Building VMs

IMPORTANT: Before attempting to create a virtual machine, you should make sure you are familiar with the procedures required to make a VM safe for use in a lab stage. Your System Administrator should have issued you with documentation that explains how to do this in your environment. If you do not have this documentation, or you do not fully understand it, you should NOT proceed. Instead, consult your System Administrator for advice.

To create a virtual machine, click on Virtual Machines from the main menu. You will be presented with something similar to the screen below (although you may have fewer or more VMs listed):

listofvms

WLab has two types of VMs:

It is important to understand the difference between them. Backend VMs are fixed and cannot be changed by a Tutor. In contrast, a tutor VM can be modified by you (if you own it, or are a superuser) after its initial creation.

Creating a new VM

To create a VM, you must choose an existing one that will serve as a starting point for your new one. This can be a backend VM, or a tutor VM for stage. Clearly, when WLab is used for the very first time, there will be no tutor VMs available, so your system administrator should have set up some initial backend VMs to give you a starting point for your labs. You should liaise with them for further details, or if you need any additional VMs created.

For the example Paintbrush lab, you only need a VM with a basic installation of Windows XP. Your System Administrator should have provided a VM accordingly. Confirm with them which particular VM this is on your system, find it in the list, and click Clone VM.

You will be prompted to give the new VM a name. This name needs to uniquely identify your VM, and cannot subsequently be changed. Ideally, the name should allow you to determine the lab and lab stage that the VM will be used in, so that when it appears in a list you can easily determine its purpose.

Assuming that you are working through the Paintbrush example lab, a name like Paintbrush Demo – VM for stage 1 would be appropriate. Once you have supplied a name for the new VM, click OK.

It will take several minutes for the new VM to be created. During this time, you will see the message Waiting for your session to come on line. Please wait. The page may refresh itself several times during this period, and the Waiting for your session… message might, towards the end of the process, disappear to be replaced by a smaller message that states Connecting to… All of this is normal.

Once the creation process has finished, you should be in a position to edit the new VM.