Rocks in a Box: Virtual Rocks Cluster with Oracle’s VirtualBox

Introduction

I had the idea for this article while trying to create a virtual cluster using a distribution of Linux (CentOS) that is modified for parallel computing. There is some documentation out there on how to do this, but I had to piece together multiple documents to be able to get my “Rocks in a Box” running, so I’ve documented my steps here which will hopefully have all the steps required to get your parallel virtual machine up and running.

Please note, this machine, although parallel, cannot possibly be any faster than the machine on which it is created. This demonstration should be used solely as practice setting up a Rocks Cluster if you decide to do so on multiple real machines, in which case some networking will be required. Also, there are other ways to set up parallel networks, in or out of VirtualBox, I will cover these in future articles.

Process

1. Downloading Oracle VirtualBox

Downloads for VirtualBox for Linux, Windows, OS X, and Solaris can be found at the following site:

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Be sure to choose the correct download for the operating system you are currently running.

2. Downloading Rocks Operating System

I downloaded Rocks from DistroWatch.com at the following address: