Real Cloud OS : Rackspace Ubuntu Cloud Server with Guacamole

Abhishek Ghosh

By Abhishek Ghosh October 1, 2012 7:55 pm Updated on October 1, 2012

Real Cloud OS : Rackspace Ubuntu Cloud Server with Guacamole

Real Cloud OS build on Rackspace Ubuntu Cloud Server with Guacamole. Access a real Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop Computer on Cloud from your browser with everything. It is the Real Cloud OS versus EyeOS because it is a full real Ubuntu 12.04 Computer on OpenStack. Just a week ago we announced about EyeOS Open Source Development and found that Cloud Server as VNC Remote Desktop can actually build a Real Cloud OS. Here is the method to get your one in this guide to build your Real Cloud OS. You can browse from browser just like EyeOS, but this is a real Ubuntu 12.04 computer.

Real Cloud OS : Configuration, needed resources and needed knowledge

For usage of Real Cloud OS build in this way needs no technical knowledge about UNIX or Server. For building your own Real Cloud OS on Rackspace Ubuntu Cloud Server with Guacamole, that is the guide for, will need a basic idea about Cloud Computing, UNIX commands, SSH access etc. We have made the tutorial for building Real Cloud OS easy one server setup. In practice we used Next Generation Cloud Server based on OpenStack from Rackspace with 30 GB of RAM and Load Balancer.

Guacamole is Open Source and Freely available on Source Forge :

http://sourceforge.net/projects/guacamole/

1	http://sourceforge.net/projects/guacamole/

Creating your Server Instance as a First Step to get your Real Cloud OS

Login to Next Generation Cloud Server control panel of The Rackspace Cloud and Create a Server :

Give the Server a name and select Ubuntu 12.04 as image to build your server, we tested with 4 GB RAM for this guide to build your Real Cloud OS with Rackspace Ubuntu Cloud Server with Guacamole :

Copy the Password from popup and IP address and paste them on your text editor :

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Building your Real Cloud OS : Command Line Interface through SSH

For this part of building Real Cloud OS with Rackspace Ubuntu Cloud Server with Guacamole, simply login to your newly build server with SSH. First update the server :

apt-get update

1	apt-get update

Do a soft reboot from SSH. This is optional. Open sources.list :

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

1	sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

and uncomment all the resources and save it. Install Ubuntu Desktop :

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

1	sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

This will take a bit time as this is a big package. We are basically making the Server Edition a kind of extended desktop edition of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Install Apache Tomcat, run commands one by one :

sudo apt-get install tasksel

sudo tasksel

sudo apt-get install apache2

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sun-java-community-team/sun-java6

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk

sudo apt-get install tomcat6

sudo apt-get install tomcat6-admin

sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat6 restart

sudo apt-get install libvncserver0

sudo apt-get install libfreerdp1

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sudo apt-get install tasksel

sudo tasksel

sudo apt-get install apache2

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sun-java-community-team/sun-java6

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk

sudo apt-get install tomcat6

sudo apt-get install tomcat6-admin

sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat6 restart

sudo apt-get install libvncserver0

sudo apt-get install libfreerdp1

sudo tasksel will give you a GUI, set it up as OpenSSH server. Run a upgrade by typing :

sudo apt-get upgrade

1	sudo apt-get upgrade

If you open the IP on browser, it should show the default “It works!” webpage. Download the Guacamole package :

wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/guacamole/files/current/binary/ubuntu-12.04-amd64/guacamole-0.6.3-ubuntu-12.04-amd64.tar.gz

1	wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/guacamole/files/current/binary/ubuntu-12.04-amd64/guacamole-0.6.3-ubuntu-12.04-amd64.tar.gz

Uncompress the packages :

tar -xvzf guacamole-0.6.3-ubuntu-12.04-amd64.tar.gz

1	tar -xvzf guacamole-0.6.3-ubuntu-12.04-amd64.tar.gz

Go to the directory :

cd guacamole-0.6.3-ubuntu-12.04-amd64

1	cd guacamole-0.6.3-ubuntu-12.04-amd64

Install the packages :

sudo dpkg -i guacd_*.deb guacamole_*.deb libguac3_*.deb libguac-client-vnc0_*.deb

1	sudo dpkg -i guacd_.deb guacamole_.deb libguac3_.deb libguac-client-vnc0_.deb

Configure Tomcat :

sudo dpkg -i guacamole-tomcat_*.deb

1	sudo dpkg -i guacamole-tomcat_*.deb

You will get a kind of GUI, select Restart.

Come back to root :

cd ~

1

cd ~

Check the status of the App :

ls -la /var/run /run

1	ls -la /var/run /run

Link them :

sudo ln -f /var/lib/guacamole/guacamole.war /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps

1	sudo ln -f /var/lib/guacamole/guacamole.war /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps

sudo ln -f /etc/guacamole/guacamole.properties /usr/share/tomcat6/libv

1	sudo ln -f /etc/guacamole/guacamole.properties /usr/share/tomcat6/libv

Restart Tomcat :

Edit this file :

/etc/guacamole/user-mapping.xml

1	/etc/guacamole/user-mapping.xml

This is very important file, configure username, IP address, Password Properly. Another file is :

sudo nano /etc/guacamole/guacamole.properties

1	sudo nano /etc/guacamole/guacamole.properties

You will get the online browser based Ubuntu here :

http://your-ip:port-number/guacamole/

1	http://your-ip:port-number/guacamole/

Port is usually 8080, 5900, 5901 depending upon
It is basically a full Ubuntu 12.04, nothing to show really.

About Abhishek Ghosh

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