UserVM Handbook
Welcome to the official guide on setting up a UserVM.
Prerequisites
You'll need:
- A machine with decent specs (8GB of RAM and a modern CPU, probably)
- A Linux distribution; You can pick any mainstream distro, for the purposes of this guide I recommend either Debian/Devuan or Arch/Artix. I recommend the OpenRC versions (Devuan/Artix) but that's just preference, pick what you're comfortable with. Yes, Ubuntu will work, it's terrible though
- Basic knowledge of how computers and Linux systems work. We aren't going to hold your hand, you need to be comfortable with a command line
- A few hours
Compiling the server
Install Git
First up make sure you have git installed:
sudo pacman -S --needed git # Arch
sudo apt install git # Debian
Prepare the server
Now let's clone the source. This is assuming you're in your home directory but you can clone it wherever
git clone https://github.com/computernewb/collabvm-1.2.ts.git
cd collabvm-1.2.ts
Next, we need to install Node.js, as well as the server dependencies. First, node:
sudo apt install npm nodejs # Debian
sudo pacman --needed -S npm nodejs # Arch
Then install dependencies
npm i
Finally, build the server
npm run build
Set up your VM
Now is a good time to get your VM set up. Currently, the only supported hypervisor is QEMU. We have many guides on this wiki for setting up different OSes in QEMU, check them out here. Here are some ideas to make your VM interesting:
- A funny wallpaper
- Development software (Visual Studio, etc.)
- Some games
- Some harmless malware (for the love of god no GDI rapists)
Configuration
Now we need to fill out the config file for your VM. Copy config.example.toml to config.toml, and open it in an editor.
SHA256 hash of your admin password. Can be generated with the commandprintf "<your admin password"> | sha256sum -. Make sure this is something hard to guess as anyone with this password could execute arbitrary commands on your server.| Config value | Explanation |
|---|---|
| host | Host IP for the server to bind to. 99% of the time this will be 127.0.0.1 on proxied instances and 0.0.0.0 on non-proxied (see below) |
| port | Port for your server to bind to. This must be different for each VM you host, and cannot be the same as any other server running on your system (see the output of ss -tuln to see what ports are used) |
| proxying | If your server will be behind a reverse proxy, usually Nginx. This isn't a requirement, however, we recommend you do so for things like SSL support, and minimizing the number of ports open on your server. This requires additional configuration of your web server. If you edit this, make sure to go back and update host accordingly |
| proxyAllowedIps | IPs allowed to reverse proxy your server. Can be ignored if you're not using proxying mode. 99% of the time, this will just be 127.0.0.1 |
| qemuArgs | Command line to launch QEMU with. You'll have this from setting up your VM earlier. If you're not sure, check out the QEMU guides linked above |
| vncPort | Port to be used internally for VNC. Must be at least 5900. You don't need to pay too much attention to this unless you're running multiple VMs (In which case just increment the port by 1 for each VM) |
| snapshots | Whether or not your VM should have vote resets, and reset to its initial state on server restart. If you disable this on a public VM, prepare for it to get trashed quickly. |
| qmpSockDir | Directory for QEMU to put its QMP socket for internal use. This can stay default unless you have a special reason to change it |
| node | A unique ID for your VM. Your VM will be directly accessible at https://computernewb.com/collab-vm/user-vm/#>this id>. You should take care to name this something separate from any other VM on the UserVM roster, or your VM might be unaccessible |
| displayname | VM title that shows up in the list. Format with HTML |
| motd | Message of the day, displayed when someone joins your VM. Format with HTML |
| bancmd | Command to be run when you click the ban button. By default this adds a non-persistent iptables rule, but we recommend you change this |
| moderatorEnabled | Whether or not the moderator rank is enabled, in addition to Admin. |
| usernameblacklist | Array of usernames the server should not allow |
| maxChatLength | Max amount of characters a user can send in a chat message. Further characters will be truncated. |
| automute | Whether or not the server should automatically mute users who spam messages. You can also specify how many messages within how many seconds should trigger the mute. |
| tempMuteTime | How long a temporary mute lasts |
| turnTime | How long a turn lasts |
| voteTime | How long a vote to reset lasts, before results are tallied |
| voteCooldown | How long before another reset vote can be started after one ends |
| adminpass | |
| modpass | SHA256 hash of your mod password. Generated same as admin. Does nothing if the moderator rank is not enabled. |
| moderatorPermissions | Controls the individual actions a moderator can do. Each one is described below. Does nothing if the moderator rank is not enabled. |
| restore | Reset the VM back to it's initial state. |
| reboot | Reboot the VM |
| ban | Ban a user from your VM |
| forcevote | Forcibly pass or cancel a vote to reset |
| mute | Mute a user, preventing them from chatting or taking turns |
| kick | Kick a user from the VM |
| bypassturn | Jump to the front of the turn queue, as well as clear the turn queue and end individual turns |
| rename | Rename another user |
| grabip | Get the IP address of another user |
| xss | Send a raw (not HTML-sanitized) chat message, allowing the execution of arbitrary scripts on another user's browser. Admins will not be affected by XSS messages sent by mods. |