Setup a Virtual Network with Virtual Box 2.2.4

Setup a Virtual Network with earlier versions of Version of Virtual Box required a lot of steps to create a bridge, and to enable Layer 3 Compatibility for the adapters in the bridge. Since VirtualBox 2.1.4, the process has been made more simple.

1- Configure the Network Preferences of your Box

Set the Network Access Mode to Bridge Access. Then select of the adapter you would like your box being bridged to (generally it would be the adapter connected to the Internet).

2- Define your IP Configuration
In your box, independantly from the operating system you are using, define manually the IP address, sub-network mask, the default gateway as well as the DNS which is going to be your default gateway.

Setup Sun JVM and JDK in Ubuntu

This one is pretty simple, but I tend to forget the steps when I don't do it for a long time.
1- Use the Synaptic Package Manager to download the last JDK version for Ubuntu. Select sun-java6-jdk package.


The Synaptic application will prompt you for additional packages to download. Mark them, and click the Apply button to start the download. Confirm by clicking Apply in the Summary window.



The Synaptic Manager will start to download the package files.
2- Then, make sure that your environment use the Sun flavour of the JVM you have just setup.
Use the following command in terminal window to check the list of Java flavours in your system.


To have the Sun flavor as the current Java version, use the following command:
sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun

Setup Pentaho Design Studio for Linux and Test your installation

1- Setup Design Studio as an Eclipse plugin

At this time, there is no complete Design Studio available for Linux and Mac users. Once you have installed your Java environment, your environment variables, and the BI server, you can now install the Eclipse IDE and the plugin for Pentaho Design Studio. You can find the last version of Eclipse IDE with your Synaptic Package Manager, but the Pentaho Design Studio Release for Community can be downloaded from the Pentaho website or directly from sourceforge.net.
In the zip file, go to the plugins folder and extract the following files:

• org.pentaho.designstudio.editors.actionsequence_2.0.0.974
  

• org.pentaho.designstudio.editors.core_2.0.0.616


• org.pentaho.designstudio.editors.reportwizard_2.0.0.1037

Move these folders to usr/lib/eclipse/plugins folder so that the plugins will be found by Eclipse. But you need first get the permission to write in the plugins folder. You can do it by giving yourself the ownership of this folder which I found is the easiest way or by changing permissions settings. The following command gives yourself the ownership of the plugins folder in Eclipse:

From usr/lib/eclipse directory, type in:

sudo chown plugins

username represent your current username. Copy the 3 previous files in your Eclipse plugin folder.

2- Create a Solution Project

Start Eclipse. Got to File > New > Project. (My Eclipse version is the 3.2.2). Expand General and select Project, click Next. Type Pentaho Solutions as the project name.

Uncheck the Use the Default Location, and Browse to your BI server installation folder > pentaho-solution. In the Package explorer, you will be able to see the content of your project.

3- Test an Hello World Action Sequence

In the left-hand tree, expand bi-developers > getting-started. Double-click HelloWorld.xaction.

In the Pentaho Server URL text box, type your BI server address which normally is: localhost:8080/pentaho. Click the Test Server button and the server login page should appear in the built-in web browser.

Log in as the Joe(admin), the password field is filled automatically. You will be redirected to the Pentaho admin page.

Click the Generate URL button and then click Run to open the HelloWorld.xaction page. You should have the following result.

4- Change the HelloWorld Action Sequence
Click the Define Process tab and select Hello World. In the message drop-down list box, change the "%quote" to "-I did it". As your BI server uses the DB-base solution repository, action sequences are run from the database repository. You need to tell the server to refresh the database. Go back to the test tab; you will be prompted to save your changes to your Action Sequence. Click Yes.
Go back to the admin page at localhost:8080/pentaho.
Click Tool > Refresh > Repository Cache.
A message box information will tell you that the refreshing has been successful.

Click the Generate URL button and then the Run button to display the result of the action sequence. The new page will display: Hello World - I did it.

Setup the new BI server 2.0 in Linux-Ubuntu

1- Setup the Java environment
This new BI server version 2 installation and using is really more straightforward. You first need to install the last version of the Java Development Kit or Java Runtime Environment from the Synaptic Package Manager. To do this, go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager. You will be prompted for your administrator password before the package manager window open.
Look for the sun-java6-jdk. Right-click and select Mark for Installation. Then click the Apply button in the toolbar. The Synaptic Package Manager will download all the necessary files and take care of the installation process automatically.

2- Setup the environment variables
You only need to setup to environment variable JAVA_HOME and JRE_HOME and make them persistent.
In you .profile file in your folder (this file is normally hidden), add the 2 following lines:

• export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java6_xxx
• export JRE_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java6_xxx/jre

Then from your terminal, go to your BI server folder that you have downloaded (I dowloaded this file version for the matter of this tutorial: biserver-ce-2.0.0-RC1.tar.gz) and unzipped in your user folder. Then from the terminal window, go to your new installation folder and from there, you can start your BI server with the following command:
./start-pentaho.sh
To stop it, type in:
./stop-pentaho.sh
As you will see, this Community Release of the BI 2.0 server is embedded with hsqldb as the database server with some sample data and Apache Tomcat as the application server.

How To Make your Pentaho BI Server Accessible from your LAN

Pentaho 1.7 GA comes with JBoss as the Application Server by default. To make your server accessible from your LAN, you will need to modify your server.xml and your starting and stopping script.

1- Modify your server.xml file

In your JBoss folder, go to server > default > deploy >jboss-web.deployer >server.xml.

Change the address attribute of your connector tag to your server IP address:



2- Modify your scripts
In your start-pentaho script, add the following parameter in the line that starts the JBoss server:
-b 192.168.1.108 (The IP address should be your server IP address).
at this line /home/blutch009/pentaho/bi-server/jboss/run.sh -b 192.168.1.108
This line starts your JBoss AS and binds it to your server IP address so that it can be accessible from within your LAN at the port specified in your server.xml file (8080 by default).
In your stop-pentaho script, add your server IP address at this line after -S:
pentaho/bi-server/jboss/bin/shutdown.sh -S 192.168.1.108

Setup a Host Interface Adapter with a Wireless internet connection in Virtual Box

In one of my previous post, I showed how to create a virtual network using the Host Interface Adapter mode with Virtual Box. This mode (compared to the Network Adapter Translation mode) allows your host and your guest having two different IP address but in the same network, so you can ping one to the other. Nevertheless, Host Interface Adapter mode does not support wireless internet connection.
To get internet access from your wireless connection in your box:

1- You need to setup manually your guest IP address
But make sure to make it different from your host. If your guest is running Linux Ubuntu, go to System > Administration > Network.
Click the Unlock button then you are prompted to add your administration password.
In the Connections tab, select your wired connection and click Properties.


Uncheck the Enable Roaming Mode checkbox. In the Configuration drop-down list, select Static IP address. Define the other parameters according to your Local Area Network configuration.
You will also need to update your DNS information which is going to be your default gateway. Go to System > Administration > Network.
Click the Unlock button and type in your root password. Go to the DNS tab and click Add in the DNS Servers list.
Add your default gateway IP address and delete your former DNS server. Click Close.
2- Enable Network Layer 3 Compatibility
Use the netsh command from the windows terminal to force your bridge components network layer 3 compatibility, that is allow your bridge adapters be configured in promiscuous mode.
Promiscuous mode means that the network adapter passes all the packets it received to the Central Unit Process rather than filtering only the packets addressed to its MAC (Media Access Control) address. This can become an threat for your network security.
For the Host Interface Adapter mode, it allows wireless connection in a bridge receive and process packets from outside network as well as any other network adapters in the bridge. First, use the following command to retrieve the adapter ID of your bridge members:

netsh bridge show adapter

You need to launch your terminal window as an administrator (right-click and Run as an administrator) in Windows 2003 and Vista.
Once you have the adapter ID for each members of your bridge, type the following command for each of your adapter:

netsh bridge set adapter 1 forcecompatmode=enable

You should come with the next window after typing in netsh bridge show adapter again.



Now you should have 2 different IP address for your guest and your host within the same network, you can ping from one to the other.
If your host is a Windows system, you need to disable Windows firewall first to allow your guest pinging your host.

Setup Pentaho 1.7 GA

Pentaho BI 1.7 GA is the open-source Business Intelligence suite that allows you to report, analyse and manage data through E.T.L process. You can download the full BI suite installer for Linux at this link.

1- Setup MySQL database server and client
Pentaho 1.7GA installer comes with MySQL with the databases used for repository, so you don't normally need to setup the database server. But I found it necessary though, as I could not access the database server content with MySQL client if the database server is setup with BI server.

2- Make the Installer file executable
To setup the BIN installation file, open a terminal window and go to the folder you place in your BIN file. Make sure first your BIN file is executable with the following command:
chmod +x pentaho-1.7GA-linux-opensource-installer.bin

3- Setup the BI suite
Then from the terminal window, type:
./pentaho-1.7GA-linux-opensource-installer.bin
The installation wizard launch in a new window.

Click Forward. Accept the Agreement and click Forward.
Select the component you would like to be installed.


Click Forward. Then select the Easy installation option.


This Easy installation set up MySQL as the default database repository and JBoss as the application server. Click Forward.


Click Forward. The next window allows you to choose for your MySQL database installation option.


Choose the 2nd option to use the database server already setup in your system and let the Installer create the repository.


You can change the MySQL Binary Directory to /usr/bin which is the default location of the database server executive file for Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora distributions.
The next window asks you to setup your MySQL root user information.


Click Forward. The next window asks you to provide a name for your Solution Repository. The default name provided is "hibernate".


The next window asks you to provide a name for your Quartz Repository.
After clicking Next, you are asked to provide a name for your SampleData Repository. Then, the next window asks for a username and password to access your repository databases.

You can click Forward to have the Summary for your installation. Click Forward again to confirm your choices. The setup process will start.

To run the BI server, from a command prompt, you go the path where your application is installed and then type the following command:

./start-pentaho.sh

You can access your BI dashboard from your browser at the following address:

http://localhost:8080/pentaho