On Mar 10, 2011, at 11:16 AM, Ludovic Dubost wrote:

I think it's kind of easy to create one VM. The issue is that we need an easy way to create them everytime there is a new version. Best would be a solution to create them using maven. We should check if there is any progress in this area.

On this topic I had created http://jira.xwiki.org/jira/browse/XWIKI-3243 -Vincent

Ludovic

Le 10/03/11 10:55, Andreas Hahn a écrit :

...

Hi Johannes, everyone,

actually this is sort of repsonse to Johannes @jstoldt contribution here http://xwiki.475771.n2.nabble.com/Back-to-the-future-of-XWiki-tt6084764.html regarding VM's and it is off-topic in either dev and user.

Johannes, why not drill deeper into this VM stuff ? If you have spare time leftover and want to contribute - why not be the first one to create an Amazon EC2 xwiki image ?

For newbies there are free Amazon EC2 accounts: http://aws.amazon.com/de/free/

When creating a VM I'd check for an Ubuntu Ready-to-go image - there are several hanging around. Check the Ubuntu website for a recommendation. Of course Linux background is beneficial - might be mandatory. However with Ubuntu many installations are pretty straight forward and well documented - installation of database (postgres ?) - webserver (tomcat ?) and an XWiki .war should be straightforward.

When you're are done and all is running fine you can make a template of it for others to use.

I'd be interested in a report. I'd love to do it but I'm lacking time now ...

As here is no real forum for this we might continue correspondence in another place.

WDYT ?

Andreas

Hi everyone, First of all, I agree with Ludovic and Vincent, a new VM should be created every time a new version is out. It obviously is a lot of data that needs to be stored but the problem with not having an up to date VM is that people who just want to check out XWiki in a ready to go and possibly production ready environment most likely do not want to bother with setting up the VM and immediately having to upgrade the XWiki instance before they can try the latest version. Anyway, either I did not make myself clear or you missed the notion that I am not really a huge fan of VMs. On the one hand it can be hard to integrate pre-built VMs with a companies IT systems, on the other hand, AFAIK, there is no really free VM software that can be used in corporations. What I had in mind was a package that will provide everything necessary to easily create a ready-for-production-use environment including an easy to use configuration wizard. I further thought about upgrade packages and restructuring the XE documents to ease upgrading. Also, I am neither very familiar with VMs nor Linux, so I am probably really not the best person for doing this kind of a job. Regards, Johannes -- View this message in context: http://xwiki.475771.n2.nabble.com/Off-topic-Xwiki-and-VMs-tp6157103p6157366.... Sent from the XWiki- Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Am 10.03.2011 12:41, schrieb jstoldt:
> Hi everyone,
>
> First of all, I agree with Ludovic and Vincent, a new VM should be created
> every time a new version is out. It obviously is a lot of data that needs to
> be stored but the problem with not having an up to date VM is that people
> who just want to check out XWiki in a ready to go and possibly production
> ready environment most likely do not want to bother with setting up the VM
> and immediately having to upgrade the XWiki instance before they can try the
> latest version.
>
> Anyway, either I did not make myself clear or you missed the notion that I
> am not really a huge fan of VMs. On the one hand it can be hard to integrate
> pre-built VMs with a companies IT systems, on the other hand, AFAIK, there
> is no really free VM software that can be used in corporations.
FWIW: http:www.virtualbox.org is truly FOSS easy to deploy and maintain 
on Linux and Windows
- very mature and we're running small farm on it. Highly recommendable. 
Many hosters use XEN (just Linux) however.
> What I had in mind was a package that will provide everything necessary to
> easily create a ready-for-production-use environment including an easy to
> use configuration wizard. I further thought about upgrade packages and
> restructuring the XE documents to ease upgrading.
>
> Also, I am neither very familiar with VMs nor Linux, so I am probably really
> not the best person for doing this kind of a job.
>
> Regards,
> Johannes
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://xwiki.475771.n2.nabble.com/Off-topic-Xwiki-and-VMs-tp6157103p6157366.html
> Sent from the XWiki- Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> _______________________________________________
> users mailing list
> users@xwiki.org
> http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>

Hi everybody, if I can give my suggestions, working in Windows environment, VM are often related to VMWare products, which indeed are market leaders. VMWare provides also a free VMplayer which can be used in business environment, at least for testing purpouse. This was the way I approched Xwiki, looking for a Virtual Appliance, as VMWare call it, ready to go, without loosing too much time in configuring and installing. By the way if you go to www.vmware.com/appliances/ and search 'xwiki' you do find it: Ubuntu 8.10 with MySQL Server, Tomcat 6, OpenJDK 6, and XWiki Enterprise 1.7.1. and indeed it does not look too much up-to-date. So, in my opinion, a new user, or someone who want to look inside and compare, would be pleased to find a downloadable Virtual Appliance with a quite recent release of XWiki ready-to-go to play with, in these days let's say version 2.7 or 2.6, not necessarly always the latest release or patch, since once started the VM and xwiki can be upgraded. Xwiki.org could have a Virtual Appliance download section (provided someone creates the VMs!) and/or could promote itself at VMWare site. Since I am not involved in any business with VMWare I have to say there are other solutions like VirtualBox, Xen, ... and an opensource format for VMs that can be converted in the preferred one by the user. At the end the suggestion is to have a section dedicated to VMs of any kind downloadable from xwiki.org site. Angelo Ghisoni jstoldt wrote:

Hi,

Vincent, about the part you had trouble understanding, I was merely trying to reason why the idea Andreas had about only creating a VM every once in a while and not on a regular basis (i.e. for every version) is not good according to my oppinion. Anyway, great that we agree on the wizard and so forth.

Andreas, about VirtualBox, at least the full edition is not suitable for business use if the company aims for using software with a free license. The extension for RDP, for instance, is not part of the Open Source Edition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Box#Licensing and http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads). Be that as it may, I am not all in favor for VMs for the other reasons I mentioned so we do not have to discuss this bit in length.

Regards, Johannes

-- View this message in context: http://xwiki.475771.n2.nabble.com/Off-topic-Xwiki-and-VMs-tp6157103p6160933.... Sent from the XWiki- Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.