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These sandboxes demostrate learning management systems with basic predefined propertis (users, courses, etc.).

iCamp Moodle sandbox (243 MB, 686 MB uncompressed)

iCamp .LRN sandbox (231 MB, 703 MB uncompressed)

iCamp IVA sandbox (223 MB, 658 MB uncompressed)

Description

The sandboxes are images of the virtual computers that can be run in VMware Player. The development process was focused to easy and universal use of these images.

Requirements

The virtual computer runs on Mandrake Linux 10.1. Each sandbox starts to the text mode; however, the graphical interface KDE 3.2 can be also started. There are basically two accounts:
1. login: root, password: icamproot
2. login: icamp, no password

Each sandbox has predefined all of the possible type of users (professor, student, staff etc.). All users have assigned fictive email …@icamp.eu. The sandbox can be turned off by command halt or by icon Shutdown in the middle of desktop in KDE interface.

Moodle sandbox description

There are four predefined users:
1. login: admin, password: icamproot
2. login: creator, password: creator
3. login: teacher, password: teacher
4. login: student, password: student
Admin has limitless rights, creator can create courses and teacher and student have very limited access (see Moodle documentation). In addition there are two predefined courses – Mathematics and Physics.

Moodle runs on server with the following software:
- Apache2 ver. 2.0.50
- PHP ver. 4.3.8
- MySQL ver. 5.1.11
- Moodle ver. 1.6.1

.LRN sandbox description

There are four predefined users:
1. login: staff@icamp.eu, password: icamproot
2. login: professor@icamp.eu, password: professor
3. login: external@icamp.eu, password: external
4. login: student@icamp.eu, password: student
The administrator of the .LRN virtual server is user staff@icamp.eu.

There is predefined one department – Department of Natural Science. Two subjects are located in this department – Physics and Chemistry. There are also classes in Winter and Summer terms. Other deparments, subjects and classes can be easily created by user staff (see .LRN documentation).

.LRN portal runs on server with the following software:
- AOLserver ver. 4.5.0
- PostgreSQL ver. 7.4.7
- TCL ver. 8.4.9
- tDOM ver. 0.8.0
- nscache ver. 1.5
- nspostgres ver. 4.0
- nssha1 ver. 0.1
- .LRN ver. 2.1.1

IVA sandbox description

IVA portal runs on Zope platform. It is possible to login directly to IVA portal as can be seen on welcome screen of the sandbox.

There are three predefined users:
1. login: admin, password: icamproot
2. login: teacher, password: teacher
3. login: student, password: student
There are two predefined courses – Mathematics and Physics

IVA portal runs on server with the following software:
- Zope ver. 2.8.8
- PyXML ver. 0.8.4
- PlacelessTranslationService ver. 1.2.1
- ZWiki ver. 0.56.0
- CMF ver. 1.6.0
- IVA ver. 1.1

Step by step

1. Download and install VMware Player (if not already installed)
2. Download the package
3. Extract the package and execute the file with extension *.vmx
4. Wait until you see black screen with promt localhost login:
5. Login as an icamp user (type icamp and press enter)
6. Than you will see welcome text with the IP address of the virtual server. Now the virtual computer is the server with preinstalled LMS. There are two possibilities.
   1. Run internet browser (Internet Explorer, Mozilla, FireFox, etc.) on your real computer. Type the address you can see on welcome screen in WMPlayer. Than you can work in LMS directly on your computer.
   2. Type startx and press enter. The graphical interface KDE 3.2 is now starting. After that you can run Konqueror (default KDE internet browser) and work on virtual computer. Type the address from welcom screen. If you can`t remember the address run console (terminal). The welcome screen is displayed again here.

Limitations

There are also some limitations. Because of problems with accessibility to SMTP servers from all locations the sandboxes are not able to send e-mails. This is very important because when new user is registred the confirmation e-mail is not send. However, this limitation is not critical for LMS utilization. Testing and other functions are still available. Even new users can be added; however, by special approach according to the actual LMS.

The simulated graphical driver in VMware Player is another limitation. When the graphical interface is switched back to the text mode the screen splits to four small subscreens. This limitation is caused by VMware Player and might be eliminated by next version of this software. This problem can be solved by using only graphical interface or by restarting the sandbox. When the virtual computer is restarted it starts allways in text mode that is correctly displayed.

Sandboxes

The sandbox is an environment in which code or content changes can be tested without affecting the original system. Sandboxing protects “live” servers and their data, vetted source code distributions and other collections of code, data and/or content, proprietary or public, from changes that could be damaging (regardless of the intent of the author of those changes) to a mission-critical system or which could simply be difficult to revert. Sandboxes replicate at least the minimal functionality needed to test accurately the programs or other code under development.

In this case the sandbox is an image of virtual computer that can be run as an independent instance in computer. This virtual computer has its own IP address as well as other hardware that is simulated by host application. These images are developed in VMware and might be run in free software VMware Player.

The sandboxes contain learning management systems (LMS) with specific properties. These sandboxes might be downloaded for free and used for testing actual functions or developing new ones.