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Desktop Virtualization

Project ID: 
82
Current stage: 
Manager: 
Unit: 
What: 

Description: Make an easily user managed VirtualBox configuration.

Deliverables: An LCFG based VirtualBox configuration with some pre-built images.

Why: 

Customer: Usable by all Staff and Students.

Case statement: Teaching - HoT (Stuart) has a vision whereby students can run whatever they like in sandboxed virtual machines.

Research - having one supported platform means that there is a conflict between
available effort to upgrade, upheaval for users upgrading their software, and
trying to keep current to support researchers who wish to use bleeding edge software. One possibility might be to have a more stable platform, eg SL5, where
the platform is refreshed on a two-year cycle, but researchers can self-manage
their own bleeding edge systems in virtual machines on top of the stable platform.

VirtualBox can (and has) been used for simple stateless server management, so a managed way to run VirtualBox in this scenario would be useful - however VMWare is preferable for more critical and stateful services (see separate project in MPU)

When: 

Status:

Timescales: By end of 2008.

Priority: High - Desktop (and server) virtualization are very important for reducing our power/physical footage and for allowing users to go beyond SL5.

Time: 2FTE weeks.

How: 

Proposal: See Plan.

Resources: Time.

Plan:

  • Investigate how to configure Bridge based VirtualBox via LCFG and evaluate security implications - Bridging is necessary for users wanting to run remotely accessable services on their virtual host
  • Create LCFG header and packages and any ancillary scripts to support NAT based VirtualBox on the desktop.
  • Create some sample start images for end-users (eg. FC9)
  • Create LCFG headers, packages and any ancillary scripts to support Bridge based VirtualBox on the desktop.
  • Provide end-user documentation.
Other: 

Dependencies:

Risks: VirtualBox is now owned by Sun - implications?
Disk images can be large.

Milestones

Proposed date Achieved date Name Description
2009-01-06 2008-12-31 LCFG NAT VB Create LCFG header for running a NAT based VirtualBox on a desktop.
2009-01-06 2008-12-31 Support Docs Provide support documentation - how to add virtualbox to a desktop.
2009-01-06 2008-12-31 User Docs Provide end-user documentation - how to create an image.
2008-01-06 2008-12-31 Port Forward Investigate how to configure port-forwarding.
2009-01-07 2009-01-31 LCFG Port Fwd Create LCFG support for port-forwarding configuration (if necessary).
2009-01-06 2009-01-31 Support Docs Provide support documentation - how to add port forwarding (if necessary).
2009-01-06 2009-01-31 User Docs Provide end-user documentation - how to do port forwarding.
2009-01-07 2009-02-28 Bridging Investigate how to configure Bridge based VirtualBox via LCFG and evaluate security implications - Bridging is necessary for users wanting to run remotely accessable services on their virtual host that don't work via NAT
2009-01-07 2009-03-31 MPU Meeting Meet with MPU to discuss network level support for VirtualBox Bridging. No longer required.
2009-01-07 2009-04-30 LCFG Bridged Create LCFG headers, packages, components and any ancillary scripts to
support Bridge based VirtualBox on the desktop.
2009-01-07 2009-05-30 User Docs Provide end-user documentation for a bridged installation.
2009-04-30 2009-04-30 Images Investigate image options for lab machines.
2009-06-30 2009-05-31 Teaching Deploy onto all lab machines with suitable image handling.
2009-11-20 2009-05-31 Advertise Publish details in newsletter