Configuring Network on Virtual Bugzilla

This document provides instructions for altering the default Virtual Bugzilla network configuration.

1. What's in the package

Virtual Bugzilla default network configuration is aimed to make Bugzilla server available on your network without the need of any additional configuration (in most cases). The configuration includes:

  • VMWare network adapter is set to "Bridged" configuration;
  • Ethernet interface eth0 is configured to get IP address from DHCP;
  • A script runs on startup to update urlbase Bugzilla parameter to point to the current Bugzilla URL.

2. Running Virtual Bugzilla without network

By default Virtual Bugzilla will share Ethernet card with the host computer it runs on. If your computer is not connected to a network, Virtual Bugzilla will not be able to start networking as well.

You can switch Virtual Bugzilla to "NAT" or "Host-only" type of virtual networking to be able to access if from the host computer only, and regardless of the presense of a real network. To do that, use your VMWare Player or Workstation menus or status bar. After you change connection type, reboot Virtual Bugzilla.

3. Setting Up Static IP

This applies to Virtual Bugzilla 3.2.x. For earlier versions, see instructions on our forum.

Important: A more agile method for configuring a static IP address is to use your local DHCP server to assign a permanent IP to the VBS mac address. That way you will not have to do anything inside VBS. Consult your network administrator.

Requirements: Before proceeding, make sure you know:

  • The desired IP address;
  • Network mask and broadcast address;
  • Gateway address;
  • Your local DNS server address(es).

If you don't know anything from the above, first figure it out. On Windows, you can use command "ipconfig /all" to see these parameters.

The procedure:

  1. Start VBS and login as root.
  2. Edit /etc/network/interfaces file with command joe /etc/network/interfaces. There, find the line that says iface eth0 inet dhcp and comment it out by placing "#" sign in the beginning of the line. Uncomment the section that follows and starts with iface eth0 inet static. Enter the correct IP address, network mask, broadcast address and router address.
  3. Edit /etc/resolv.conf file. Replace any "nameserver" entries you might find there with addresses of your DNS servers. For example, if you have DNS servers 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.5, the file should read:
    nameserver 10.0.0.1
    nameserver 10.0.0.5
  4. Reboot Virtual Bugzilla (type reboot or press Ctrl+Alt+Insert in the console);
  5. When server boots again, verify that you can reach the Internet with ping www.google.com, for example.

4. Assigning Host Name and Domain for VBS

If you'd like your Virtual Bugzilla to be reachable through a good-looking hostname-based URL, let's say http://bugs.company.com, you need to do the following:

  1. Configure static IP for VBS, as described above.
  2. Ask your network administrator, ISP or whoever manages your DNS to map bugs.company.com to the static IP you've set for Virtual Bugzilla;
  3. Log in into VBS as root;
  4. echo bugs >/etc/hostname
  5. echo bugs.company.com >/etc/mailname
  6. sed -i 's/bugzilla.workgroup/bugs.company.com/' /etc/hosts /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf
  7. sed -i 's/bugzilla/bugs/' /etc/hosts /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf
  8. Edit /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/bugzilla and /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/bugzilla.ssl. Where "bugzilla" is mentioned in ServerName, ServerAdmin, and VirtualHost commands, change it to "bugs.company.com".
  9. Edit /bugzilla/data/params and change "urlbase" parameter from a numeric IP address URL to "http://bugs.company.com".
  10. Reboot Virtual Bugzilla.