A common desktop costs at least two thousand in china, and sometimes it takes our IT department’s money and labor to fix when the problems of software, system and hardware occur. In order to reduce the investment in IT equipment, simplify the management and improve both efficiency and capacity of problem solving, many company has adopted the Cloud Office.
More information about cloud office, please refer to Desktop virtualization.
To make cloud office come true, first you can run several virtual hosts on a server, which you can realize it by using VirtualBox, KVM, Xen, Hyper-V etc. Second, you are able to run the remote desktop software on the client computer such as PC, Mac, mobilephone, pad, or IBOX.
In this blog, we will use the open source free software Virtual Box as the virtualized tool and cost saving IBOX as the client computer to demonstrate how to deploy a cloud office environment.
Network Topology
Virtual Host
1. Install VirtualBox on Linux
Please refer to its official manual: VirtualBox installing on Linux hosts
2. Create Win8 virtual host
Please refer to VirtualBox official manual – Configure virtual machines and Guest Additions for Windows to create Win8 virtual host and install Guest Additions.
3. Activate the Win8 Remote Desktop
When you login to Win8, click “control panel-> system and security->Allow remote access” and choose “Allow Remote Assistance connections to this computer
4. Change the Setting of Firewall
Click “control panel->Windows firewall->Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall”, find and choose “Remote Desktop”
5. Record Host IP Address
Click “control panel->Network and Sharing Center->Ethernet->Details…” write down the win8 virtual host IP address
IBOX as Client
1. Install remote desktop software
Login IBOX, open the terminal window, and type the command: sudo apt-get install remmina to install the remote desktop software.
2. Configure remote desktop software
Start Remmina, you would be asked to type the Win8 virtual host IP address, username and password. What’s more, you should set the quality of image as Best(slowest) in the advanced option.
3. Connect the Remote Desktop of Virtual Host
Use the remote connection setting you just make to login the win8 virtual host by clicking “Connect”.
