Download & How To: VMware Virtual Machine With CentOS 6.4 64-bit Minimal and Apache Webserver
Download CentOS-6.4 64-bit minimal httpd
 CentOS-6.4-64-bit-min-httpd.vmwarevm.zip
Contains:
- VMware virtual machine with guest operation system CentOS-6.4 64-bit minimal, plus:
- System libraries: gcc, kernel-devel, make, patch, vim-enhanced, httpd, openssh-clients, mod_ssl, wget, ntp, crontabs, perl, rcs, tcpdump, time, zip, unzip, gd
- Perl libraries: perl-CGI, perl-CGI-Session, perl-HTML-Parser, perl-Archive-Tar, perl-Authen-SASL, perl-GD, perl-libwww-perl
CentOS (Community Enterprise Operating System) is a very popular Linux distribution based on RedHat Enterprise Linux. The default CentOS distribution is too bloated for webserver use. This article describes how to build and use a VMware virtual machine containing a minimal CentOS-6.4 64-bit guest operating system, enhanced with libraries typically needed in a server environment. The VMware virtual machine image can be downloaded as well, which enables you to quickly and easily run Linux on Windows, Mac OS-X or any other x86 based platforms VMware and VirtualBox (Oracle VM) supports.
The TWiki project releases TWiki also as a VMware virtual machine (VM). Previous TWiki releases contained CentOS-5. The latest TWiki-VM-6.0.0-1 uses CentOS-6. There are CentOS-6 VMware images readily available for download, but they have a lot of bloat that is not needed in a server environment. There is a minimal distribution of CentOS-6 that has no GUI, it boots directly into a shell console. There was no VMware image with CentOS-6 minimal available for download, so we had to build one from scratch. We added the Apache webserver, cron, Perl and other libraries typically needed in a server environment. The result is a CentOS-6.4 64-bit distribution, packaged as a VMware image that can be readily used to run dynamic websites and other server applications.
Ho to use CentOS-6.4-64-bit-min-httpd:
- If you don't have VMware, install one of the VMware products from http://www./products/
- VMware offers free downloads for Windows platforms
- Download CentOS-6.4-64-bit-min-httpd.vmwarevm.zip
- Copy the package to the directory where VMware keeps all images.
- Unzip the package, this creates a
CentOS-6.4-64-bit-min-httpd.vmwarevm directory with the image files.
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- Add the VM image to VMware:
- If you have a VMware ESX product you need to convert the VM image to the ESX format using the
vmkfstools tool. Consult the VMware vmkfstools documentation
- In the Virtual Machine Library of VMware, open the
.vmx file located in the CentOS-6.4-64-bit-min-httpd.vmwarevm folder
- Boot the CentOS-6.4-64-bit-min-httpd image
- Change the root password:
- In the CentOS-6.4-64-bit-min-httpd.vmwarevm console screen, login as
root with password changeme
- At the prompt, type
passwd and enter a new (strong) password twice:
# passwd
Changing password for user root.
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
- Set networking:
- The VM is configured for DHCP. This is OK for home use and for testing. In a production environment it should be changed to a static IP address.
- Network configuration for DHCP: Login as root, edit
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and set its content to the following:
DEVICE=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
- Network configuration for static IP address: Login as root, edit
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and set its content to the following: (tweak the IP address, net mask and gateway as needed)
DEVICE=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=none
TYPE=Ethernet
USERCTL=no
IPV6INIT=no
PEERDNS=yes
IPADDR=10.1.10.129
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=10.1.10.1
- Restart the network after each configuration change: Login as root and enter this command:
# /etc/init.d/network restart 2
- If you get this error:
Bringing up interface eth0: Device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization.
you have a MAC address mismatch. This can happen when you "copy" (vs. "move") a virtual machine the first time you start it. On copy, VMware assigns a new MAC address to the network interfaces, but may fail to update the Linux configuration files to mirror these changes, resulting in a dead eth0 network interface.
- Fix:
- Edit
/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules, delete the first SUBSYSTEM setting containing NAME="eth0", and change the NAME in the second SUBSYSTEM setting from "eth1" to NAME="eth0". Example:
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:0c:29:56:26:13", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"
- Edit
/etc/sysconfig/networking/devices/ifcfg-eth0, remove also the UUID setting, and set the HWADDR setting to the new MAC address. Example:
HWADDR=00:0C:29:56:26:13
- Reboot the machine:
# reboot
- Confirm (or find out) the IP address of the VM: Login as root and enter the
ifconfig command. In this sample output, look for the inet addr in the second line (in eth0 section) :
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:89:8C:47
inet addr:192.168.1.79 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:fe89:8c47/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
...
- Update CentOS and libraries with latest patches:
- Configure the Domain Name System (DNS):
- Ask your IT to to add a DNS entry for your new server, such as
twiki.example.com pointing to the IP address of the VM.
Step by step guide to build a CentOS-6.4 64-bit minimal VM with httpd and other libraries:
You can ignore this section if you simply want to use the CentOS virtual machine image. We used VMware Fusion 6.0 on Mac to build this virtual machine - the guide should also work for other VMware products.
- Starting at http://wiki./Download
 , download CentOS-6.4-x86_64-minimal.iso CD image from a mirror site
- The CentOS-6.4-x86_64-minimal is a bare bone minimal CentOS without GUI.
- Create a CD from the .iso image - the image is just 360 MB so it fits easily on a CD.
- Note: Don't burn this as a single file to a CD, the .iso is the CD image. If burned properly you will see many files and directories in the CD.
- Create a new VMware image with CentOS:
- Open up the Virtual Machine Library of VMware
- Select menu: File => New... => More options... => Create custom virtual machine
- Select Linux OS => CentOS 64 bit
- Create a new virtual disk
- Name: CentOS-6.4-64-bit-min-httpd.vmwarevm
- Set root password: changeme (ignore the weak password warning)
- Once the image is created, boot CentOS-6.4-64-bit-min-httpd from the Virtual Machine Library
- Configure networking for DHCP and set host name:
- On the console, login as
root with password changeme.
-
# vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 :
DEVICE=eth0
TYPE=Ethernet
HWADDR=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (leave default)
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NM_CONTROLLED=no
ONBOOT=yes
-
# vi /etc/sysconfig/network :
NETWORKING=yes
NETWORKING_IPV6=no
HOSTNAME=twiki
-
# reboot
-
# ping google.com # to verify proper networking
- Update OS:
- Install VMware tools:
- In the Virtual Machine Library, select menu: Virtual Machine => Install VMware tools
- Install libraries:
-
# yum install gcc kernel-devel perl make openssh-clients httpd mod_ssl wget ntp crontabs vim-enhanced rcs tcpdump time patch zip unzip gd
- Configure httpd and crond to start on reboot:
-
# chkconfig httpd on
-
# chkconfig crond on
-
# chkconfig --list|egrep 'http|cron' should return:
crond 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
httpd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
- Disable Selinux:
-
# vi /etc/selinux/config :
SELINUX=disabled
- Configure firewall to allow http:
-
# vi /etc/sysconfig/iptables :
before COMMIT add this:
-I RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
- Restart network:
# /etc/init.d/network restart 2
- Install Perl libraries:
# yum install perl-CGI perl-CGI-Session perl-HTML-Parser perl-Archive-Tar perl-Authen-SASL perl-GD perl-libwww-perl
- Power down VM:
# shutdown -h 0
- Open a terminal and change to the directory where VMware keeps the virtual machines.
- Delete
vmware*.log files in the CentOS-6.4-64-bit-min-httpd.vmwarevm directory.
- Delete the
caches directory in the CentOS-6.4-64-bit-min-httpd.vmwarevm directory if present.
- Zip up the
CentOS-6.4-64-bit-min-httpd.vmwarevm directory as CentOS-6.4-64-bit-min-httpd.vmwarevm.zip
Congratulations, you just built a minimal CentOS-6.4 with apache & cron installed, ready for server use!
We used this image as a base for the TWiki-VM-6.0.0-1 virtual machine. How about downloading the TWiki VM and using it as a collaboration platform for your team?
Let us know in the comments below how you built your virtual machine, and for what purposes.
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