| TurnKey Linux Virtual Appliance Library | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
| OS family | Linux (Unix-like) |
| Working state | Current |
| Source model | Open source |
| Latest release | 18.0[1] / 14 September 2023; 2 years ago (14 September 2023) |
| Update method | APT |
| Package manager | dpkg |
| Supported platforms | X86-64 |
| Kernel type | Monolithic (Linux) |
| License | Free software licenses |
| Official website | www |
TheTurnKey Linux Virtual Appliance Library is afreeopen-source software project which develops a range ofDebian-based pre-packaged serversoftware appliances (also calledvirtual appliances). Turnkey appliances can be deployed as avirtual machine (a range ofhypervisors are supported), incloud computing services such asAmazon Web Services or installed in physical computers.
The project maintains around 100virtual appliances, all freely licensed, with daily automatic security updates and backup capabilities.[2]They are packaged in formats for different virtualization platforms, and two builds for installing onto physical media (to non-virtualized hard disk or USB from a hybrid ISO) or onto theAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud.[3]
Pre-integrated server applications includeLAMP,WordPress,Joomla,Drupal,Redmine,MySQL,MediaWiki,Domain controller,File server,Ruby on Rails,phpBB, and many others.
Founded by engineers of an Israeli startup,[8] the project was conceived in mid-2008 as a community-oriented open source project that would focus on helping users piece together turnkey solutions from open source components in the largest Linux distributions. According to one of TurnKey Linux's co-founders, the project was in part inspired by a desire to provide open source alternatives to proprietary virtual appliance vendors that would be aligned with user interests and could engage the community.[9]
The project launched in September 2008 with three prototype appliances for Drupal, Joomla and LAMP, based on the Ubuntu 8.04.1 build.[10] In the following months usability was improved and a dozen additional appliances were released including Ruby on Rails, MediaWiki and Django.[11]
In October 2009, the project released 40 appliances based on Ubuntu 8.04.3 including 25 new additions to the virtual appliance library. The release included support forAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud, and a newVirtual machine image format withOVF support.
TurnKey Linux was listed as a winner of the 2009 "Bossies" byInfoWorld as one of the "top 40 open source products" of that year.[12][13]
In September 2010, Turnkey Linux Backup and Migration (TKLBAM) was announced..[14] In November 2010, further additions to TKLBAM were announced including the integration of Webmin, which was discussed as a future feature in the original unveiling of the TKLBAM.[15]
Turnkey Linux was nominated for the SourceForge February 2012 Project of the Month.[16]
In August 2012, version 12.0 was released with the library increased to include over 100 appliances. This release also marked a move away fromUbuntu as the underlyingoperating system toDebian 6.0 (a.k.a. Squeeze). This move was cited as being for various reasons, particularly security.[17]
Early June 2013 saw a significant change of tack with the version 12.1 update release; built with the new "TKLDev" open build infrastructure. This release also included the firstX86-64 builds.[18] Later that same month, the Turnkey Linux custom application code was moved toGitHub which also included a tracker for appliances bug reports.[19] As promised, in mid July Turnkey Linux released their image building appliance (TKLDev) as well as an additional separate GitHub account to house all the appliance specific code (used by TKLDev to build the appliances).[20]
November 2013 saw the release of v13.0, based onDebian 7.2 (a.k.a. Wheezy).[21]
September 2015 saw the long overdue release of v14.0, based on Debian 8.2 (a.k.a. Jessie),[22] followed by an April 2016 maintenance release, v. 14.1, based on Debian 8.4.[23]
TurnKey's virtual appliances start life as a "stripped down"Debian bootstrap (versions previous to v12.0 based onUbuntu.[11]) To this is added the TurnKey Core, which includes all the common features for the project's virtual appliances,[24] including:
The TurnKey Core has a footprint of approximately 110 MB, and is available as a separate download. Application software is installed on top of the Core, which typically increases the size of a virtual appliance up to approximately 160 MB.[26] By downloading and installing the appliance package to the hard drive, it is intended by the developers that administrators would gain an easy method of setting up a dedicated server.[11]
New software appliances, or customised appliances can be developed by forking the appropriate appliance build code onGitHub[27] and then built using TKLDev.[28] Additionally appliances can also be customized and extended using TKLPatch,[29] a simple appliance modification mechanism.
TurnKey Linux can be run as avirtual machine withVirtualBox andVMWare, although the former has been described as having been provided with more documentation.[30]
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