Category Archives: Ubuntu

Ubuntu Stuff!

Setting up Java Runtime Environment 7 (JRE7) on Ubuntu 12.04 via Command Line

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Need Java to run an application on your Linux workstation/server?  Follow the steps below via the terminal to install the latest version of Java.

  1. Head over to http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp to find the latest Linux download from your client machine.
  2. Look at the link for the latest Java release for Linux.  Since we are using Ubuntu we do not need the RPM release.  In this case, I will be downloading Java 1.7.0_25-b15 for Linux x64.
    1. The download url is http://javadl.sun.com/webapps/download/AutoDL?BundleId=78697
  3. Head over to the Linux terminal on the machine you want to install Java on, and execute the following command to download the files from Java's website
    1. wget http://javadl.sun.com/webapps/download/AutoDL?BundleId=78697
  4. Extract the tarball.  Since wget cannot pull the filename like a modern webrbowser, you will have to reference the weird filename AutoDL?BundleId=78697
    1. tar -xvzf AutoDL?BundleId=78697
  5. Find out what the name of the folder is of the java files you extracted by listing the files in the current directory.  At the time of writing this, the extracted folder I had was jre1.7.0_25, so I will continue to reference that moving forward.
    1. ls
  6. Create a folder in the usr folder for Java to reside.
    1. sudo mkdir /usr/java/
  7. Move the files we extracted Java files to the java folder
    1. sudo mv jre1.7.0_25/ /usr/java/
  8. Execute the following to enable the Java Runtime Environment
    1. sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/java/jre1.7.0_25/bin/java 1
  9. Execute the following command to set the default Java to use
    1. sudo update-alternatives --config java
  10. Execute the following command to verify that the latest version of java is installed
    1. java -version
  11. Remove the tarball we downloaded from Java's website to free up some space
    1. rm ~/AutoDL?BundleId=78697

Install Self-Signed CA Certificates on Ubuntu 12.04 via Command Line

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Copy your .crt files to /usr/share/ca-certificates

Run: sudo update-ca-certificates

Hit yes to trust the certificates in the wizard (text based for CLI), and away you go! 🙂

How To Install VMWare Tools v4 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Server

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Today I was faced the challenge of installing VMware Tools on a Ubuntu server via command line.  I stumbled accross a step-by-step tutorial on the exact steps to accomplish this task.  I am reposting for archival purposes, but all credit goes to @justinschier from http://ghosttx.com/2012/03/how-to-install-vmware-tools-v4-on-ubuntu-11-10-server/

Written: March 13, 2012
Last Updated: April 27, 2012
Tested With: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Server, Ubuntu 11.10 Server

All the guides I found on the Internet, including VMWare’s website were outdated in some way, so I decided to write a guide of my own. I just went through these steps from start to finish on a fresh server and had no problems.

  1. Use Install VMWare Tools option in VMWare Client/Console to attach media
  2. Update the server
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get upgrade
  3. Create the mount point
    sudo mkdir -p /media/cdrom
  4. Mount the ISO
    sudo mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom

    You should see the message: mount: block device /dev/sr0 is write-protected, mounting read-only

  5. Change Directory
    cd /media/cdrom
  6. Copy the tar file to your /tmp directory
    sudo cp VM*.tar.gz /tmp
  7. Install Build tools if necessary
    sudo apt-get install linux-headers-server build-essential
  8. Change Directory
    cd /tmp
  9. Unmount the ISO
    sudo umount /media/cdrom
  10. Expand the tar
    sudo tar xzvf VM*.tar.gz
  11. Change Directory
    cd vmware-tools-distrib
  12. To prevent a potential error in the install script on Ubuntu 11.10, create a special directory
    Unable to create symlink “/usr/lib64/libvmcf.so” pointing to file ”/usr/lib/vmware-tools/lib64/libvmcf.so/libvmcf.so”.

    sudo mkdir /usr/lib64
  13. Run the Install Script. The -d flag automatically answers the default to all questions. To customize it, just omit the -d.
    sudo ./vmware-install.pl -d
  14. Reboot
    sudo reboot

Let me know if this worked for you!

Also, please follow me on Twitter: @justinschier