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Deploy on Virtual Machine

About this guide

In this guide, we will explain how to download and start an Appliance Virtual Machine to run TAO Community Edition.

Requirements

To achieve this deployment, we will need:

About arm64 architecture

Virtual Machine deployment is not available yet on arm64 architecture.

  • an x86_84 host machine, able to allocate at least 8GB of RAM and 4 vCPUs
  • at least 40GB of available space disk (prefarbly on high-speed storage)
  • a reliable network, with high-speed Internet connection
    • while Appliance can be used offline, first start will require to download 3GB of data
    • ensure your network is allowing unregistered devices
  • Oracle VirtualBox 7.2 (or later)

Download Appliance image

From your computer, browse release link of tao-ce/cozy, and look for tao-ce-cozy-vm-server.ova file.

Latest image can be directly downloaded here.

Load Appliance in VirtualBox

Once downloaded:

  1. Open VirtualBox.
  2. In main menu, click File > Import Appliance….
  3. In Import Virtual Appliance wizard, choose Local File System, then click on browse icon, and select downloaded image.
  4. In Settings, you can check parameters (in particular CPU/RAM allocation). Click Finish button to proceed with import.
  5. Once imported, right-click on the virtual machine, then Settings…
  6. In Expert settings, go to Network, and check for Adapter 1. Ensure it is attached to Bridge Adapter, and that the interface name match your main network interface.
  7. Click OK, then you can Start the virtual machine.

Setup Appliance at first boot

About this wizard

This wizard will help you to configure basic settings at a early stage of deployment, as TAO Community Edition is not yet starting.

For more settings, you will be able to access Cockpit on https://tao-community-edition.local:9090 after system is started.

On first boot, you will notice a prompt to proceed to appliance setup. Appliance prompt screenshot

About TAO CE address

Note the address is different than usual container deployment (community.tao.internal), as we rely on mDNS protocol (which require .local domain) to propagate appliance address on your network.

If left unattended, TAO Community Edition will be deployed with default settings:

  • language: English (US)
  • timezone: UTC
  • hostname: tao-community-edition.local (with mDNS broadcast)
  • TAO Community Edition flavor: Full

About TAO CE address

If you choose a custom address, ensure to replace tao-community-edition.local while reading this guide.

Follow the instructions to change the following settings:

  • language
  • timezone
  • hostname (with or without mDNS broadcast)
    • if you choose to use mDNS broadcast, ensure hostname is ending with .local
  • TAO Community Edition flavor:
    • Full: Complete version of TAO Community Edition, including portal, Delivery, Backoffice, Grader and Proctoring
    • Essential: A complete environment for authoring and delivery, without Grader neither Proctoring
    • Lite: A subset of TAO Community Edition to run deliveries through Portal

Once submitted, Appliance will start downloading TAO Community Edition.

Long process

Depending on your hardware and network conditions, it can takes from 5 minutes to 2 hours before TAO Community Edition is ready to be used.

Why is it so long?

To accelerate image build process, and distribution, appliance image will not contain TAO Community Edition neither its dependencies.

At first boot, the appliance will download container images (~3GB) and uncompress them. TAO Community Edition container image is particulary long to uncompress, as it contains hundreds of thousands of files. Future versions may improve this behavior later.

This will also ensure you are deploying the latest version of TAO Community Edition.

Access Administrative console

Change password

Whenever you can, log in on local/SSH/web console to change default password.

During installation process, you may access SSH console, or Cockpit1 web console.

  1. Open a browser, and go to https://tao-community-edition.local:9090
  2. You may face a Certificate warning, add this site in exceptions
  3. login with tao username and tao password
  1. Open a terminal, and run the following command: 
    ssh tao@tao-community-edition.local
  2. login with tao username and tao password
  1. use VirtualBox console to attach a monitor
  2. find a console (TTY) with Alt + F1 (to F6)
  3. login with tao username and tao password.

Access TAO Community Edition

Readiness status

Current version is missing a proper Readiness feedback to let the user know when TAO Community Edition is ready. This feature is under active development and should be released soon.

Once ready, you should be able to connect to https://tao-community-edition.local.

Troubleshooting

TAO Community Edition is started, but it seems not accessible from my machine

Depending your local network settings, it may be unauthorized to use bridged interface, and Appliance may fail to expose its address. In particular, if local network policies requires hosts MAC addresses to be authorized prior connection, a virtual machine will not be trusted.

While we advise to contact your network administrator for a solution, you can attempt to use the following steps to gain a local access:

  • reimport virutal machine
  • in virtual machine settings, open Network panel
  • attach Adapter 1 to NAT instead of Bridged Adapter
  • add Adapter 2, enable it, and attached it to Host-only adapter

This solution will allow the appliance to access Internet through your machine (NAT); while host-only network will let your host machine to access it.

TAO Community Edition is started, but it seems not accessible from local network

First, ensure you enabled MulticastDNS in setup wizard. If you did so, there might be some restrictions on your local network preventing access to the Appliance, like:

  • Firewall rules blocking ports 5353/udp (mDNS) and/or 443/tcp (HTTPS).
  • VLAN topology, preventing mDNS to cross your different networks. In such case your local network administrator may enable reflector in routing policies.

  1. Read Cockpit documentation to administrate your appliance ↩