How to set up Camio Box in Oracle VirtualBox

Camio provides an image of the Camio Box software that can be run inside of Oracle VirtualBox. Virtual Machines made from this image will act just like a physical Camio Box on your local network.

What you need

• Oracle VirtualBox Software
• Camio Box VirtualBox Appliance Image.
• A computer that can run VirtualBox with the following hardware specs
  • At least 64GB of disk space is required for the VM disk image.
  • 4GB of RAM is recommended for the Virtual Machine.

To start, you'll need the free and open-source Oracle VirtualBox software installed on your computer. 

1. Install VirtualBox

1. Go to this link: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
2. Download the version of VirtualBox for your specific operating system.
3. Follow the steps listed on the downloads page to install VirtualBox onto your computer.

2. Download the Camio Box VirtualBox Appliance

1. Download the camio-box-os-virtualbox-2020-05-15.zip file from go.camio.com/current-virtualbox-iso
2. Unzip the downloaded file to extract the camio-box-os-virtualbox-2020-05-15.ova file.
   OVA files are VirtualBox Appliance files that contain an image of a virtual machine that can load into any VirtualBox environment.
   Note - On some machines (like OS X), the default Archive Utility will automatically unpack camio-box-os-virtualbox-2020-05-15.ova file into two files:
       camio-box-os-virtualbox-2020-05-15.ovf
    camio-box-os-virtualbox-2020-05-15_001.vmdk
That's fine. Just use the .ovf file in place of the .ova file in the steps below.
   
   

3. Get a MAC address for your Virtual Camio Box

Copy the MAC address shown on this page (you'll need to be signed-in to your Camio account):
https://camio.com/box/register/box_vm_mac

Important: Do not skip this step, you need to get a MAC address assigned my Camio to use for your Camio Box VM. This MAC address is used as a unique identifier for your VM.
Note: If you're running multiple Virtual Machines, then you can get additional MAC addresses by appending a number at the end of the URL above (e.g. /box/register/box_vm_mac2).

4. Create the Camio Box Virtual Machine

1. Open the VirtualBox program.
2. Choose 'File' > 'Import Appliance'
3. Use the file selector to select the camio-box-os-virtualbox-2020-05-15.ova file that you unzipped previously. (or, select the camio-box-os-virtualbox-2020-05-15.ovf file if you see that instead)
4. Click the 'Import' button when you see a window pop up with information about the virtual machine you are creating. You can customize the virtual machine settings later.
   
    

5. Set the MAC address and Networking for your VM

You should now be on the main VirtualBox window and there should be an entry in the left column that says 'CamioBox VM'. To set the MAC address of your VM:

1. Click on the 'CamioBox VM' entry to highlight it.
2. Click on the 'Settings' button at the top of the page.
3. Click on the 'Network' tab.
4. Select the 'Bridged Adapter' with the correct 'Name' that varies by OS:
   Linux: This is normally either 'eth0', or 'enp1s0'. Use the 'ifconfig' terminal tool to find your primary networking interface.
   OS X: This is normally 'en0'. You can use the 'ifconfig' terminal tool to find the primary networking interface.
   Windows: This can depend on the version of windows but is generally "Local Area Connection".
5. Expand the 'Advanced' section.
6. In the 'MAC Address' text-box, enter the MAC address that you copied from the prior step.
7. Click 'Ok' at the bottom of the 'Settings' window to save your changes.

6. Start your Camio Box Virtual Machine

1. On the main VirtualBox window, highlight the 'Camio Box VM' entry.
2. At the top of the main window, click the 'Start' button.
3. A window will pop up showing a Unix terminal and boot diagnostics for the device.
   

Important: the login credentials for your VM are not publicly available. You do not need to login to the VM, all interaction with and control of the VM will be done through the Camio website.

Once the virtual machine has finished booting, it's ready to be registered to your Camio account.

7. Register your Camio Box:

1. Go to camio.com/box/register/box_vm_mac
2. Enter a name for your Camio Box.
3. Click 'Register' and wait for confirmation of registration success to appear on that page.

Congratulations! You have now registered your virtual Camio Box. Go to the camio.com/boxes page to connect cameras on your network to your Camio account. 

8. (Recommended) Set Your VM to Use "Disk" Storage

It is recommended, in nearly all cases, that you configure your Camio Box VM to use "disk" storage instead of the default "volatile". Follow the simple steps in this help article to do that.

Advanced:

You can of course customize the amount of resources dedicated to your Camio Box virtual machine. For more information see this help article : How do I tune my Camio Box VM to match the number of connected video streams?.

Known VirtualBox Issues:

Default Network Interface Incorrect

If you see an error message like this on first boot 

The fix is very simple. Simply follow the steps in this help article for changing which network interface on the host is bridged to the VM.

Networking Stack Issue

There is an issue with VirtualBox on some combinations of host-hardware and networking-hardware that prevents bridged-networking from working. If your Camio Box fails to register itself, or if it hangs on boot while "Raising Network Interfaces", it may be useful to set up a regular Ubuntu 16.04 virtual machine and see if you can get bridged networking to work. This will help us diagnose if it's a VirtualBox issue or a Camio Box issue. If you are unable to get VirtualBox-based VMs work with bridged-networking on your machine, you may have better luck trying to install a VMWare Workstation-based Camio Box instead.

Why is My Machine Not Registering?

1. Double check that you have set the MAC address for your VM correctly. You should have set the MAC address for your VM according to the steps covered in step #5 above and you will be registering the device with that same MAC address.
2. Check and see if the VM can be found on your local network. To do this you can use any available network scanning tool like nmap or the Fing application. If the VM is powered on but you do not see it on the local network, you have likely misconfigured the bridged-networking for the device. Review