This week's task was to create virtual network which will be similar to our lab's network in order to test and evaluate Squid caching proxy server. Lab's server has 2 network adapters: one is connected to university's network, which has proxy, and another is hosting local network inside the lab, which uses transparent proxy implemented via redsocks. So all machines in our lab "think" that they don't have a proxy.

I started by trying to create virtual machines using KVM (link to the tutorial I used). But unfortunately it was unsuccessful, mainly this was because I'm not experienced in dealing with Linux (bash/shell), and also as I found later this was guide for installation on the text based Linux server.

Then my colleague Temirlan gave me 2 openSUSE (one of the many Linux distributive which has nice configuration tool YaST) machines which had an internet connection. However, I was only the user of these machines, so it was really hard to create virtual network and also KVM machines was really slow, so it was nearly impossible to work on them.

Finally, I have created VM on VirtualBox. Creation of the VM in VirtualBox is really easy, since you just need to have OS instillation CD or .iso file. Virtual server runs openSUSE 12.3 x64 minimal server edition, and virtual client runs Ubuntu 12.10 x64 edition. Server has 2 network adapters: first is NAT, which will provide internet connection from host machine (one of the lab's Ubuntu desktop which I use to run VirtualBox). second is Host-Only adapter, which will allow to see other virtual machines. On the client machine there is only Host-Only adapter. I have installed openssh-server on both VMs and configured them, so now I can ssh between VMs and server can also ssh to Host machine.

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