A VM environment is essentially a copy of an existing operating system that may have preinstalled software. The VM can be delivered in a single file, which allows users to replicate an entire machine by just launching a file instead of reinstalling the OS and configuring it to mimic another system. The VM operates in a self-contained environment; that is, it does not depend on the host operating system to deliver its functionalities.

To install CDH Quickstart VM, we will be using Oracle VirtualBox, which is used to launch VMs from VM files.

Steps to install CDH in VirtualBox:

1. Download the Oracle VirtualBox relevant for your system (Windows, macOS, or Linux) from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads (if this link is not accessible, go to https://www.virtualbox.org/ and select the appropriate link to go to the Downloads page).
2. Double-click on the Oracle VirtualBox executable and install by following the prompts on the screen (you can accept the defaults as will be shown on screen).
3. After you have installed VirtualBox, you should also install the Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack available at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/virtualbox/downloads/index.html#extpack.

Download the Extension Pack file relevant to your environment and click/double-click on the file. This will open the Oracle VM VirtualBox application and install the Extension Pack within the VirtualBox environment.

Downloading and installing the CDH Quickstart VM: The Quickstart VM or Docker Image for CDH can be downloaded from the Cloudera website. The steps are as follows:

4. Go to https://www.cloudera.com and click on Quickstart VMs from the Download menu at the top of the page. If the navigation has been changed, a search on Google for Cloudera Quickstart VM will usually take you directly to the Cloudera download page:

5. This will bring up the Quickstart for CDH download page. In the Select A Platform menu, select VirtualBox. Fill in the form that appears and click on Continue. The downloaded file will have a .zip extension. Unzip the file to extract the .ova or .ovf file:

We get the following sign in screen:

The terms and conditions are first laid out:

The VM download for CDH starts:

Unzip the file. The folder will contain the files shown in the following image:

6. After the download completes, double-click on the .ova or .ovf file and it will open in Oracle VirtualBox:

Leave all the options as default and click on the Import button, which will start the import process. At this stage, the Cloudera CDH Quickstart VM is being loaded into your Oracle VirtualBox environment.

7. Once the file is imported, you'll be able to start it by clicking on the green arrow at the top of the window:

8. Leave the defaults as is when the OS initializes:

We get the following screen as a final step of the installation:

This concludes the installation of the Hadoop environment using the Hortonworks Data Platform.