a Windows XP machine, and I have Ubuntu Linux 8.10 as my host operating system. (NB: when I tried this with Ubuntu 8.04 as the host I ran into some major problems with VirtualBox networking.)
Why Use Fedora, Not Windows?
There's nothing stopping you using Windows for the Domino server OS if you wish. And if you're more comfortable with Windows and find the whole Linux thing just a bit too scary, then the instructions that I give below should work just as well for an all Windows set up. I have not yet tested that configuration, however.
One thing that you will definitely have to watch out for with Windows is product activation. Whenever you install a fresh copy of Windows into a virtual machine, you will have to activate it with Microsoft (unless you have one of those business copies that doesn't require activation). If you're lucky, you'll be able to do this over the internet. If you're not so lucky, you may find yourself on the phone to a nice lady in India, explaining what you're up to.
Actually, I do have to this once in my setup, for the Windows OS installation for the Notes client. However, that's the only Windows occurrence in my setup. If you choose to go the all Windows route, then you're going to have two copies of Windows (three if the host OS is also Windows) running simultaneously and probably registered with the same Windows licence key. Good luck if all those copies decide to "phone home" to Microsoft at the same time.
Final thought on this: remember, you're not partitioning up your hard drive as you would be if you were doing a real Linux installation. With virtualisation you are, essentially, creating files on your hard drive, and everything you do is within those files. If you make a mess of it, you can delete the files and start again. It's virtually (pun intended) impossible to mess up your host OS, whatever it may be.
Why Use Fedora, Not Ubuntu?
Simple answer there: IBM supports only Red Hat and Suse/SLED as Linux Domino servers. Both of those distributions use RPM binary packages management system as opposed DEB files packages used by Debian-based distributions such as Ubuntu. There are no DEB install files for Domino server. I couldn't actually find installation discs for Red Hat or Suse/SLED themselves in my ISP's repositories - and besides that, those two cost money!!
So I chose Fedora, which is the so-called community version of Red Hat. I thought that Fedora would be "close enough" to Red Hat for testing purposes.
What you will need:
- A relatively modern PC, preferably dual-core with least 2 Gig of RAM and 30 Gig of free hard drive space.
- Install disks (or .ISO files) for all the operating systems that you want to run as your VirtualBox guests. These can be Windows or Linux.
- A copy of Sun VirtualBox for your host operating system. There are versions for Windows, Mac OS X and various Linux distributions. My guide assumes Ubuntu 8.10 as the host OS, but it should work with a Windows host too.
- An ordinary home router of the kind that you use to connect to the internet. If you have a USB modem, then sorry, this is not going to work for you. Do yourself a big favour and get a router; they have so many advantages over USB modems. (Update 14/04/2009. A router is not required if you are using VirtualBox 2.2. See Part 4 - Networking for VirtualBox machines for more details.)
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