VMs suck. They’re kind of a necessary element for the tools we’re using, but let’s be real. They suck. There are always lots of things to configure and lots of extra to do. Seeing as though I always have to do this, here’s a quick guide to getting Debian set up on a system. We’re going to use VirtualBox as a hypervisor. Your host operating system doesn’t matter.
If you don’t already have VirtualBox, download it and install it. You’ll also need a Debian disk. This page will get you a copy.
Create a disk (or two) depending on needs. Also make sure that two ethernet interfaces are plugged in. The other must be hostonly, so that I can log in from my current box.
Reboot, login as root.
Install your favorite editor and sudo
$ apt-get install sudo vim
Edit the /etc/network/interfaces file to listen to two fake ethernet interfaces.
# check the ip addresses and find the one that is NOT bound to an IP address $ ip addr ... allow-hotplug enp0s8 iface enp0s8 inet static address 192.168.56.101 broadcast 255.255.255.0
Harden up SSH just slightly
$ vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config # Add AllowUsers, Disable passwords for SSH auth and force key file authentication AllowUsers $USER
Generate a private key from your other box
$ ssh-keygen yourKey
Copy it to the new box (more than likely at 192.168.56.101)
ssh root@192.168.56.101 "test -d /home/$USER/.ssh || mkdir /home/$USER/.ssh" scp yourKey.pub 192.168.56.101:/home/$USER/.ssh/ ssh root@192.168.56.101 "cat /home/$USER/.ssh/yourKey.pub >> /home/$USER/.ssh/authorized_keys && rm /home/$USER/.ssh/yourKey.pub"
Restart the ssh daemon and networking modules
ssh root@192.168.56.101 service network restart service sshd restart
Check that the key works
ssh $USER@192.168.56.101
