The IST Opentox Virtual Appliance is a tool that facilitates using IST’s developments under Windows (applies also to other platforms).
Since a native Windows version of IST’s software is not deemed feasible, an alternative is to use a virtual machine that can be played on Windows and other platforms.
1) Installing Virtualbox
The IST Opentox Virtual Appliance (VA) was built using VirtualBox. It is recommended to use it also to play the VA. Installing VirtualBox is a simple setup process. There exist also other virtualization solutions, such as VMWare Player.
2) Starting the Appliance
Download the VA (important: use a download manager, such as DownThemAll), then check the integrity of the archive by calculating its MD5 sum. It should equal ‘ef360fed4524a956b701eecd74f4331e’, otherwise your download has failed.
Import the file at “File”, “Import Appliance…”. Click through the rest of the process.
Run: Click “Run” to run the Appliance. A window showing the Linux system will appear.
Restart: Click (Re)Start.sh to start the application in case of non-responding services.
Note: Services are started automatically on startup.
Shutdown: Click “System”, “Shutdown” to terminate the machine.
Warning: Do not power-off the machine without proper shutdown.
3) Using the Appliance
Start Browser: Start the Firefox Web Browser. The familiar ToxCreate GUI will appear. Try creating a model by uploading the hamster dataset from the Desktop.
Hints:
- Visit the technical HOWTO website for tips and tweaks to improve your user experience. In particular, consider enabling port forwarding for HTTP, allowing you to access the VA from outside.
- If your mouse and keyboard are “trapped” inside the appliance window, try hitting the right Ctrl key.
- Do not rename the .ova file.
