Install necessary programs

To make MiniLinux work, these programs are important:

VirtualBox

VirtualBox will emulate a computer (=virtual machine) running a linux operating system, that will run the beloved linux based console applications.

cmder

Cmder is a console emulator for windows. It provides a neat looking console that is, in many ways (shortcuts, ...), superior to the default windows command-line (cmd). It comes in two flavours, of which I prefer the full version that comes with built in tools like git, ssh and many more.

ssh

The full version of cmder comes with ssh, therefore it's not necessary to install it seperately.

Create the virtual machine

The VM is the core of MiniLinux as this is what really executes the linux command line applications.

Install the operating system

To use as little system resources as possible, I chose to use the minimal version of Ubuntu as operating system on the VM.

Short summary:
VM Name	MiniLinux
Hostname	minilinux
Full name for User	MiniLinux
Username for account	user
Password for account	password

Screenshots of the Ubuntu 14.04 minimal installation:

Make sure the OS is up to date

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Setup a ssh connection

The setup of the ssh connection can be broken down to three parts:

1. Install openssh

   sudo apt-get install openssh-server openssh-client

2. Establish a virtual connection between the windows host and the linux guest

   

3. Connect via ssh

   Use the following command (in windows & cmder) to connect:

   ssh user@192.168.56.1 -p 4022

   The authenticity of host '[192.168.56.1]:4022 ([192.168.56.1]:4022)' can't be established.

   ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:VdtF0c7Ptik3rGZMXAqjH+OFocq9Kj2NIdYXh7QEYvE.

   Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes

   Warning: Permanently added '[192.168.56.1]:4022' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts. user@192.168.56.1's password:

   Welcome to Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.13.0-86-generic x86_64)

   * Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/

   Last login: Sat May 14 14:31:09 2016

   user@minilinux:~$

Install VirtualBox Guest Additions

1. Start VM

2. Install Guest Additions

   sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-utils

Deny other machines access

Unless you deny other machines access to the VM, anyone could connect. Because I don't really appreciate anyone except myself connecting to my MiniLinux VM, I'll refuse ssh-connections that do not come from my machine.
Restart the VM, before you continue with this procedure!

The first step is to figure out the host IP:

grep ssh /var/log/auth.log -a | tail | grep Accepted

This should give you something similiar to this output (line count may vary - as long as there is at least one line):

Jul 12 07:54:25 minilinux sshd[916]: Accepted publickey for user from 10.0.2.2 port 65199 ssh2: RSA SHA256:3GycrTkwpgsGsQc3Fpt6UWqMhooEvhCthztogo/xY4g

Jul 12 08:18:59 minilinux sshd[1037]: Accepted publickey for user from 10.0.2.2 port 49930 ssh2: RSA SHA256:3GycrTkwpgsGsQc3Fpt6UWqMhooEvhCthztogo/xY4g

Jul 12 08:38:42 minilinux sshd[1201]: Accepted publickey for user from 10.0.2.2 port 50507 ssh2: RSA SHA256:3GycrTkwpgsGsQc3Fpt6UWqMhooEvhCthztogo/xY4g

The host IP is 10.0.2.2 in my case. If your host-IP differs, replace all occurances of 10.0.2.2 in this segment with your host-IP.

Now simply add sshd: 10.0.2.2 to /etc/hosts.allow and sshd: ALL to /etc/hosts.deny.

echo "sshd: 10.0.2.2 # Host PC" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts.allow

echo "sshd: ALL" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts.deny

Connect to the VM without password

1. Create a ssh-key

   I do not want to use my main ssh-key for this purpose, as it is password-protected (which you should do too). Therefore I will create a second ssh-key without password protection that will only be used to connect to the VM. Remember to specify a location to save the key. Otherwise it will overwrite your existing one! Then leave the passphrase empty.

   ssh-keygen

   Enter file in which to save the key (/c/Users/MyUser/.ssh/id_rsa): C:\Users\MyUser.ssh\id_rsa_minilinux

   Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):

2. Enter the ".ssh" directory of your windows machine

   cd /c/Users/MyUser/.ssh

3. Copy the public key to the VM

   ssh-copy-id -i id_rsa_minilinux.pub localhost

   The authenticity of host 'localhost (::1)' can't be established.

   ECDSA key fingerprint is d2:0d:83:f4:21:95:3c:63:6f:bc:f1:5f:0e:96:c1:e8.

   Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes

   /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: attempting to log in with the new key(s), to filter out any that are already installed

   /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: 1 key(s) remain to be installed -- if you are prompted now it is to install the new keys

   user@localhost's password:

   Number of key(s) added: 1

   Now try logging into the machine, with: "ssh 'localhost'" and check to make sure that only the key(s) you wanted were added.

4. Disable GSSAPIAuthentication

   Authenticating with the public key took up to 15 seconds for me. After I disabled GSSAPIAuthentication with the following command, connecting worked in under a second!

   echo "GSSAPIAuthentication no" > config

5. Try connecting via ssh

   On Windows:

   ssh user@192.168.56.1 -p 4022 -i C:\Users\MyUser\.ssh\id_rsa_minilinux

Access hard drive from within the VM

1. Create Shared Folder
   
2. Start VM

3. Mount Shared Folder

   1. Create folder where the shared folder should be mounted

      mkdir /c

   2. Mount shared folder

      sudo mount -t vboxsf -o rw,uid=1000,gid=1000 C_DRIVE /c

   3. Check whether mount worked

      1. Enter the folder

         cd /c

      2. Create a folder

         mkdir MiniLinuxTest

      3. Check if the folder was created

         ls -la

      4. Remove the folder:

         rmdir MiniLinuxTest

   4. Automatically mount the folder at startup

      add sudo mount -t vboxsf -o rw,uid=1000,gid=1000 C_DRIVE /c to "/etc/rc.local"

   5. Restart the VM
   6. Repeat 3.3

Use sudo without password prompt

Do note that may not want to do this, as you are likely less hesitant to write sudo in front of a command before revalidating that you typed the command correctly, if you do not have to enter a password. Nevertheless, I consider it a good balance between having to type a password every time i want do use sudo and using the super user per default (sudo -i)

Write user ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL in the last line to the file opened by sudo visudo.

sudo visudo

Use a batch script to control the VM easily

Download the script and the config file and add the folder they reside in to your windows PATH variable, in order to access it with linux anywhere. Instead of only downloading the scripts seperately, you can also clone the entire MiniLinux repository to get eventual updates.

Edit the minilinuxconfig.bat before you run linux.bat or it will not work!