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Unlike production systems, which are frequently fixed at old maintenance levels, the Sandbox is typically kept up to date with the latest system, Java, Eclipse, and JBoss patches. At the time this is written, it is a Centos 7 64 bit operating system with Oracle Java 1.7 64 bit, JBoss EAP 6, and Eclipse Luna. Because Eclipse is not part of the production system, you can upgrade it at any time and install any additional features that aid in development. However, it is probably a bad idea to use Java 1.8 if the production system will be 1.7, and while it doesn't matter much if JBoss is 6.1 or 6.3, you should use the same major version of JBoss that you are using in production (EAP 6.x).
Installation
You need a current version of VirtualBox which you can get from Oracle (virtualbox.org). You can install it on a Windows or Mac machine. If you already have VMWare and prefer to use it, skip this step.
The Sandbox is distributed as a *.ova file. This is an open generic distribution format that can be processed by virtualbox or VMWare.
Certain features or options of the Sandbox VM depend on local directories or features that have to be configured in VirtualBox. The Shared Directory feature expects to use a preexisting directory (D:\sandbox) on the host computer or it has to be reconfigured or turned off. There are two LAN adapters on the VM, and one depends on a VirtualBox feature called a Host-Only adapter that has to be preconfigured (fortunately, it is the default behavior of VirtualBox to create during installation).
It is easy to go back and fix things, but do not rush to install the Sandbox image before you have read the rest of these instructions.
casdev
There is one user named "casdev" with admin (sudo) privileges. You login, run Eclipse, and do all your development as this user. The /home/casdev directory holds the Eclipse workspace and all the casual files. Because JBoss is started from Eclipse, it also runs as casdev. Therefore, the JBoss and Eclipse directories are owned by casdev even though they are installed elsewhere in the file system.
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