Arch Linux VM with automated Proxy configuration via CNTLM

Using an Arch Linux VM behind a (corporate) proxy? This solution provides an automated way to setup the CNTLM proxy from Windows, based on PowerShell, Vagrant and CNTLM (Windows/Linux). You only have to adapt the CNTLM template with general settings and of course the Vagrant provisioning phase. The forking of this repo is strictly recommended and necessary, because you want to provide the adapted CNTLM template and the binaries of CNTLM (Windows/Linux) to your users, without downloading it by themselves.

Why should someone do this?

Because you like to work with Linux on your work-related machine, but can not use it natively, because of all the corporate stuff like Outlook, Office.. (yawn). Even also the setup of CNTLM is very disgusting and error-prone. If a lot of developers in a department or company want or will have to use Linux in VM, this approach will save a lot of time.

Prerequisites

Ok, it's not as pain free as someone may expected. Of course you will need some temporary admin rights on Windows or at least someone who can do that for you for installing the following stuff.

Git (Optional)

If you don't have access to git, then get yourself a portable version of GitEye. The application won't need any admin rights to install. Clone this repo OR download it as snapshot to your computer.

CNTLM windows binaries

Download the CNTLM windows binaries and extract the ZIP content in the

/cntlm-win/

folder.

CNTLM Arch Linux binaries

This is technically no prerequisite, but noteworthy to mention.

I've built the binary file for Arch Linux and placed it in the /cntlm-linux/ folder. The Arch Linux build of CNTLM will be installed via pacman -U <cntlm-build>. The build is based upon the latest CNTLM Linux version, so all credits belong to the owner and author of CNTLM.

VirtualBox + Guest Extensions

This one can't be done as a non privileged user.

Vagrant for Windows

Do not install it to your user's home, because it could lead into trouble with Vagrant itself, e.g. the batch file can not start the vagrant up process.

Before you start

Proxy / NoProxy in cntlm.conf.template

Adapt the proxy settings for your department/company in the cntlm.conf.template. To be more precise, adapt the value after Proxy with your proxy-host and proxy-port. And also adapt the NoProxy, if you want to bypass local addresses, e.g. intranet. You also have to edit the Domain value, because nowadays everyone is using NTLMv2 on Windows.

This step usually needs to be done once, except the proxy, the domain or the company changes.

Adapt the provisioning files

Each development team and their individuals have other preferences, e.g. firefox vs chrome, intellij-idea vs. eclipse and so on. Therefore you have to adapt the devTools.sh and userSpecificStuff.sh provisioning files especially.

Currently I am using IDEA, openJDK8, maven and firefox. Therefore these software packages are installed.

Run the PowerShell script to setup your VM

After you've adapted the cntlm.conf.template to your team's needs, you can start it via

01_setup.ps1

Enter your proxy user and the related password for the concerned user. These credentials are also used for generating the Linux user on the VM.

If everything went along the happy path, a separate window with the Windows version of CNTLM and another one with Vagrant will appear. If there are any failures within this process, make sure you put the Windows binaries of CNTLM in the correct folder and used your correct credentials.

After the Vagrant process, you can login in your VM with your entered proxy credentials. Enjoy.

Enabling/Disabling proxy in a shell

There is a script in the /etc/scripts folder, which sets or unsets the environment variables. Use proxy_on to set the proxy on the current shell and proxy_off to disable it. The proxy is enabled by default on the terminal sessions, see .zshrc.

FAQs

Below you will find some answers to common questions, especially when you are new to Arch Linux or this repo.

How do I start a terminal?

After you have logged in you can start via [Win]+[Enter] a new terminal. This keyset is based upon i3, so with a high chance some other questions will be answered though.

What kind of desktop environment is installed?

As mentioned before, it is based on i3, which provides a very clean way of organizing windows and applications. This keyset for shortcuts can be found here.

Is there something like a "taskbar" or quickstart menu?

Yes, of course! It's called dmenu. You can start it with [Windows]+[d]. Then you enter your application name and there you go.

How is copy+paste working? CTRL+c/v don't do the job in a terminal window...

There are two types of clipboards in Linux basically. For convenience a.k.a using only one clipboard, there is a perl function, which is loaded in the rxvt terminal configuration. So basically the shortcut in terminal windows is [CTRL]+[SHIFT]+[C] to copy and [CTRL]+[SHIFT]+[V] to paste.

If you want to copy something from a GUI to the terminal, it works nearly the same except for the copy part. In most of the times, you can use [CTRL]+c to copy something from e.g. Firefox.

Improvements

• Credentials setup: For user and developer specific access (git, maven, ...) it is necessary to copy the settings files to the appropriate place.
• Install Wizard: For the provisioning stuff, I'd like to add a wizard, which makes it easier to choose, what packages are need to be installed by Vagrant. Currently the adaption of the devTools.sh and the userSpecificStuff.sh is necessary for the needs of a developer/a development team.
• Automated Proxy in Firefox: The process needs to be done manually at the moment. I tried to copy the prefs.js, but that needs some more experimentation.