vm-builder

[cdmiller]

On 12/13/2013 02:17 PM, Scott Moser wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Dec 2013, Serge Hallyn wrote:
> 
>> Quoting cdmiller (cdmiller at adams.edu):
>>> On 12/10/2013 10:13 AM, Serge Hallyn wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> Years ago it was decided that vm-builder would be deprecated in favor
>>>> of alternatives (cloud images, live-build, and some others).  This was
>>>> dicussed at at least two separate physical UDSes.  However, it was
>>>> never actually dropped from the archive.  As a result people kept
>>>> using it despite it being considered deprecated and no longer
>>>> maintained.  This is resulting in people losing data and time, i.e.
>>>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vm-builder/+bug/1090223
>>>>
>>>> I intend to open a bug to ask that it be removed from the archive
>>>> for trusty.  If anyone objects, please reply here.
>>>>
>>>> thanks,
>>>> -serge
>>>>
>>>
>>> Could you please provide any more alternatives to explore alongside the
>>> cloud images and live-build mentioned for us behind the times vmbuilder
>>> users.  Another I can think of immediately is cobbler, anything else to
>>> consider?
>>
>> At UDS Copenhagen, oz was mentioned as a promising alternative which
>> wraps the Ubuntu installer.  See
>> https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/servercloud-r-vmbuilder
>> and
>> http://summit.ubuntu.com/uds-r/meeting/21093/servercloud-r-vmbuilder/
>>
>> I've personally not used it, and doesn't even seem to be packaged.  IIRC
>> Scott was the one who had mentioned it.  Scott have you used oz at all?
> 
> oz is at https://github.com/clalancette/oz/wiki
> 
> I've not used it personally. I really like the way that it is designed,
> and there is even support for driving oz installs through openstack at
> http://imgfac.org/
> 
> Generally, I don't think people should build images of operating systems.
> We do that for them.  RH and fedora do that for them too.
> 
> I view ubuntu image build similar to how I view building eglibc, python,
> or the linux kernel. You can do it if you want to, but unless you're
> interested in just learning or *really* know what you're doing, I think
> you're probably wasting your time.
> 
> Don't flame me. I agree there are people who have perfectly valid reasons
> for doing each of the things listed above.  But I think thats
> significantly fewer people than those who do them.
> 

Thanks for all the great info.  We'll be taking a look at cloud-utils,
uvtool etc.. Currently we run ubuntu-vm-builder via a wrapper which sets
up initial IP, installs and configures puppet, places an initial puppet
run in a firstboot script, and generates a libvirt config.  If we can
get close to that with any of the above we'll be happy.  After all we
still have to manually fix the libvirt xml after moving the disk images
into ceph.

- cameron