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Once the LAMP server is loaded, a team member opens Firefox and downloads vcl_pre_commands_nn.sh from the repo web server. The “nn” is anything, but usually a “1”, or a “2”, and forth, to access a unique parameters file for each unique VCL installation. If you look in the pre_commands script, you will notice the number is just used to append to the filename vcl_parameters_nn.sh. In the scripts below, I used "13", since the particular target host name was "burton-research-13". Before starting installation, the students make a one-time instance of both the vcl_pre_commands file and the vcl_parameters file customized for their team. That is, each team could represent a different institution seeking to create a VCL cloud. If you look in these files, you will see the only real task is to set the host name of the target server to agree with the DHCP hostname assignment. Of course, you can vary every parameter, but since this is a student lab, all teams used my default settings for digital certificates and so forth. If you use the scripts for your own institution, you will wish to change additional settings to reflect your institution's name and login credentials. The parameters.sh file is -- at least to me -- documented and straightforward. I kept the students confined to a private LAN without outside access, so we used weak passwords. Please, use a strong password for any system with access from the Internet. Once the pre-commands file is downloaded, the students make the file executable, the run the script. About 30 minutes later, VCL installation is complete. Packages are installed using yum (see vcl_packages.sh), and all source tarballs are downloaded directly from the VCL incubator site. The main script, install_vcl.sh, incorporates several modifications to the current VCL installation instructions. Notable areas are sourcing the MySQL database structure, dynamically modifying the VCL perl script to remove Linux package installation and perl interaction, use of SL 6.2, and rearranging the order of installation to complete all package installation in one place. The use of explicit yum package installation will allow me to copy vcl_packages.sh almost directly into RPM requires statements. I did not use an RPM for my students because I wanted the students to explore and experiment with the scripts.

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