BBP 15.3.0 Virtual Box Image

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Overview

In this page, you will find information about setting up Virtual Box, and downloading and using the SCEC BBP 15.3.0 Virtual Box image. We are distributing the software this way to make it easier for researchers to install and use the SCEC Broadband Platform on their own computers. SCEC is using Virtual Box technology to make it easy to run scientific software designed for Linux and Mac computers to be run on a variety of personal computers. Virtual Box provides a way to run Linux/Mac-based software on Linux, Mac, and Windows computers.

The following information describes how to download Virtual Box and then download and install the SCEC BBP software on your own computer.

Terminology

Here are a few terms that might be used when working with Virtual Box.

  • Host operating system
    • The host operating system is the software on your laptop. If you are using a Mac, your host operating system will probably be some version of OS X. If you are using Windows, your host operating system will probably be some version of Windows 7 or 8. If you are using Linux, your host operating system will be some distribution of Linux, such as Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.
  • Guest Operating system
    • The guest operating system is the version of Linux that runs inside the Virtual Box. For the BBP 15.3.0 Image, the guest operating system will be Linux Fedora 14.x. We selected Linux as the guest operating system as currently some of the scientific methods on the BBP 15.3.0 package only run correctly on Linux.
  • Image
    • An image is a large file, like a tar file, that contains both the guest operating system, and the seismological applications software. SCEC has collected the software, and created an image, and posted the image online. Users download the image, load the image into Virtual Box, and all the software will be available for immediate use. An image behaves like a standalone computer, once the image is installed and started inside Virtual Box.

Computer Requirements

We have tested the Virtual Box, and our SCEC software image in the following computer configurations. If you wish to run the BBP 15.3.0 Image, your computer should have the following capabilities.

  • Mac OS or Windows 7 or Windows 8
  • 50GB Disk space available

Downloading Virtual Box

The first step is to download the Virtual Box software from Oracle. This software is free to use. You must retrieve a version that is appropriate for the Host Operating system of the computer you want to use. If your laptop runs Mac OS X, then retrieve a version of Virtual Box for Mac OS X. If your laptop runs Windows 8, retrieve a version of Virtual Box for Windows 8. We have tested the SCEC BBP 15.3.0 Image with Virtual Box Version 4.3.28 and higher.

Installing Virtual Box

Follow the Virtual Box installation instructions and install Virtual Box on your computer. The installation procedure varies slightly based on the operating system you are using. It may require administrator permissions to install virtual box on some computers.

Downloading BBP 15.3.0 Virtual Image

Users should download the SCEC BBP 15.3.0 Virtual Image from the SCEC website. Currently, the BBP 15.3.0 image is about 17GB in size so that it may take a few minutes to hours to download depending on the speed of the available network connection. You can download the image from the link below:

Importing the SCEC BBP Image into Virtual Box

To load the SCEC BBP 15.3.0 Image into Virtual Box, just follow the steps below:

  1. On your laptop, start up Virtual Box.
  2. From the Virtual Box top menu selection, select File. A drop down menu list should appear.
  3. From this list select "Import Appliance"
  4. Select the file folder icon, to bring up a file browser. Browse to the ERI virtual Box image you have downloaded.
  5. Select Okay

Virtual Box will now read in your image. This may take minutes to hours depending on the speed of your computer and disk space available. After this process is completed, don't forget to delete the original downloaded file now in order to reclaim the disk space. The file is no longer needed after Virtual Box imports the image.

Start up the SCEC BBP 15.3.0 Image

  • Your Virtual Box menu should know show icon "SCEC BBP 15.3.0 Powered Off".
  • From the top level menu, select the green arrow "Start"
  • Watch as the Virtual Box appears to boot a Linux Computer in the Virtual Box Window

Logging Into the Virtual Image

When the SCEC BBP 15.3.0 Image has booted, you will be presented with a Linux login screen. We have set up a user "SCEC CME", which will be already pre-selected. Just click on the user name, and then login with the password "sceccme". The Linux system will start and will be ready to use.

Running the SCEC BBP Platform

In order to run the SCEC Broadband Platform inside the Linux Virtual Image, open a terminal window by double-clicking on the "Terminal" icon located on the desktop. A terminal window will open. From that window, just type the following command to run the Broadband Platform: 

$ run_bbp.py

Related Entries

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