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Yobitrust Training

Local Machine

To interact with the cloud services and edge devices, you must have a local machine (laptop or workstation) that is connected to the Internet and that provides a Linux (or Linux-like) environment with a modern web browser.

The following sections provide alternatives, listed from most desirable to least desirable.

Native Linux OS

The best configuration is the use of a laptop or workstation that natively runs a Linux or Linux-like operating system. There are many alternatives, most of which can be installed easily on recent hardware.

If you are installing Linux on your machine, you may want to consider some of these alternatives:

  • Ubuntu Desktop: A common, well maintained distribution that aims to keep software versions close to the latest releases. You should prefer a distribution with long term support (LTS). Ubuntu 18.04 is currently the lastest LTS release.

  • Linux Mint: A distribution based on Ubuntu and Debian that provides an excellent graphical user interface with full multimedia support.

  • CentOS: Derived from the RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) distribution, it provides a very stable Linux environment with descent desktop support. (Be sure to include desktop utilities when installing.)

  • OpenBSD: An operating system that prioritizes security. It uses its own, non-Linux kernel, but provides the standard command line utilities needed for this training.

You can also search the web for other alternatives. There are a large number that make different tradeoffs between usability, latest software releases, and security.

MacOS

MacOS available on Apple’s laptops and workstations provides an excellent Linux-like environment. This is a standard part of the distribution and can be used without having to install any additional software. The downside is that the Apple hardware is relatively more expensive than hardware with similar specifications from other vendors.

Ubuntu on Windows 10

If you have a Windows 10 machine and do not want to change the operating system, Ubuntu on Windows provides the Ubuntu Linux interface as an application running within Windows 10. Ubuntu provides detailed information for installing and starting Ubuntu on Windows 10.

Once installed, this provides a terminal with a complete set of the standard Linux command line tools. It is also possible to install additional Linux software as needed.

Linux Virtual Machine

It is possible to install a virtualization platform (hypervisor) on your Windows machine and then create a virtual machine using one of the Linux distributions. There are essentially two options: Microsoft’s Hyper-V and VirtualBox.

The hypervisor takes a significant amount of CPU and memory resources. Unless you have a very capable laptop, the interactive response for this solution is likely to be very frustrating.

PuTTY on Windows

PuTTY is a Secure Shell (SSH) client for Windows. This provides the minimum interface necessary to log into remote cloud and edge resources with the SSH protocol. Information about installing, configuring, and using PuTTY can be found on its website.

This configuration should be used only as a last resort. It is awkward to use and provides only a subset of the tools available in the more complete alternatives listed above.