Last updated January 3, 2013. Created by MichaelCole on June 6, 2010.
Edited by blacklabel_tom, Matt V., webchick, Bußmeyer. Log in to edit this page.
What is Quickstart?
Q: What is Quickstart?
A: Quickstart is a downloadable, virtual machine, that includes a complete set of tools for building and testing Drupal software and websites.
Q: How do I get Quickstart?
A: Follow the instructions here.
Q: What is the password?
A: 'admin' for Drupal user 'admin', 'quickstart' for everything else.
Q: What does it look like?
A: After you import the image, double-click to start it. It will look like a computer is booting in a window on your desktop, and finally show a Ubuntu desktop.
Q: Is this *the* way to make a Drupal development environment?
A: No, this is just *a* way. Different people have different needs. Feel free to customize, and submit issues with suggestions on improving Quickstart.
Downloading and installing Quickstart
Q: i386 or amd64?
A: I don't know, it depends on your hardware :-)
- Use i386 if you have older hardware, a 32-bit OS, or trouble with the amd64 version.
- Requirements for the amd64 version:
- Computer has a 64-bit CPU (Intel or AMD)
- Computer has VT-X/AMD-V enabled in your BIOS
- Computer has a 64-bit OS
- Quickstart has IO APIC turned on
Q: Ok, I got the .ova file, but it's saying "Failed to import:(VERR_TAR_END_OF_FILE)" WTF?
A: Verify the file name hasn't changed e.g. your browser added a "(1)". Check the download links for the correct file names. bug
Q: Ok, I got the .ova file, but it's not importing for some other reason.
A: Check the file sizes:
- Quickstart-1.0-i386.ova - 1156046336 bytes
- Quickstart-1.0-amd64.ova - 1268723712 bytes
Q: I'm trying to download a project with drush, and getting an error about a corrupt md5. What gives?
Version 1.0 of Quickstart caches the results from Drupal.org to save on bandwidth. However, sometimes this cache can get corrupted. Try entering the following in the terminal:
export http_proxy=and you should be back in business!
Note that this caching functionality is planned to be removed in a future version to prevent this issue.
Using Quickstart
Q: Where do I put my websites?
A: In the websites folder on the desktop. See here for more info on setting up new sites. Quickstart provides some powerful tools for this.
Q: WTF?! Ubuntu keeps freezing!
A: Turn off nested paging.
Shut down the VM. Right-click in VBox window -> Settings -> System -> Acceleration -> Un-check "Enable Nested Paging".
A: And/Or use only one CPU. This may be fixed in VBox 4, but for VBox 3, I run with one CPU.
Q: I wish there was an easy way to [blank]. Is there a list of that?
A: Yes, check out the quick tips section.
Q: Sometimes downloads from ftp.drupal.org are cached, sometimes not? What's up with that?
A: Quickstart 0.9 comes configured with squid proxy to cache drush downloads from ftp.drupal.org. Rebooting the virtual machine clears the cache. Instead of rebooting, click "close", and select "save the machine state". This will hibernate the virtual machine.
Q: I keep getting this popup to update the guest additions? What's up with that?
A: This is safe to ignore. The version included are the "Open Source" additions, and they are configured to "re-install" automatically after kernel updates. If you want to use the "most recent" version, run this command to uninstall, but be aware you'll need to re-install after every Linux kernel update. sudo apt-get remove virtualbox-ose-guest-x11
Q: How do I edit files with my favorite windows/mac/non-linux program
A: There isn't an amazing way to do this, but there are some options:
1) use shared folders (this puts files on host computer) and copy files from guest to host and back
2) use version control commits and updates to copy changes between host and guest
3) find alternate software: Top left -> Applications -> Ubuntu Software Center (I haven't found a good dreamweaver replacement)
4) suggestions?
Unfortunately, Virtualbox doesn't support "symbolic links" for shared folders.
Q: How do I view my websites in IE/Safari, or from another computer?
A: Configure Virtualbox to do "Bridged Networking"
Q: Sooooo slooooooooowwwwww!
A: Check out the performance tips.
Q: Shared folders isn't working. What's up with that?
A: If you are sharing a folder under version control, it may take some time for RabbitVCS to display it. Better to copy the folder into the virtual machine.
Q: Can I get my PHP 5.2 back?
A: Yes, you can. Follow these instructions to switch back to PHP 5.2.
Q: How can I debug email?
A: By default, email sent within Quickstart is logged to the filesystem under /home/quickstart/logs/websites/logs/mail/. For more details, see the Debugging Email screencast.
Q: What is the Quickstart user password?
A: quickstart
Comments
How do I edit files with my favorite windows/mac/non-linux app ?
By accessing all files using ftp = my solution
Because all serieus development tools support remote ftp access.
The easiest way (no typing unknown command strings ;-) to enable ftp:
1 - Go to www.webmin.com (this is a web-based admin tool; very usefull for non-linux people like me)
2 - Download the webmin Debian package (Ubuntu is Debian-based) and let the Ubuntu Software Center handle the install (default action in Firefox)
3 - Open https://localhost:10000/ and login with quickstart, quickstart
4 - Go to Un-used Modules in the left column
5 - Find ProFTP Server and have webmin install it
6 - Go to Servers in the left column and select ProFTP Server
7 - Go to Authentication
8 - Select Allow login by root? = Yes
9 - Open ftp in your favorite dev tool and go to /home/quickstart/websites for a list of all created websites
Warning: the whole machine is now accessable by remote ftp for user quickstart. This is a big security risk ! But no problem for my local development stuff.
FTP server
Hi,
so in order to Ftp remotely, say komodoEdit IDE. I would enter in the ftp://[the ipadress of thquickstart Virtual box ] / and set the port to 21? or ftps://
Wouldn't I have set up the samba server?
The only connection so far is a shared virtual box edition.
"I can't be fooled by your hollywood trickery!!!" - Peter Sellers -The fiendish plot of Dr. Fu Man Chu
ftp server
Got everything running smoothly. Webmin installation with the ftp server module added. configured my host file on windows with the IPaddress testsite.dev #quickstart . Had the ftp server set to login as root. Bridged the virtualhost adapter and the local area adapter in windows 7. Made sure the network adapter was a bridge Adaptor after setting up several test.dev sites. Logged in with KomodoEdit and wham shazam. Can view and edit remotedly. Wonderful. Took snapshots along the way.
I'm going to try installing virtualmin to see if I can get bloaty with this and install a bazillion Content management systems.
"I can't be fooled by your hollywood trickery!!!" - Peter Sellers -The fiendish plot of Dr. Fu Man Chu
Works for Drupal 8 also
I just used Quickstart 1.0 to create a new test Drupal 8 installation as well. I just edited the default.make to
core = 8.x
and then ran:
drush qc --domain=example8.devWorked like a charm. Quickstart is an awesome project!
Awesome!
Awesome!
How do I edit files with my favorite windows/mac/non-linux app ?
I'd recommend setting up a SAMBA share on the quickstart VM and then mapping it as a network drive on the host machine using a 'Host-only Network Adapter.' This way, both operating systems can treat the files as if they were local and you don't have to copy files around.
Excellent instructive thread on this process here:
http://drupal.org/node/1107462
"There is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so worth doing as simply messing around in boats!"
Grasmash.com - Drupal Tech Blog
How do I edit files with my favorite windows/mac/non-linux app ?
Another take on this topic specifically for OS X. I've used this for several weeks and found it very reliable.
I mount the VM or a part of it as an OS X volume with sshfs. Don't use MacFuse, it's doesn't work on recent versions of OS X. Use Fuse4X instead.
To mount a volume on the command line from the Mac use: sshfs yourname@192.168.xx.xxx:/path_to_folder_in_the_vm /path_to_folder_on_the_mac -oauto_cache
Thanks to the auto_cache option the changes will be automatically visible on both sides almost instantly.
I've found I had to create two virtual network cards in VirtualBox: card 1 is in Private network mode, card 2 is in NAT mode.
Minor annoyance: files with extended attributes, like images, create a ._filename file when you add then on the Mac side. I'll have to play with some options like noappledouble or noapplexattr to see if it can be avoided.
Good for other PHP frameworks too
I have been tasked to create an application with a non-Drupal PHP framework (in this case Yii) and wanted to get a debugging environment up and running ASAP. I knew the Quickstart environment worked well for Drupal, so I did the following.
1. Create a new project with
drush qc --domain=yii.dev2. Delete all of the Drupal code under /home/quickstart/websites/yii.dev
3. Copy the files that are under the yii/demos/blog project to /home/quickstart/websites/yii.dev (where yii is the root for the yii download).
4. Copy the contents of the yii/framework directory under the /home/quickstart directory (i.e. /home/quickstart/framework). This is not really necessary, but if you do this, you don't have to change the relative references in the blog project)
5. Now you can go through the steps for setting up a debugging project with NetBeans that Michael Cole has documented so well in his videos. The same steps can be used for this Yii project, including removing the 'localhost' in the URL.
Now you can set break points in the Yii blog project and debug just like a Drupal project. Very cool! I would imagine this would work similarly for other PHP frameworks (CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Symfony, etc.) as well.
No HTTP connection after Booting
Squid3 uses it's own DNS resolver and tries to get the DNS servers from /etc/resolv.conf at startup. If the DHCP-configured network of yor VM is not available at this point Squid isn't getting information about DNS servers and therefor fails to connect to the net. A restart of Squid usually fixes this:
sudo /etc/init.d/squid3 restartTo solve that permanently you may edit /etc/squid3/squid.conf and add the dns_nameservers directive using your local or any open DNS server like 8.8.8.8 (Google).
See also https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/squid/+bug/97513/ for a Ubuntu bug report.
This is good But loaded punch of extra stuff
Thank you for quickstart.
Can you expand why the following is needed @ the Virtual Machine OS?
Could be nice if they were optional.
-squid3
-samba
Thanks for this excellent project!
I loved Quickstart so much I have adopted it as my default development environment. I did some customization, however, in order for it to be a perfect fit mostly to my teaching and consulting projects. Basically, I am using Ubuntu 11.10, my version uses the Brazilian Portuguese as a default language (but this can be easily changed), Aptana Deselopment Studio is installed (with the Drupal coding standards as recommended by the excellen book "Drupal 7 Development by Example - Beginner's Guide" (Kurt Madel, Packt Publishing). The string replacement tool rpl is also included.
My virtual machine is available here.
Note! This is not a fork! It is just a customization for my very own needs.