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BMX - Generic VM Template

Setup

Update Host

apt update

Install sudo:

apt install sudo

Add a user:

usermod -aG sudo yourusername

Add user to sudoers:

As root, open /etc/sudoers.

Add this entry to the bottom:

yourusername ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

Package Install

Update the base image:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y

Install core admin and networking tools:

sudo apt install -y \
  openssh-server sudo ca-certificates curl wget gnupg lsb-release \
  nano vim less bash-completion locales tzdata \
  iproute2 net-tools dnsutils iputils-ping traceroute tcpdump nmap netcat-openbsd \
  htop iotop lsof psmisc strace procps sysstat \
  jq tree file unzip zip tar rsync dos2unix \
  apache2-utils openssl \
  chrony \
  git make build-essential python3 python3-pip python3-venv \
  nfs-common cifs-utils \
  parted gdisk smartmontools acl \
  tmux screen ncdu \
  sqlite3

Install network tools:

sudo apt install -y mtr-tiny socat

Install certificate debugging tools:

sudo apt install -y ssl-cert

Install http API debugging tools:

sudo apt install -y httpie

Install process debugging tools:

sudo apt install -y dstat

Install NGINX

sudo apt install -y nginx
sudo systemctl enable nginx
sudo systemctl start nginx

Install Docker

First remove conflicting packages:

sudo apt remove -y docker.io docker-doc docker-compose podman-docker containerd runc || true

Add Docker repo and key:

sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | \
  sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] \
  https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo $VERSION_CODENAME) stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

Install Docker:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y \
  docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io \
  docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Enable Docker:

sudo systemctl enable docker
sudo systemctl start docker

Allow user to run Docker without sudo:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Add offline package management for Docker:

sudo apt install -y dpkg-dev

.NET Runtime

This requires a couple steps.

Do this, first:

wget https://packages.microsoft.com/config/debian/13/packages-microsoft-prod.deb -O packages-microsoft-prod.deb

sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb

rm packages-microsoft-prod.deb

sudo apt update

Install the runtime:

sudo apt install -y dotnet-runtime-8.0

Install the aspnet runtime:

sudo apt install -y aspnetcore-runtime-8.0

Install the .NET sdk:

sudo apt install -y dotnet-sdk-8.0

Verify the installed version:

dotnet --info

Have it list the runtimes, as well:

dotnet --list-runtimes

Do a quick hello world, to test the runtime.

mkdir ./dotnet-test && cd ./dotnet-test

dotnet new console
dotnet run

Cleanup

sudo apt autoremove --purge -y
sudo apt clean
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=1d
sudo rm -rf /tmp/* /var/tmp/*

Validation Checks

systemctl status nginx
systemctl status docker
docker run hello-world

Template Reset Script

The template VM has a reset script installed at: /etc/template/reset.sh.

Run it each time you shutdown the template VM, to reset needed info, for cloning.

It can be executed with this:

sudo /etc/template/reset.sh

The script contents are here: Template VM Reset Script

Zero Out Free Space

To make the VM smaller, this needs to be done.

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/EMPTY bs=1M status=progress || true
sudo rm /EMPTY
sync

 

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