Dependencies

Frontend

• Apache HTTP Server v1.3 or v2.x with SSL enabled - while VCL may run under another webserver capable of running PHP code, it has only been tested to work with Apache HTTP Server
• PHP 4 or 5, including these modules: ** php-mcrypt ** php-mysql ** php-xmlrpc ** php-gd ** php-xml
• Dojo Toolkit
• JPGraph
• FCKEditor (optional)
• useful to have the server set up to be able to send debugging emails

Backend

• Perl
• Perl Modules (available from cpan.org) ** http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/M/MA/MARKOV/MailTools-2.04.tar.gz ** http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/T/TM/TMTM/Class-Data-Inheritable-0.08.tar.gz ** http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/D/DR/DROLSKY/Devel-StackTrace-1.20.tar.gz ** http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/D/DR/DROLSKY/Exception-Class-1.26.tar.gz ** http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/J/JD/JDHEDDEN/Object-InsideOut-3.52.tar.gz ** http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/K/KW/KWILLIAMS/Module-Build-0.30.tar.gz ** http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/A/AG/AGROLMS/GSSAPI-0.26.tar.gz ** http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/G/GB/GBARR/Authen-SASL-2.12.tar.gz ** http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/R/RE/REATMON/XML-Stream-1.22.tar.gz ** http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/H/HA/HACKER/Net-XMPP-1.02.tar.gz ** http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/R/RE/REATMON/Net-Jabber-2.0.tar.gz ** http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/XML/XML-Parser-2.36.tar.gz ** http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/RPC/RPC-XML-0.64.tar.gz ** http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Crypt/Crypt-SSLeay-0.57.tar.gz

Backend Scripting & Programming Languages

• Perl - the backend is predominantly driven by Perl code
• DOS/Windows Batch - several batch (.cmd) files perform tasks to configure Windows images 
• VBScript - several VBScript (.vbs) files perform tasks to configure Windows images
• INI files - Windows .ini files need to be configured to customize the Windows installation (sysprep.ini, cmdlines.ini)

Provisioning Engines

• xCAT 1.3 or xCAT 2.1 xCAT.org
• VMWare Free Server
• VMWare ESX can use native vmware-cmd or VMware perl toolkit
• VMWare ESXi requires VMware perl toolkit
• KVM
• IBM Smart Cloud computing ( in development, ask on the mailing list)

Images

Windows Image Utilities & Other Files

• Windows Sysprep for each version of Windows being used, available from microsoft.com( only needed for bare-metal loads)
• Driver files specific to each version/platform of Windows being used
• spdrvscn.exe utility - scans Windows drivers before an image is saved, available from vernalex.com
• wsname.exe utility - renames computer according to registered DNS name, available from mystuff.clarke.co.nz
• Cygwin with OpenSSH - allows management nodes to control loaded Windows OS on blades, available from cygwin.com

Linux Kickstart Deployment

• installation media for Linux distribution that is supported by xCAT

Database

• MySQL
• PHPMyAdmin (optional)

Network

Two or Three networks (see Network Layout ):

1. private network - where most control operations happen and where images are pushed around
2. public network - how end users connect to the nodes
3. Blade Center management network - this is only needed if doing bare metal deployment; it is used to communicate with the blade server management modules to power on/off the blades and to configure the boot process

Hardware

VCL can deploy images on various types of hardware depending on your needs. The following deployment methods have been tested with the listed hardware:

• bare metal kickstart deploys using xCAT: ** IBM BladeCenter Blade models HS20, HS21, HS22’s ** Sun blade models X6220 and X6250
• bare metal image deploys using xCAT: ** IBM BladeCenter Blade models HS20 and HS21
• VMWare Free Server image deploys should work on any hardware with VMWare Free Server installed and 2 network interfaces
• VMWare ESX or ESXi image deploys should work on any hardware with VMWare ESX installed and 2 network interfaces
• VMWare vcenter
• KVM based image deploys should work on any VT capable hardware with KVM hypervisor installed and 2 network interfaces

Development tools used by VCL committers

• ActiveState Komodo IDE - used to develop several types of files, commercial product
• SlickEdit
• VI/VIM
• Firebug plugin for Firefox
• WinSCP - used to manually transfer files to/from Windows images and to/from Windows development machines
• PuTTY