Before setting up our virtual instances and provisioning them with Ceph, we need to cover a few points. All the software we will be using is open source, with the release versions used in our testing specified later. The authors developed and tested this process on macOS X 10.12. It should also work on macOS X 10.9 or later and on Linux systems.

For Microsoft Windows, host machines should use an absolute path to invoke the VBoxManage command, which is usually found at C:\Program Files\Oracle\ VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe.

The system requirements for VirtualBox depend upon the number and configuration of virtual machines running on top of it. Your VirtualBox host should offer an x86-type processor (Intel or AMD), a few gigabytes of memory (to run four to seven Ceph virtual machines), several gigabytes of drive space, and an internet connection. First, we must download VirtualBox from http://www.virtualbox.org/, open the archive file, then follow...