Installing CMSysHelper on a VM

The CMSysHelper app allows the Course Manager Learning Console to interact with VMs in the lab end user’s Skytap environment. It can be installed on Windows or Linux VMs and runs as a service.

Notes

CMSysHelper must be installed on the target VMs in the lab end user's Skytap environment for system command Manual shortcuts and lab actions to work correctly in the Learning Console.
The Learning Console can interact with VMs with CMSysHelper installed only if the VMs are connected to an automatic network and outbound Internet access is enabled in the environment. For more information about creating a Skytap environment configured for the lab end user or preparing a template for lab environments, see Preparing a template.
For more information about inserting a command shortcut in a Manual, see Inserting a command shortcut.
For more information about adding lab actions to a course, see Adding lab actions to a course.
For more information about installing CMHelper on a VM, see Installing CMHelper on a VM.

Step 1 – Find the latest version of CMSysHelper

To find the latest version of CMSysHelper

From the Course Manager navigation bar, click Help. The Help drop-down menu displays.
Right-click Download CMHelper: Sys for your desired operating system.
Copy the link URL.

Step 2 – Install CMSysHelper on a VM

You can install CMSysHelper on Windows and Linux VMs.

Installing CMSysHelper on a Windows VM

The CMSysHelper Windows installer is a .msi file. The package can be installed by any Windows VM user with administrator rights and automatically runs when the VM starts.

To install CMSysHelper on a Windows VM

In the Skytap environment that will be used to prepare the lab template, sign in to a Windows VM with an internet connection.
Open an internet browser.
Paste the CMSysHelper link URL into the browser. The Windows installer downloads.
Open the installer, and complete the installation process.

Installing CMSysHelper on a Linux VM

The Linux version of CMSysHelper is distributed as a binary and supports Ubuntu and other Linux distributions that have glibc version 2.17 and newer.

To install CMSysHelper on a Linux VM

In the Skytap environment that will be used to prepare the lab template, sign in to a Linux VM with an internet connection.
Open a command line window.
Access the CMSysHelper link URL using wget. The tarball downloads to the current directory.
Extract the binary from the tarball using tar -xf to a service executable location, such as /usr/sbin/.
Mark the binary as executable using chmod +x.
Configure the executable to run as a service. For more information, see Linux-README.md in the tarball.

Step 3 – Confirm that CMSysHelper is running on the VM

Use your service manager to confirm that CMSysHelper is running on the VM. For more detailed information, see the CMSysHelper logs.

To access the CMSysHelper logs

In a Windows VM, access the directory that contains the CMSysHelper executable, and then open \logs\.
In a Linux VM, open /logs/.