bradymiller wrote on Friday, March 31, 2006:
Was wondering how useful a free openemr virtual machine would be(sql-ledger, freeb, and php-gacl also installed)? I’ve built one on Mandriva2006 along with documentation on how it was built and how to configure printer, email, and automatic backup. I posted the documentation on:
http://www.bradymd.com/appliance/
I also put a PDF file link at the top. Wanted to know what you guys think?
thanks,
brady
sunsetsystems wrote on Friday, March 31, 2006:
Nice! I’m also impressed with the parent page, http://www.bradymd.com/. You have done a great deal of work that will surely be helpful to others.
Do you plan to be updating this information and the Virtual Machine over time, as things change?
– Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com
bradymiller wrote on Saturday, April 01, 2006:
I’m hoping to keep the VM current. If only I had an unlimited supply of time.
How do I distribute this thing? It’s a 900 MB tarball. Does sourceforge even allow files this large?
sunsetsystems wrote on Saturday, April 01, 2006:
That’s pretty big. I believe SF policy is that they would want to preapprove it.
Regardless, it should be possible to cut the size dramatically. A basic Linux install with Apache, PHP, Perl but no X would be quite small.
– Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com
bradymiller wrote on Sunday, April 02, 2006:
I’d rather keep everything on the install, though. I want to keep the possible applications and target population as broad as possible.
The most useful application will likely be just for a quick, full demonstration of the product. This is the thing that seemed to be lacking while I was looking around for Open Source EMR software(Except for freemed’s live CD, which is a nice demo vehicle). Sure, there’s an OpenEMR demo site, but the true value of OpenEMR is obvious when all the pieces are in place and working on your own computer.
I think it’s also important to make it as easy as possible for the more computer challenged users(there are also always users out there waiting to convert to open source, if they happen to click on Open Office or Gimp, that wouldn’t hurt). A more experienced programmer can easily just customize by removing stuff or re-installing.
-brady
nickowen wrote on Wednesday, April 05, 2006:
I think you can post it on the VMWare Tech network for hosting, right?
bradymiller wrote on Sunday, April 09, 2006:
The above vmware site won’t host the file, it’ll just post a description and link, very sad.
For the time being, I’m just gonna host it from my wimpy DSL connection for testing at:
http://www.bradymd.com/tryme/OpenEMR-2-8-1-Appliance-1.tgz
The User Manual is on ‘desktop’ of appliance and posted at:
http://www.bradymd.com/appliance/
If you try it, please give me some feedback
thanks
-brady
kashurjmax wrote on Sunday, April 09, 2006:
The best way to distribute it is through bittorrent - find a public tracker and then everyone can download an upload - bittorrent is great for exactly this.
bradymiller wrote on Monday, April 10, 2006:
I hope I did this correctly. It seems to work. I made a torrent for file at:
http://www.meganova.org/details/278362.html
The direct http download link in the previous message will also still work for the torrent "challenged"
bradymiller wrote on Monday, April 10, 2006:
to make things simpler, here’s a direct link to the torrent:
http://www.bradymd.com/OpenEMR-2-8-1-Appliance-1.torrent
-brady
kashurjmax wrote on Tuesday, April 11, 2006:
Torrent seems fine, but you also need to keep your torrent client running to "seed" and so does everyone.
kashurjmax wrote on Tuesday, April 11, 2006:
The seeding seems to be working great now. I will keep my client up for people to download - the more we have, the better we all will be!
bradymd.com rocks !!
kashurjmax wrote on Tuesday, April 11, 2006:
bradymiller - excellent effort in putting together the VM and the excellent documentation.
Have you tested all aspects of this VM? - Billing, SQL Ledger etc?
bradymiller wrote on Wednesday, April 12, 2006:
hey - I’m hoping your upload speed is better than my lowly 20-30 kb/s.
Here’s the things I’ve tested so far: entering encounter data into openemr, making freeb bills, posting to sql-ledger, EOB sql-ledger stuff, adding users to openemr/php-gacl, editing user priviledges on php-gacl, adding the printer, printing freeb bills(hfca test only)(I should add that I haven’t printed on official HFCA forms yet), setting up the quick outbound only email server, setting up backup script(I like this script, it backups the mysql data, postgresql data, openemr patient upload directories, and the freeb billing directory. It saves it to a secure local directory and then appends an encrypted copy to a DVD, so you basically just have to leave a DVD in your DVD writer, and it will backup and append the data to your DVD however often you set in cron. It then sends the status output to your email via the above email server.)
later, -brady
kashurjmax wrote on Wednesday, April 12, 2006:
I think VMs are the way of the future - it is the best disaster recovery strategy. Just keep backing up your data then restore it to a new VM (keep a copy burnt to DVD) when your server crashes. You can keep mobile versions on your laptops, desktops on whatever OS you want.
I think this VM will also minimize tremendously the questions people have on this board and keep life simple as point and click!
The only downside is the large size and the answer for that is bittorrent!
markleeds wrote on Thursday, April 13, 2006:
In general, make sure the vm author is trusted. Spyware, malware, backdoors could be cleverly hidden in a vm.
Change passwords before using with internet access.
bradymiller wrote on Thursday, April 13, 2006:
Bittorrent’s great initially, but at some point, will be nice to find it a stable home(always worry about security downloading stuff from multiple points).
Seen some large files hosted by sourceforge. Was hoping to, at some point, get them to host it(maybe here?).
I also agree security is an issue. That’s why it’s important to document how to make the appliance.
drbowen wrote on Thursday, April 13, 2006:
I can host it at oemr.org.
I haven’t set up bit torrent but if you guys don’t mind giving me some tips.
Sam Bowen
bradymiller wrote on Sunday, April 16, 2006:
I’m not an expert on this(i’ve just recently started using it).
First, install a bittorrent client. I installed Azureus, which seems popular. It requires java. download from: http://azureus.sourceforge.net/
Second, Need to open/forward a port for Azureus(see azureus install instructions) on your router/firewall(this is why i think torrents aren’t appropriate for general downloads, since lots of people have no clue how to open/forward ports). If you need help doing this, need to know your network setup(router, local static IP vs. assigned by DHCP).
Third, download and run the above torrent file on Azureus. When your done downloading, it will automatically become a "seed", so others can upload from it.(this means you need to keep Azureus always running)
hope this helps
-brady
bradymiller wrote on Monday, April 17, 2006:
Also, thanks for offering to host on oemr.org . I was looking at your download page and noted that the current openemr*.tar.gz download link has an extra period(so click to download doesn’t work).
later,
-brady