- Getting a Linux Machine Up and Running
- Updating the VMWare Linux Instance
- Are You a Linux Guru?
- Conclusion
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Updating the VMWare Linux Instance
If you're planning to use VMWare Ubuntu Linux images in your network, then it's a very good idea to get into the practice of updating the images using the apt-get command. To do this, it's essential that your VMWare Linux image is configured to access the Internet.
The commands we'll be looking at soon all require access to the Ubuntu archive. So, the virtual Linux instance must be able to access the Internet. The VMWare image you have may already be configured for Internet access, but if it isn't then it's easy to make it so. This can be done by selecting the Ethernet control in the title bar (see Figure 1) for the image and choosing the Bridged option in the dropdown list. You should then stop and then restart the network interfaces with the following command (you will be prompted for the root password in all cases):
sudo /etc/init.d/networking stop
The default root password for this Ubuntu Linux image is thoughtpolice. Next, restart the network interfaces:
sudo /etc/init.d/networking start
Run the ifconfig command to view the new network settings. When you run the ifconfig command, make a note of the IP address associated with the Ethernet device. This is the IP address you'll be using a little later on from within WinSCP (to access the Linux file system). Figure 1 illustrates the output on my machine, and I've highlighted the required IP address.
)
Figure 1 Running ifconfig—the routable IP address.
The following commands should also be run on a regular basis (the second one should be run at least once per week). The first one updates the installed packages in the Linux image, and the second one updates the security patches:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade
The update command took about four minutes the first time I ran it, and the upgrade command took about 15 minutes to complete. In fact, the upgrade command fetched approximately 42MB of updates and then installed them all in pretty rapid succession.
Aside from these commands, we also have a once-off need to install an SSH server in the Linux image. This is because we want to be able to securely access files from within the Windows desktop. Installing SHH is also easily achieved by running the following command:
sudo apt-get install ssh
Just accept the default settings after running this command. Assuming everything was successful, you should now be ready to download and use the tools of choice: WinSCP and PuTTY. If you've reached this point, you've done most of the hard work!