A quick guide to installing Switchvox on a virtual machine
(Above) Analog Switchvox
Before you begin, you will need a machine with at least a dual core processor, 4 gigs of RAM and 10ish gigs of free HD space. As far as the installed OS goes, I’m going to assume some flavor of Windows.
We’re going to be using two applications- Free Home Switchvox v1.0 and some flavor of a virtual machine. We need the VM because Switchvox is administered via a web GUI and wants a dedicated machine. To this end, I’m going to recommend Sun Virtual Box because of how small it is (70Mbish), and because of it’s opensource GNU goodness factor; however, a VMware product would also be a fine choice.
After downloading the Sun Virtual Box, go ahead and install it. It is free of bloatware/spyware, so click through all the defaults. Be aware that at one point the install will temporarily drop your network connection. At one point you’ll be notified of an ‘unsigned driver’, click ‘Continue Anyway’ and finish out the install.
The Sun Virtual Box creates an network adapter (Start / Control Panel / Network Connections), called “VirtualBox Host-Only Network”. Highlight this adapter, and your network adapter, then right-click one of the icons and choose, “Bridge Connections”.
If it is not running already, start the Sun Virtual Box. Now click the ‘New’ button and create a new virtual box. When prompted for a name, use something like, ‘Switchvox’– but what ever naming convention you wish to use is fine. Choose Linux for the operating system and version Linux 2.6. For base memory, either 512 Mb or a Gig is fine. Finally, create a new Hard Disk and choose “Boot Hard Disk”– something around 8 or 10 Gigs of a fixed disk is fine. The creation of the disk may take some time, so just chill out.
After the disk is created, click on the settings icon, then select network from the menu at the left, and switch ‘NAT’ to ‘Bridged’.
Ok, almost home free– just have to install Switchvox.
Click the start icon, choose “Image File” and point it to where ever you downloaded Free Home Switchvox v1.0 iso. Click finish and, ‘Voila!’- press enter and begin the installation of Free Home Switchvox v1.0.
This is a very straight forward process, just be patient. You may have to wait 3 to 5 minutes during some of the loading processes. After the install is finished, setup is completed via your favorite browser (I haven’t experienced any problems with Chrome, Firefox or IE) by navigating to https://IPaddy.assigned.to.Switchvox/admin and assumes a first time login / password of admin / admin.
Well, that should get you started. Don’t get too frustrated, and remember, Wireshark is your best friend.