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WordPress MU Development Virtual Appliance (10 posts)

  1. kingler
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Main idea:

    Use VMWare or Microsoft Virtualization software to emulate a server on your desktop/laptop, dedicated for developing WordPress/WPMU/bbPress themes and plugins. Easily test your themes or plugins across different versions.

    Features:

    1. Latest versions (WordPress 2.1.1, WPMU 1.1.1, bbPress 0.8.1) pre-installed

    2. Easy to update subversion nightly available.(simply run 'svn update' in the SVN folders)

    3. Local testing. FTP/SFTP/SSH access provided. Nothing to worry about. Easy to recover from errors.

    4. Newbie friendly, all Web-based administration, backup/restore features, server configuration, reboots, and updates.

    Beta-testing now.

    For screenshots, download and quick guide, please visit http://en.72pines.org/the-ultimate-wordpress-mu-development-appliance/

    Comments/feedbacks/feature requests are all welcome.

  2. kingler
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Videos for setting up the Virtual Appliance are now posted. Check out the pages on the side:

    http://en.72pines.org/wordpress-mu/

    It only takes 1-minute to finish setting up passwords.
    and another minute to set up a working WordPress 2.1.1 or WordPress MU 1.1.1 installation.

    Take a look.

    I am hoping that it will be useful for the WPMU community, if more theme and plugin writers for WordPress can easily test the compatibility of their theme/plugin using this Virtual Appliance.

  3. bradmkjr
    Blocked
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Might want to have a look at:
    http://www.jumpbox.com/wordpress-blogging-jumpbox/

    They did a pretty nice job, but there is room for improvement. What is lacks is a tool to import my current site(s) into the appliance.

    I will check out your project once I get the site to load, right now it isn't working (maybe my internet)

    Bradford Knowlton
    http://x86Virtualization.com/

  4. kingler
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Sorry for the outage. Last night, the server underwent a hardware maintenance, and it was offline for about an hour.

    Jumpbox is a nice idea. However, it is more targeted at end-users to get a WordPress blog and try out the features.

    However, my focus is to provide developers, like most people on this forum, a quick tool to test out things and track the latest WP, WPMU, bbPress development. For example, you can test the theme pack released by James using this Appliance, and with a bit of subversion knowledge, you can test the theme pack compatibility with different versions within minutes.

  5. kingler
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    I have taken a look at the Jumpbox thing. It has a nice interface for configurations, but compared with rPath, they still have a long way to go before their time for mainstream virtualization solutions. As they are in beta, and the appliance has a licence code built-in. I suspect they might start charging money later on. Just my impressions.

  6. kingler
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Just updated to release 0.2

    Changes and bug fix:

    * Error reporting is now turned on by default in PHP.
    * “web” user is added to the /etc/sudoers list.
    * WordPress updated to the latest release 2.1.2
    * WordPress/WordPress MU/bbPress SVN all updated to the latest nightly.
    * Additionally command line tools added, ncftp, gzip, unrar, zip, unzip

    http://en.72pines.org/wordpress-mu/

  7. iolaire
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    kingler thanks for setting this up, I actually tested it out yesterday using VMWare's newest beta on a MacBook. For some reason I could not connect to the image IP via safari, the connection would timeout. I did not debug it but rather installed WPMU on the mac. I may be willing to spend some time in the future if you do need help debugging but don't really know where to start. If you would like to follow up I'm at iolaire xxxxx at /// usa.net

  8. scrollinondubs
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    hi, I'm from JumpBox...

    Kingler is right on the money that the Wordpress JumpBox we built is intended for end users to get a WP blog up and running instantly. The "Famous 5-min install" listed on the WP FAQ page now becomes all of about 20sec with JumpBox. We have a new release we're posting tomorrow that brings it current with the latest WP version and has other improvements to the admin interface as well as the ability to unlock the JumpBox and have shell access to the VM.

    The key distinction here is that Kingler's VM is a tool for developers working w/ WP while ours is for people evaluating it. You can try it out and if you like it, you can unlock it and it becomes production-grade appliance so the time spent evaluating it and adding data wasn't wasted. We will charge a nominal fee at some point (hey we gotta keep our lights on - we're thinking $50 but that's TBD). The idea is to save people the setup process. We may do an nag screen or advertising in place of crippling it via timeout on the JumpBox but the goal remains to make opensource apps like Wordpress accessible to non-technical users and save the technical users the tedious setup process.

    Kingler- i know we have a ways to go but I'm curious, what did you find deficient about the JumpBox that rPath does better? I would say we beat them in usability and our stuff runs on Xen, Parallels and VMware from a single file. We're admittedly a small self-funded startup and they have 3yrs headstart on us. Would love to have your feedback on what we could do better-> http://www.jumpbox.com/?page_id=56&forumaction=showforum&forum=6

    Sean

  9. kingler
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    iolaire, I used VMWare Fusion beta 2 on my Mac as well. It worked very good. I am not sure what the problem was for you. Try download the LAMP Appliance and test that one out. I am guessing this is a problem with your Fusion installation.

    The nice feature of Fusion is the Snapshot button. With one-click, you can reset back to the initial state of the installation.

    I use that snapshot feature to test things. It is super handy. Say if you want to play with a plugin, take a snapshot before you upload the file. After you are done playing with the plugin, simply revert to the snapshot and you got a clean version. No more need to re-install, and within a second, you got a clean set of files and a clean database as well.

  10. kingler
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Hi, scrollinondubs

    Jumpbox is a pretty cool app, and I think the concept that you can use a single file for different Virtualization Tools is very cool. However, it is not really a big selling point, as people are usually used to only one virtualization tool. It is especially true, if you are targeting end-users.

    I like rPath a bit better, because I can build my own Linux box simply using their web interface, and it is customized to my specific needs. It is perfect for developing new themes/plugins for WP for us.

    Jumpbox can be improved for the targeted audience. You guys already have a nice interface and I think adding more features tailored to the general audience would be great.

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