@mmarco >I use unionfs to mix the squashed filesystem with a directory to save >the changes. Maybe that would be a source of errors if somebody makes >changes in his sage directory and then upgrade by replacing the >compressed file. I think the unionfs is a well tested technology now, but a clean solution would be that in case of such an replacement/upgrade of the sage squashfs the whole sage directory tree in the save directory is deleted too - then the user starts with a "fresh" install.
> > I was recently thinking about our options for a Sage launcher program This > > would be a relatively small program that controls VirtualBox, hiding the > > normal VirtualBox gui. This is pretty easy using the VBoxManage utility. The > > Sage launcher program could then > > * download new Virtual Machines if necessary > > * let the user choose between different versions of the Sage VM > > * diagnose port / firewall issues > > * automatically export notebooks from the VM using a bundled ssh client > > * write the launcher in Python (which we also include) using some Python > > GUI toolkit (included, too) Sounds great! This could be just a small application in the beginning with the sage logo and a start button , but can be expanded later. I am not sure if it is necessary to write this in python - that is another dependency. Why not use VBscript or precompile it? Distribution of binaries on windows should be no problem. > Big +1. > > I'm curious if anybody else has ever written such a program for > another project? If anybody out there is particularly good at > searching for such things, could you look? It's not inconceivable > there's something out there we can learn from. > > -- william Essentially the documentation of the vboxmanage command shows, that a very detailed control of the VM is possible. As an example the commands "VBoxManage controlvm <VM> setlinkstate/ nic" lets you switch on/off network or switch to different network types like "nat/bridged" Or the command "VBoxManage guestcontrol execute" lets you start programs on the guest from the hostmachine. As I am on it let me share some thoughts - some of those may be in the category "premature optimization", but just ignore those you don't like: Autoimport of virtual machines "ovas" is possible, however it might be worth considering to not "import" machines, but to create the VM at runtime and attach the VM on premade bootable vdi harddisk. Advantages: it is possible to create the machine according to the host specs (memory, processor). Attaching disks is much faster than importing ovas (can take minutes). Disadvantage: Autoimport ova is tested - autocreation of VM and attaching of virtual disk is not coded and not tested (maybe 20 lines of VBScript code) Set the Virtual machine Folder to a path where all users can reach the sage VM . Currently the Virtualbox default is to store the ova in the user space, so other accounts cannot use the sage VM. We had at least one support/ask sage question about this. A possible solution would be to have the Virtual Machine available public, but use VBoxManage / Guestadditions to mirror an unique .sage folder in each user directory. The hardware specs of the host machine (processor) are mapped to the VirtualBox - so what policy should apply here? - There could be 1 minimal machine which was compiled for low specs (32 bit, FAT_BINARIES, 1 processor ...), so that it should run on widest range of possible hardware. And maybe a 64bit version with complete modern processor instruction set and more turbo specs available. I found the following links: http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.html Example GUI: https://github.com/c0state/VirtualBox-Snapshot-Deletion-GUI web interface: http://code.google.com/p/phpvirtualbox/ commercial: http://onapp.com/cloud/how-it-works/control-panel/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VBScript Python Compiler(?): http://nuitka.net/blog/ VirtualBox/Multiuser environment: http://vu1tur.eu.org/vboxctrl cheers -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
