Generic Ubuntu Server Setup Scripts for Networking and VMware Tools

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of Ubuntu Server installs for JumpStarts with their intended use to become a JSS or JDS server. It’s easy to spin up a full clone or linked clone on my laptop, but when I’m at customer’s location they usually only have an ISO that was downloaded some time ago… so we’re starting from scratch. With a brand new Ubuntu Server VM, there are a few steps that you need to perform to make your life easier in the long run.

Server Setup

On ever Ubuntu Server setup there are a couple of items that you should do first before trying to install the JDS or JSS installers. We need the following:

• Server FQDN (you should have already populated your internal DNS with the associated IP address)
• Networking info (IP Address, gateway, subnet mask, etc)
• Install openssh-server (and possibly curl) on our new VM

Assuming we have the above items, console into your new Ubuntu VM and perform a sudo apt-get install openssh-server so we can SSH into the box from Terminal (it’s much easier to work with). We can then scp ubuntuSetup.sh and execute the script to make sure you have the latest and greatest version of Ubuntu Server (since this is from an ISO that who knows how long ago) by doing a apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade. These updates may take some time, so be patient if you decided to run these commands.

Next we’re going to input our FQDN and Networking info into the script so it can update the following files on our behalf:

• /etc/hosts
• /etc/hostname
• /etc/network/interfaces

This script is available on my github repo at: https://github.com/justinrummel/Random-Scripts/blob/master/VMWare/ubuntuSetup.sh, watch it in action below.

VMware Tools

The next script makes sure that you have the proper VMware Tools installed on Ubuntu Server just in case you need to share a folder on your host computer to your Ubuntu server. The storage point will be /mnt/hgfs/<<your folder name>>. This script will try to mount the CDROM on your VM, so be sure it is pointing to the VMware Linux Tools ISO by choosing Virtual Machine => Install VMware Tools.

#!/bin/bash

# Copyright (c) 2015 Justin Rummel
#
# Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
# of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
# in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
# to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
# copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
# furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
#
# The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
# all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
#
# THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
# IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
# FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
# AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
# LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
# OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
# THE SOFTWARE.

# Created by Justin Rummel
# Version 1.0.0 - 11/15/2012

# Modified by
# Version


### Description
# Goal is to install VMWare Tools on an Ubuntu Server.  Don't forget to mount the CD first!

# variables
cdMNT="/mnt/cdrom/"
cdDEV="/dev/cdrom/"

### Be sure to select "Install VMWare Tools" from the "Virtual Machine" dropdown menu in VMWare Fusion
[ ! -d "${cdMNT}" ] && { echo "creating ${cdMNT}"; sudo mkdir "${cdMNT}"; } || { echo "${cdMNT} already exists.  Moving on..."; }
[ ! -d "${cdDEV}" ] && { echo "mounting ${cdDEV} to ${cdMNT}"; sudo mount "${cdDEV}" "${cdMNT}"; }

vmTGZ=`find "${cdMNT}" -name "VMwareTools*"` 2>/dev/null

cd /tmp
if [ -e "${vmTGZ}" ]; then
	cp "${cdMNT}${vmTGZ}" ./
	tar xzvf "${vmTGZ}"
	cd vmware-tools-distrib/
	sudo apt-get install build-essential
	sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`
	sudo ./vmware-install.pl --default
	sudo reboot
else
	echo "Something went wrong.  Stopping now."
	exit 1
fi
exit 0