1) The archived image of a CentOS virtual machine can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualboximage/files/CentOS/6.0/CentOS-6-i386.7z/download After installing it into Oracle VirtualBox, the username is "root", and the password is "reverse" At the address below can be found other CentOS virtual machines and also the username and password mentioned above. The one choosen is that one because of the small size of the download (286 MB) and of the unpacked virtual drive (1.4 GB, extendable up to 12 GB). 2) The Oracle Database Express Edition 11g Release 2 for Linux 32 and 64 was downloaded from http://download.oracle.com/otn/linux/oracle11g/xe/oracle-xe-11.2.0-1.0.x86_64.rpm.zip You previously will need to create an account on the Oracle site to be able to download the software. 3) The yii Framework was downloaded from https://github.com/yiisoft/yii/releases/download/1.1.15/yii-1.1.15.022a51.zip and will be unpacked in a web visible folder, for example the httdocs folder of Apache. Actually do what is instructed in the README file from the archive. 4) The Oracle VirtualBox was downloaded from http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.3.16/VirtualBox-4.3.16-95972-Win.exe Actually that is the newest version, I just followed the link from the previous install that I had and it lead me to download version 4.3.12 although on the VirtualBox website version 4.3.16 is the latest version. Installation process: a) I unpacked (with WinRar) the .7z archive from 1) in a folder called d:\Oracle-Vbox-hd b) I installed version 4.3.12 of VirtualBox, then choosed 768 MB as recomended for the RAM of the virtual machine. Linux as the operating system, Fedora as the linux distribution, then, important, I choosed to create the virtual hard drive from an existing file, and, of course indicated the folder d:\Oracle-Vbox-hd as the location of the existing hard drive. The image of the VM is of the CentOS distribution, but Fedora is related with CentOS, and also to RedHat distributions. c) I choosed NAT as the type of networking, eventually having to deal with that later, if the Internet would not work. d) I started the VM (virtual Machine), and, surprize, got an error, it said my processor lacks some "pat support", or something like that. I closed the VM, right-clicked it in Oraclr VirtualBox, and found a checkbox somewhere which said, exactly "Enable Pat support". Or, if Pat is something else then substitute "Pat" with that "something else". After checking that and trying to start again the VM, it worked. e) the CentOS 6 VM started, now I needed the password for the user root, and found it on the page mentioned at step 1 to be "reverse". For other versions of the VM the passwords are different, but are mentioned on the page from 1) f) I launched the virtual machine, and connected as root, then I tried to see if the networking is working. The command ifconfig showed that only the interface lo was up. That is bad, because that is the one with the IP 127.0.0.1 I needed the interface eth0 or eth1 to work. After some research I found out that in the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 was the wrong MAC address (different than the one that the grafical interface of the Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager was showing. More precise: from the grafical interface above mentioned, if I choose "settings" then "Network", I copyied the MAC address from there which, for may computer was 080027EBDEC0, to a sheet of paper, and then in the window of the virtual machine I modified the file above mentioned with vi: vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and wrote there the MAC address that the graphical interface allocated for the network interface, that is 080027EBDEC0 Probably it would work the other way arround (copying the MAC address from the file on paper, then write it in the graphical interface). Maybe this is a bug of the version 3.12, because I didn't remember the problem from the previous installations. The MAC address from the configuration file should correspond with the one from the graphical interface. Second bug, which doesn't affect our instalation is that a script for an eventual second network interface isn't created automatically, you need to manually copy the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 into a second one, let's say eth1, by doing cd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts cp ifcfg-eth0 ifcfg eth1 Then edit the second one and place there the correct MAC address taken from the graphical interface. It will be a different one, generated by the graphical interface. Maybe in the process the ifup command might be usefull to manually bring up the network interface without rebooting the VM each time. That is (ifup eth0) or eventually (ifup eth1). g) now it works, The command ifconfig from the VM shows the interfaces lo and eth0 as up and running. I was assigned the IP addredd 10.0.2.15 h) now I neded to upload some files on the virtual machine and couldn't do it easy (with WinSCP) because the IP 10.0.2.15 was not accesible... Windows didn't assigned a route for that address. In brief, the easiest way to correct this is to stop the VM, then choose "Bridged Adapter" from the "Network" setting in the graphical interface's settings. i) At that step also we need to check "cable connected" box, in the "promiscuous mode" dropdown list I choose "Allow All" (maybe that is not necessary, but I chooose it to be sure) Then from the "Name" dropdown list I choose my network interface of my computer, which was, for may case, "JMicron PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Adapter". the other options from the list were Wi-Fi conections, which may computer doesn't use now, but in the eventuality of using the Internet shared from the mobile Phone, probably one of these options has to be choosen. j) Now it's time to start back the VM, I connected as root, then the ifconfig command showd me that I got the IP 192.166.123.175 My normal IP of the computer is from the same class, 192.166.123.166 so it seems to be OK. Yes, I can connect now to the VM with WinSCP and/or with putty. This very useful since from some reason, on the console of the VM, the keys are somehow moved arround, so, for example the | in on the ~ key.