- June 17, 2024
- Posted by: Kaushal Kumar
- Category: VICIdial, VICIdial for Managers, VICIdial Troubleshooting
In this tutorial, I will show you the extended steps to install VICIdial on Virtual Box. I am testing on a 64 bit PC with Windows 10. Any other Windows operating system will do if you are able to run Virtual Box on it. I am using the latest version (v5.1.22) of Virtual Box and the latest build of VICIdial which can be downloaded using this Link.
The Requirements:
- Virtual Box (I am using v5.1.22)
- Installation ISO of VICIdial (Download Link)
- VICIdial Manual (Download Link)
- Learning Motivation
Phase 1: Configure Virtual Box for Installation environment
(1) Open Virtual Box Manager and create on “New”. You will need to put a name of this virtual machine. I have named it as VICIdial but you are free to use any preferred name. Select “Other” in the type drop down. Select Version to “Other/Unknown (64 Bit). And then click Next.
(2) Select the memory size anywhere between 1024 MB to 2048 MB as per the physical memory availability in your computer. 2048 MB of memory is more than okay for a test environment of VICIdial install. Click Next.
(3) Select the radio button “Create a virtual hard disk now” and click on “Create”.
(4) Select the radio button “VHD (Virtual Hard Disk” in the dialog box and click Next.
(5) Select “Fixed size” in the radio button and click Next.
(6) Under “Create Virtual hard Disk”, Put a desired name for the Virtual Hard Disk and select the amount of storage you want to allocate to your VICIdial Install. I prefer to keep it somewhere between 5 GB and 10 GB. It is more than sufficient for a test install. I have allocated 7 GB in my own VICIdial install. Then, click on Create.
(7) After couple seconds, your virtual box is ready to start the installation process of VICIdial. But here, we are missing a very important step. In order to boot up VICIdial, we need to mount the VICIdial install ISO that you downloaded from This Link. As of now, the screen will look somewhat like this.
(8) To mount the VICIdial Install ISO, Select your Virtual Machine (Named VICIdial) and then click on Settings. Click on Storage in the left tab area. You will see an empty drive. Select that, browse and mount the VICIdial Install ISO file. Then save the settings.
(9) Time now to fire up the virtual machine. Select the Virtual Machine and click on Start. This will be the first screen you will see.
Hit Enter, and the VICIdial Install process will start.
Phase 2: The Installation Process.
(10) At the VICidial license screen, press CTRL-A to agree to the license agreement. Then, Press ALT-N to select ‘Next’ and proceed with the boot-up sequence.
(11) The installation will now start. It will start some services and then give you a login prompt, just like this.
(12) At the login prompt, type ‘root’ and press ENTER. You may have to hit ENTER after a minute to see the login prompt. It sometimes gets overwritten on the screen from the boot process. At the Password prompt, type ‘vicidial’ and press ENTER.
(13) At the command prompt, type ‘os-install’ and press ENTER. If there is any custom configuration to be done to this server prior to OS installation, it should be done before this step.
(14) The VICIdial configuration screen will look something like this.
(15) To change the default langauge, press ALT-L and select your preferred language. To change the default keyboard layout, press ALT-K and select your preferred layout. Press ALT-N to agree to the license displayed and move on to the next screen. The new screen will be similar to the below image.
(16) To change the displayed region, press ALT-E and use the up and down arrow keys to select your preferred region. Alternatively, the TAB key can be used to switch between windows on this screen and proceeding screens. To change the displayed Time Zone, press ALT-Z and use the up and down arrow keys to select your preferred time zone. Press ALT-N to accept the selected Region and Time Zone and move on to the next screen. There is a good chance that system will propose you a partitioning setup. In that case, to accept the default partitioning scheme press ALT-N to proceed to the next screen. However, in my case I see no suggested partitioning. I see a screen like this.
(17) Press Alt+E to get in to expert partitioner. In my case, I create a SWAP volume of 1 GB and a root volume of 5 GB. Just copy my settings if you want to make it easy and simple. Here is a screenshot.
(18) Hit Next or Alt+N. On next screen, you can setup the desired password for root user. This is a very important step and you do need to remember the root password, otherwise you will lose root access to your server. For the purpose of this tutorial, I will use “vicidial” as my root password. Hit Alt+N for the next screen.
(19) If the passwords to not match, are blank, or are not considered high-security passwords, you will be presented with an additional dialog box. You will need to either correct the passwords if they are blank or don’t match, or chose whether to accept the password and continue or input a new password. If passwords match, confirm by pressing Enter key when it prompts. Next screen will summarize many VICidial Install configurations. Press ALT-I to confirm the destruction of the host system’s old installation and installation of the new operating system. You will be presented with a screen showing installation progress and logs. At this point all data on the hard drive has been destroyed. Then on another prompt, confirm the installation.
(20) Wallah, VICIdial Install process has started..!! Wait for it to complete. Its takes around 10 to 20 minutes. It will be faster if you have a good processor or a Solid State Drive.
(21) When prompted, press ALT-N and then press ENTER to reboot the server. You may also use the left and right arrow keys to highlight “Reboot Now” and press ENTER. It is a good idea to remove the CD (or unmount the virtual bootable ISO) from the drive during reboot as well as allow the BIOS to boot from the hard drive before any other devices.
(22) When the Login prompt comes up after the reboot, log in as the ‘root’ user using the password you created in step 18. At the command prompt, type ‘reboot’ and press ENTER. Due to a quirk in the OpenSuSE LiveCD installer it is necessary to reboot the server a second time to properly initialize the network. This is only required once after the LiveCD has finished it’s installation.
(23) If not already, login as the root user by typing ‘root’ at the login prompt and ‘vicidial’ at the password prompt. If you changed the root password, or someone else has, you will need it to login. The password can not be recovered easily and requires offline intervention.
(24) Type ‘yast lan’ and press ENTER Optionally, you can type ‘yast’ and navigate to the network configuration by going to Network Devices –> Network Settings. Using the TAB key, press it until the network card is selected. If you have multiple network cards, select the one that will be used to communicate with the other ViciDial servers.
(25) Press ALT-I to edit the network configuration for that interface. Press ALT-T to select “Statically assigned IP Address”. The server should always have a statically assigned IP address, no exceptions. Press ALT-I to move the cursor to the “IP Address” field, it should be highlighted. Optionally, you can use the TAB key to move between fields and windows on this screen and the proceeding screens. Enter the IP Address for this interface. This should primarily be the internal IP Address if this is the first network card. If this is the second network card, this would be the IP Address provided to you by your ISP if not behind a router. I am assigning 10.0.0.10 for this demonstration. Also, fill the Subnet Mask field with your subnet mask from your network. The Static IP has to be in your subnet and you should also very the subnest mask as it may be different from the one I am using. Here is my screenshot.
(26) Press ALT-G to view the General options for this network card. Press ALT-Z to select the Firewall Zone for this Interface. Using the up and down arrow keys, select “Internal Zone” and press ENTER. If this is the second network card connected directly to the internet, select “External Zone” instead. Optionally, if you are going to disable the built-in firewall, select “Internal Zone” for all network cards to prevent the system from being locked out should the firewall be turned on by mistake. It is very safe to choose “Internal Zone” from options. Press ALT-N to accept network card configuration and return to the Overview screen.
(27) Press ALT-S to change to the Hostname/DNS screen. Press ALT-T to select the Hostname field. Enter the unique Hostname of this server. All servers MUST have a unique hostname for the installation to properly continue. The installer will fail if all hostnames are not unique. We recommend using DB(x), Web(x), and Vici(x) for the hostnames while replacing the (x) with the numerical sequence of the installed server. For instance, the first Web server would be Web1, the second Web server would be Web2, the first Telephony server would be Vici1, the second Telephony server would be Vici2, etc. Try to choose a hostname that relates to the function of the server and not an arbitrary name to avoid confusion. Names like ‘Zeus’, ‘Batman’, ‘Mickey Mouse’, etc, do not properly convey the function of the server to anyone who may be unfamiliar with it. For this demo install, I will leave it as “vicibox7”. I will leave the Domain name as it already is.
(28) Press ALT-1 to select Name Server 1 field. Enter the primary name server to use on your network. If you are behind a router this is typically the router IP. If you do not have or know your DNS server’s IP then enter ‘8.8.8.8’ to use Google’s DNS. Press ALT-2 to select Name Server 2 field. Enter the secondary name server ot use on your network. If you do not know or have a secondary DNS server, then enter ‘8.8.4.4’ to use Google’s DNS.
(29) Press ALT-U to change to the Routing screen. Press ALT-F to select the Default IPv4 Gateway field. Enter the default gateway IP for your network. This will be the IP address of your router. This is determined by your local network/router and can not be determined remotely. If you have a second network interface card that is directly connected to an ISP then you will enter the gateway IP provided by the ISP here. For my network, the gateway IP is 10.0.0.1 and I will use it here.
(30) Press ALT-O to select Ok and make the network configuration changes. You can review the changes by pressing ALT-V for the overview, ALT-S for the Hostname/DNS configuration, and ALT-U for the routing configuration if you want to review them before proceeding. Verify proper network connectivity by trying to ping something on the internet, I.E. ‘ping google.com’. Press CTRL-C to stop the ping when satisfied. If you do not have internet connectivity try pinging another server or workstation on the network. Depending upon the complexity of your network configuration it might be necessary to reboot to enact network configurations. I can successfully ping google.com now.
Phase 3: ViciBox “Express” Installation
(31) If not already, login as the root user by typing ‘root’ at the login prompt and ‘vicidial’ at the password prompt. If you changed the root password, or someone else has, you will need it to login. The password can not be recovered easily and requires offline intervention. Type ‘vicibox-express’ and press ENTER. You will see the installer start in ViciBox Express mode. It will prompt for any further input it needs while installing. When the installer indicates that it has completed, type ‘reboot’ and press ENTER to reboot the system and cleanly load all changes and ViciDial. From a web browser on a workstation, type in the IP Address of your server and press ENTER. At this point you should see the ViciDial welcome page. The installation is now complete.
All Done. Peace..!!
