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<<TableOfContents(2)>>

1. The Sage Virtual Machine

This page describes how to use the virtual machine that you can download from http://www.sagemath.org/download-windows.html. If you want to create your own virtual machine, go to the VirtualBox wiki page instead.

1.1. Requirements

The Sage appliance (packaged virtual machine) can be used on any operating system that supports the free VirtualBox player, for example Microsoft Windows. Your computer must have at least 2.5 GB (!) of free disk space and at least 512 MB of RAM. The virtual machine can also be used with other hypervisors like VMware. However, unless you are already familiar with VMware, we recommend that you use VirtualBox. In our experience, it is easier for non-technical users.

1.2. Installation

  1. Download VirtualBox (available at http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads). Install it anywhere you want. Version 4 or later is required.

  2. Download the file Sage-x.y.z.ova located in the directory where this README is.
  3. Open VirtualBox. Import sage-x.y.z.ova by clicking File, then Import Appliance. Make sure you read the Information boxes that appear, as they explain how to type and use the mouse pointer in the running VirtualBox window.

  4. If you only want to access Sage through the web browser notebook interface (i.e., to write or run worksheets), you do not need to complete any further installation. You may go on to the next section to find out how to use Sage.
  5. If you want to enable shared folders between Sage and your Windows system, complete the following steps:
    1. In the running VirtualBox window, click Devices, then Shared Devices.

    2. Click on the icon with a green + in the upper right corner.

    3. Select the path of the Windows folder that you want to share.
    4. Check auto-mount and make permanent. Click OK, then click OK again.

    5. From the menu, select Machine, then Reset. The files will be in /media/sf_<volume name>.

1.3. Using the Sage Notebook

  1. Start VirtualBox.

  2. To start the Sage notebook server, power on Sage-x.y.z by selecting it and clicking 'Start'. (This may take awhile. You may see some warning messages you can safely ignore.)
  3. Wait a few moments until the running VirtualBox window displays a message saying Open your web browser to ... Open your web broswer (it's best to use Firefox or Chrome) and go to the address http://localhost:8000.

  4. If you would like other users to be able to create additional accounts on the same local virtual machine, you will first need to complete some further steps. See the advanced options section below.
  5. When you are finished working with Sage, logout and close your browser

    as usual. In the running VirtualBox window, click Machine, then Close. Select Send the shutdown signal then click OK. You may now close VirtualBox.

1.4. Using the Sage shell

  1. Start VirtualBox if you have not already done so.

  2. Power on sage-x.y.z (if you have not already done so) by selecting it and clicking Start.

  3. Once the virtual machine is powered on, press Ctrl C twice to quit the Sage notebook.

  4. Type
    ./sage
    on the command line to start a shell interface in Sage.
  5. To work with files attached in a shared folder (if you have shared folders enabled), type
    attach /media/sf_<volume name>/filename
    in the Sage command line session.

1.5. Troubleshooting

2. Advanced Options

  • You can log into the virtual machine from the text-mode console. Press Alt-F1 for a different tty. The user account running the Sage notebook server is called sage with password sage. The root account password is sage, too.

  • You can also log into the virtual machine via ssh to port 2222. For example, with the command-line ssh client you would type
    ssh -p 2222 localhost
    on the host computer to log into the virtual machine.
  • Advanced users may want to note that the sage user is in the sudoers file now. You can run any command with administrative rights by sudo <command>.

  • List available optional packages with the optional_packages() command and type install_package('exact package name') to install a package. You can do this from an input box in the notebook.

  • To upgrade between stable releases, you can type the following at the command prompt:
    [sage@localhost sage]$ sage -upgrade
    Running an upgrade will take a significant amount of time.

    This will merge your changes to the Sage library with the latest version of Sage and build everything.

    WARNING: This will use up more disk space and is not guaranteed to result in a working upgraded Sage installation.

2.1. Giving Others Access to the Sage Virtual Machine

You can run the Sage appliance as a server on the network, so that others can access it similar to http://www.sagenb.org. In this case, you have to make some changes to the virtual machine such that not everybody can log in.

  1. Log into the virtual machine as root: In the virtual machine, press Alt-F1, log in as user root with password sage. See the advanced options section for more details.

  2. Once you are logged in as root, change the password for both the root and sage user account:
    [root@sage ~]# passwd root
    Changing password for user root.
    Retype new password: 
    passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.
    [root@sage ~]# passwd sage
    Changing password for user sage.
    Retype new password: 
    passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.
  3. Now switch to the sage account. You can either log in as sage with the new password, or type
    [root@sage ~]# su sage
    [sage@sage root]$ cd
    [sage@sage ~]$
  4. Configure the notebook server to start in a secure mode. For this, you have to edit the .bash_profile file in the sage account. For example, type

    [sage@sage ~]$ nano .bash_profile
    and replace the line
    ./sage -notebook interface=\'\' port=8000 open_viewer=False require_login=False
    with
    ./sage -notebook interface=\'\' port=8000 open_viewer=False require_login=True secure=True

    Then press Ctrl X to exit, and y when nano asks you to save the file before exiting (save it again as .bash_profile).

  5. Now reboot the virtual appliance:
    [sage@sage ~]$ exit
    exit
    [root@sage ~]# reboot
  6. Upon the reboot, Sage will ask for some further information. You will find the following in the VirtualBox window:

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Sage Version ..., Release Date: ...                                |
    | Type notebook() for the GUI, and license() for information.        |
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    
    Please wait while the Sage Notebook server starts...
    ...
    notebook(interface=r'''''''',port=8000,open_viewer=False,require_login=True,secure=True)
    The notebook files are stored in: sage_notebook.sagenb
    In order to use an SECURE encrypted notebook, you must first run notebook.setup().
    Now running notebook.setup()
    Domain name [localhost]: 
    Simply press return to use the default domain name. A SSL cryptographic key is then automatic created with this hostname.
  7. Now set up an admin password for the Sage notebook server. Unless you have set up such an account previously, Sage will ask you for a password automatically:
    Please choose a new password for the Sage Notebook 'admin' user.
    Do _not_ choose a stupid password, since anybody who could guess your password
    and connect to your machine could access or delete your files.
    NOTE: Only the md5 hash of the password you type is stored by Sage.
    You can change your password by typing notebook(reset=True).
    
    Enter new password: 
    Please enter a new password following the instructions.
  8. Optional: Once your Sage server is secured, you can make it accessible from the network. For this, you have to stop the virtual machine (not just suspend it). Then, in the VirtualBox window, go to Settings -> Network -> Adapter 1. It does say Attached to: NAT. Switch it to Bridged Adapter. Click OK and restart the virtual machine. Note: This makes your virtual machine accessible from the network. Only perform this step after you have changed passwords and configured the notebook server to be secure, as described above.

  9. Optional: Give the Sage virtual machine more resources, so it can server more clients. Go to Settings -> System. On the Motherboard tab, increase Base Memory to about half of the physical ram of your host computer. On the Processor tab, increase the number of processors to your host CPU number of cores. Finally, on the Acceleration tab, enable VT-x/AMD-V if your CPU supports this.

To connect to the Sage server, you have to use https://... instead of http://.... For example, on the host computer where the virtual machine is running, the Sage server listens at https://localhost:8000. Since our SSL key is not signed by a certificate authority (which you can do, but it does cost money) web browsers will show a warning that the authority of the key cannot be verified. While a signed SSL key would provide a higher level of security, the network data between the browser and the Sage server is nevertheless encrypted.

2.2. How to become a Sage developer

Some Unix familiarity is assumed below. If you've never used anything but Windows, some of this won't make sense.

  1. Change to the $SAGE_ROOT directory:

    [sage@localhost directory]$ cd
    [sage@localhost ~]$ cd sage
    [sage@localhost sage]$ 
  2. To actually edit files, you'll perhaps want to install the editor of your choice. For example, to install Emacs do this:
    [sage@localhost sage]$ sudo yum install emacs
    The nano editor is included.
  3. Now type, for example,
    [sage@localhost sage]$ cd devel/sage/sage/rings/
    [sage@localhost rings]$ emacs arith.py
    or
    [sage@localhost rings]$ nano arith.py
    and edit the file to your heart's content.
  4. Save the file and type sage -br to build the changes and install them:

    [sage@localhost rings]$ cd
    [sage@localhost ~]$ cd sage
    [sage@localhost sage]$ sage -br
    ----------------------------------------------------------
    sage: Building and installing modified SAGE library files.
    ...
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    | SAGE Version x.y.z, Release Date: .........