In this walkthrough we will
- Download and setup VirtualBox
- Download the CentOS flavor of Linux
- Install and configure CentOS for usage in VirtualBox
What is VirtualBox?
VirtualBox is a cross-platform virtualization application. What does that mean? VirtualBox extends the capabilities of your existing computer so that it can run multiple operating systems at the same time.
VirtualBox Setup
- Download the latest version of VirtualBox from their site
- Select the OS X Hosts option, this will begin the download process. The file should default to the Download folder on your computer.
- Double click the Open the VirtualBox-5.1.18–114002-OSX.dmg file.
- You will now be presented with the installation package
- Double click the VirtualBox.pkg and continue with the installation
- Submit your Administrator account’s password
- Success!
- So far we’ve installed the VirtualBox Application which acts as a container of sorts to run our Linux Virtual Machine
- We will now download our CentOS Linux Operating system for free from their website
- Select the Minimal ISO option (depending on your internet connectivity this could take up to 30 mins to fully download)
- Anyone of the links will work for the download
- After the download has completed you will now have the CentOS iso image. Again the default location will be in your Downloads folder on your Mac OS computer
- Open VirtualBox, located in your applications folder and select new
We will now begin the process of creating the configuration for our Linux Virtual Machine
- Give your VM a name (any name) and select Red Hat for the version
- From here on out we can accept the defaults of the configuration
What we’ve accomplished so far
- We’ve created the template by which our Linux VM will adhere to, these are the specifications we have set for our VM (Virtual Machine). In the next steps we will install the operating system
What Are we Doing Now?
- We will now point VirtualBox to the CentOS iso installation media we downloaded earlier
- Select Settings
- Select Storage
- Double click on the optical drive icon (where the arrow is pointing in the screen capture)
- Select Choose Disk
- Navigate to your Downloads folder and choose the CentOS iso image
- You will now see the CentOS iso image as an option for the optical drive
What Does This Mean?
- We’ve essentially instructed VirtualBox to boot from the installation media which is our CentOS iso image, during this process the operating system will be installed within VirtualBox
Let’s Setup Networking
- You should still be in the Settings option for VirtualBox
- Select Network choose Bridged Adapter and select ok to exit
Let’s Start the process of installing the Operating System
- Select Start
- Choose Install CentOS Linux 7
- Select your preferred Language and continue
We will only focus on the below 3 sections for this setup
- Date & Time
- Installation Destination
- Network & Host Name
- Our installation destination will be the virtual hard drive
- Select it then click Done
Lets configure our Linux VM for Networking
- Switch the Ethernet adapter option from OFF to ON
- Select Done
- After the Operating System has installed select the option to Reboot
- We have successfully installed our Linux Virtual Machine inside of VirtualBox
- To confirm our account is working go ahead and login with the user account we created earlier
Once logged in type
$ whoami
