OpenQM on Slitaz Linux ====================== This is an attempt to make OpenQM on Linux available as an "appliance" to people who have no wish to go through a complicated installation of the source files. Slitaz was chosen for this purpose because it is a TINY linux distribution. Its download size is a mere 30 MB, but despite this tiny size, it packs in a graphical interface, basic linux utilities, an SSH server, a web server, and more. In addition to the basic install, I have added Samba to this to provide Windows networking, and the OpenQM database server along with the associated help files and documentation. Installation ============ This installation is provided as a Virtual Machine that runs inside Oracle VirtualBox. Therefore, you will need VirtualBox installed on your system. You can download VirtualBox from www.virtualbox.org . These instructions assume that you have VirtualBox installed on your system. You will already have unzipped the distribution file to be reading these instructions ... The distribution folder contains the Virtual Machine definition, and virtual hard disk. Start VirtualBox From the menu, choose 'Machine | Add' Navigate to the folder where the VM is stored and select it. Click Open. The VM should appear in the list of machines on the left. Select the VM and click on 'Settings' in the toolbar. Click on 'Storage' and check that the disk 'VSlitaz001.vdi' is listed under the SATA controller. If not, the select the SATA controller, then click on the 'Add Hard Disk' icon to the right of the controller, select 'Choose existing disk', navigate to where the disk is located, and add it. Click on 'Network' and choose appropriate networking settings. See below. Click OK to save the settings. Networking ========== Most of the time, you probably want to use 'Host-only networking'. This allows communication between any VM's on the local network, and between the host and the VM. It does not allow communication from the VM to any machine outside the local network. If you want to download updates to the VM, you will need to change the networking to NAT. This will allow the VM to communicate with machines outside the network, but not with any machines on the local network. On the VSlitaz001 machine, NAT is defined on Network Adaptor 1, while Host-only networking is on Network Adaptor 2. Only one of these should be enabled at any one time. The Host-only networking does not seem to work using the Intel virtual network adaptors. Make sure you choose the PCnet-Fast III adaptor for this type of networking. Start the VM ============ Select the VM in the list of machines, and then click on the 'Start' button in the toolbar. A VM window should appear and the VM should boot. You need to select a language configuration part way through this boot. You will end up at a login screen. All services should be running by this point. You should be able to browse to the shared folders on the VM from another machine on the Windows network, and you should be able to log into the VM using an SSH terminal emulator. Or, you can log onto the VM directly. Usernames and passwords are: Username Password root root qm qm Security ======== As can be seen from the passwords above, there is (almost) no security on this VM. Some operations require you to be either logged in as root, or to be in superuser mode. To get to superuser mode, type: su at a terminal prompt, and enter the root password when prompted. The shared folder (at /home/qm/qmdb) is owned by user qm, and user group qmusers. The group ownership is "sticky" meaning that new files and folders will retain the qmusers group, but will be owned by the creator. The shared folder also has read/write/execute permissions (777) for all users. This is convenient but totally insecure. The Samba configuration (at /etc/samba/smb.conf) defines the network as a workgroup with a workgroup name of HOME. You may need to change this to make the shared folder available on your network. Logging in to OpenQM ==================== Log in as user qm using an SSH terminal emulator (such as Accuterm). Use the default port (22). This will log you into folder /home/qm. Note that the Personal version of Accuterm is not sufficient for this purpose - you will need a commercial version. [The personal version is limited to connections on localhost - whereas this will require a network connection]. If you need a free terminal emulator, check out: http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-telnet-ssh-terminal-emulator . There is one OpenQM account defined on the system (other than QMSYS). This is the ACCUTERM account. Type the following: cd ./qmdb/accuterm qm OpenQM should start, present you with the GPL statement, and leave you at the colon (:) prompt. To log off, type: OFF This is just an empty account, put there so that there is something to work with. To create a new account, either: Type: CREATE.ACCOUNT accountname path from within an OpenQM session e.g. CREATE.ACCOUNT MYTESTACC /home/qm/qmdb/mytestacc or from a linux shell prompt, type: mkdir /home/qm/qmdb/mytestacc cd /home/qm/qmdb/mytestacc qm OpenQM should start and ask whether to create a new account here. Documentation and Help ====================== The OpenQM documentation is at /home/qm/qmdb/docs. The OpenQM help files are are /home/qm/qmdb/help. Access these from within the VM by pointing the web browser at: http://localhost/qm/help . To access the help files from the local network, point your browser at: http://vslitaz001/qm/help Other Bits and Pieces ===================== Compiling OpenQM This VM does NOT contain a gcc development environment for building the OpenQM database from the source files. The binaries here were copied from another VM. My attempts to build the OpenQM database on Slitaz were not successful. When using the gcc compiler, the system crashed when trying to run shell commands. Slitaz has its own equivalent of gcc (called tcc). The system appeared to compile OK using this compiler, but crashed with a segmentation fault when the start command was given. QM configuration The OpenQM configuration file is found at /etc/qmconfig . See the help files for configuration options. The system is set for 16 users at the moment, which should be more than enough for learning purposes. The QM services have not been installed on this VM. This is because I couldn't figure out how to connect to these services using SSH (Slitaz doesn't have a telnet server amongst its packages). You could try adding the services using the instructions in "Installing the GPL Version of OpenQM on Ubuntu" found at www.rushflat.co.nz . Web Server The web server home directory is at /var/www Slitaz configuration Most configuration for Slitaz is done through the Slitaz Panel. Start this by clicking on Spider > System Tools > Slitaz Panel. Username and password are root and root. OpenQM is started from the rcS.conf file. You can edit this from the 'Boot' section of TazPanel. 'qm' is in the RUN_DAEMONS variable near the end of the configuration file. This tells the startup manager to run the qm script located in /etc/init.d on startup. Most servers on the system can be configured via: Spider > System Tools > Manage Servers. Note that not all of these servers are actually running. Some other configuration defaults are contained in /etc/daemons.conf . Bugs in Slitaz Slitaz is very much in development and has a number of bugs. You may find that the top or bottom lxpanel "disappears" after you (accidentally) edit the other panel. The panel definitions for user qm are stored in: /home/qm/.config/lxpanel/slitaz/panels . The top panel is named "panel" while the bottom panel is named "bottom". If one of these is missing, then copy the original version of it from: /etc/lxpanel/slitaz/panels . When you restart the GUI, both panels should now appear. Finally ======= At its heart, OpenQM is a commercial product. If you want to use OpenQM for commercial purposes, do buy a commercial licence. That not only buys you support, but it also gets you a much more modern product. This GPL version is now several years old, and the commercial version has advanced considerably. Comments welcome to brian at rushflat dot co nz