moka5

LivePC Creator Guide - BareMetal

Startup Contents Intro LivePCs Moka5 Engine Managing Create
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Creating a LivePC based on someone else's LivePC

Deriving a LivePC™ from a pre-existing LivePC is the most efficient way to create a LivePC. For example, you can take a pre-existing Linux LivePC, customize it with a few applications, and make this a new LivePC. Deriving new LivePCs from existing LivePCs allows the Moka5 Engine™ to share disk storage and bandwidth for the 'common' blocks that are the same in both.

Deriving a LivePC from a pre-existing LivePC is very simple. Just find a LivePC that you want to derive from and subscribe to it. Then, click on the double arrow to show additional options for the LivePC. Ensure that "Let me make changes to this LivePC" is checked in the LivePC panel. Now any changes you make to this LivePC will be kept - and you will have your own personalized LivePC!

If you want your derived LivePC to be able to run side-by-side with the original LivePC on another user's computer, you will need to ensure that your LivePC has a different MAC address. To do this, click on the double arrow next to the LivePC to show additional options. Click on Configure; this will bring up a window in your web browser. In the window, look for Ethernet under Devices. Ensure that the address type is set to "Address Varies". Click Apply to make sure the settings have been applied and then close the window. After making this change, you may want to run the LivePC to ensure the software did not rely on the old settings.

Whenever you make changes to your LivePC that you want to keep, you must perform a complete shutdown of the LivePC and return to the Moka5 Engine UI. Rebooting the operating system inside the LivePC is NOT enough to ensure that your changes are saved. If you don't perform the steps described above, your changes may be lost!

Creating a new LivePC from scratch

If you can't find an appropriate LivePC to derive from, you can create your own LivePC from scratch. This will create a pristine computer which you can install your own operating system onto.

Click on 'Create new LivePC' in the Moka5 Engine: BareMetal Hardware Version. This will bring up a window with a number of options to set up your LivePC, with some reasonable defaults. The most important options to set in this screen are listed below.

  • Virtual Machine Name - this is the name of the LivePC that will be displayed to users.
  • Guest OS Type - the type of operating system that you plan to install on the LivePC.
  • Default Memory - the amount of memory that this LivePC will use.
  • Disk Size - these are set to reasonable defaults for most operating systems.
  • Disk Type - whether a disk is persistent or not. A persistent disk is initialized on subscription to a LivePC and any changes to the disk persist across reboots and updates to the LivePC. It is deleted only when a LivePC is removed from My LivePCs.
  • CDROM Drive - one of the disks should be set up as cdrom-raw. This will allow you to install an operating system onto the LivePC from your computer's CDROM drive.
  • Ethernet Address Type The default value "Address varies" will work well in many situations. You may need to change this setting to "Same for all copies" if the software in your LivePC is sensitive to changes in the Ethernet address, like some software activation schemes. Note: simultaneously running multiple LivePCs with the same Ethernet address will lead to network connectivity difficulties, especially in bridged mode or if the LivePCs are running in NAT on the same computer.

    Create new LivePC screenshot

After you have reviewed the settings for your new LivePC, click on 'Create' to create the LivePC. It will now appear in your list of 'My LivePCs'. The LivePC will be created with Update Settings set to 'Let me make my own changes to this LivePC'.

Start adding your Operating System by putting the OS CD in the host PC. When creating a LivePC from scratch, you should install the VMware tools package into your LivePC's operating system to improve the user experience for your LivePCs. You can obtain these tools by downloading the free VMware Server.

Add other applications via download or CD to build your own LivePC. Once you are done adding the OS and applications to the LivePC, you must perform a complete shutdown of the operating system and return to the Moka5 Engine UI, and ensure that your LivePC is configured to keep your changes (as described in the User Guide). If you don't perform these steps, your changes may be lost!

Creating a LivePC using an existing LiveCD

It is very easy to make a LivePC using an existing LiveCD. Click on 'Import a LivePC' in the Moka5 Engine. This will bring up a dialog where you can enter the path or URL to an existing LiveCD. Press 'OK' and your LivePC will appear in your list of 'My LivePCs' in the Moka5 Engine, with a default icon and description. (You can edit the title, logo, description, and other specifics by clicking 'Configure...' and then 'Edit'.)

The best part is that you can run a LiveCD without even having to download it! Just specify a LiveCD URL like http://example.Moka5.com/super-small-linux.iso when importing and you can start using it right away. The data from the LiveCD is automatically downloaded and cached as it is needed.

Warning: Some older web servers cannot correctly serve files that are larger than 2GB. If you are having problems with a LiveDVD that is larger than 2GB, you may want to download it locally and use the local copy instead.

Creating a LivePC using an existing VMware virtual machine

It's easy to create a LivePC from an existing VMware virtual machine. Just click on 'Import a LivePC' in the Moka5 Engine: BareMetal Hardware Version and type in the path or URL to the VMX file of the VMware virtual machine you would like to import. The Moka5 Engine will copy the data from the given location and create a new LivePC with a default logo and description. Depending on your computer and where the files are stored, this may take a while to finish. After the import is done, you can use the virtual machine normally, or publish it and share it with the world.

If your VMware image is compressed with zip, be careful when extracting it. Many Linux zip utilities do not support file sizes larger than 2GB, which can be a problem for large VMs.

Note that the import tool does not support VMware snapshot disks. You must first use VMware to convert the disks before trying to import them into the Moka5 Engine.

The import from an existing LiveCD or VMware virtual machine occasionally reports an error. If you are seeing the following error message when you try to import an existing LiveCD or VMware virtual machine, it is most probably because the URL you type in is wrong or the file size exceeds the maximum size allowed by the web server. 

  Error occurred while importing: error during operation get_header
  http://...: failed writing received data to
  disk/application: Input/output error

For example, the Apache web server supports a maximum file size of 2GB. The web server refuses to serve any files larger than this size.

To verify that this is indeed the problem you are seeing, you can use a different client tool to access the same URL. For example, in Linux you can use wget.

LivePC BareMetal Hardware Packing and Uploading

Once you have a LivePC that is ready to be uploaded, select that LivePC in the 'My LivePCs' screen and click Upload. You will only be able to click Upload if you have made your own changes to the LivePC. A window will pop up to confirm that you want to perform an upload. Click 'OK' on this window.

Next the Moka5 Engine will begin packaging your LivePC. Depending on the size of your LivePC and the number of changes you made, this step could take as long as 10-20 minutes. Once the packaging is complete, a window will appear prompting you for a URL to upload to. Currently the Moka5 Engine supports uploading using the SFTP and FTP protocols.

To upload using SFTP, specify the servername and filesystem path to store your LivePC in, for example sftp://example.Moka5.com/home/myusername/livepcname/version-X/. This filesystem path should be a directory that does NOT already exist on the server. If you need a username and password to upload to the server, enter those when prompted.

Upload using FTP works the same as SFTP, except the you will specify 'ftp' as the protocol instead of 'sftp', for example ftp://example.Moka5.com/home/myusername/livepcname/version-X/.

The upload will now begin and the window will display progress as the files are transferred to your web server. The windows will close automatically when the upload completes.

Moka5 Engine: Registering Your LivePC in the Moka5 Library

Now you can post the LivePC to the Moka5.com library. In the Metal Hardware version of the Moka5 Engine, click on 'www.moka5.com' under My Places. Once you are in the Library, click on 'Post new LivePC'. You will need to login to publish LivePCs. If you do not have an Moka5 account you must register for one now.

The 'Post new LivePC' page contains a form to enter the information about your LivePC. The Package URL should point to the vm.xml file in the directory that you uploaded, for example http://example.Moka5.com/~myusername/livepcname/version-X/vm.xml. Fill out this form and submit it. Now click on 'LivePC Library' and you will see your LivePC published in the library!

Go to the Moka5 Engine and subscribe to your listed LivePC. Delete the local copy of your LivePC image as it is no longer needed. To update your new LivePC , go to the Moka5 Engine and click, 'Let me make changes to this LivePC'.

Finding the amount of free disk space on my LivePC Engine

If you are planning to create a new LivePC from scratch on your Moka5 Engine, you may need to check the amount of free disk space you have. You can find the amount of disk space by clicking on 'Manage my disk use...' under 'LivePC Engine Tasks', on the lower left-hand side of the screen.

Startup Contents Intro LivePCs Moka5 Engine Managing Create