vmbuilder team mailing list archive

["John Stoffel" <john@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Soren> On Tue, Mar 09, 2010 at 03:55:09PM -0000, l8gravely wrote:
>> Has the command line API (args, etc) completely changed in Lucid's
>> version of the vmbuilder tool?

Soren> No. A few have changed, though.

Thanks so much for the quick reply.  Sorry I didn't followup sooner,
busy with Soccer last night.  :]

>> I'm running Lucid Alpha on an x86_64 system and during the alpha 1 to
>> alpha 2 or 3 updates, the following broke badly:
>> 
>> vmbuilder kvm ubuntu --suite=${suite} --flavour=virtual --arch=amd64
>> --mirror=${mirror} -o --libvirt=qemu:///system --tmpfs=-
>> --ip="${subnet}.${ip}" --gateway="${subnet}.254"
>> --part=vmbuilder.partition --templates=mytemplates --user=${username}
>> --name=${username} --pass=${username} --addpkg=vim-nox --addpkg
>> =unattended-upgrades --addpkg=acpid --raw=/dev/virtmachs/${hostname}
>> --firstboot=boot.sh --mem=${mem} --hostname=${hostname}
>> --bridge=${bridge}

Soren> -o is probably broken.

It's not being accepted.  Not sure it's *needed* though.  Dunno, I
find the docs for vmbuilder to be lacking.  There's no obvious way to
figure out what the switches there are to use.  I did look at the HTML
docs you produce for the API, but that doesn't help much.

Soren> --tmpfs is broken.

Bummers.  Anything I can do to fix this?  I don't know beans about
python programming, but I've been doing perl for years and years.  I
can cope if need be.

Soren> --raw with --part is probably broken.
Soren> --firstboot is broken.

Soren> I'll file bugs.

I'd be happy to test out new versions for you!  I've got a nice helper
script which lets me build play VMs quickly.

>> sail:~> vmbuilder kvm ubuntu --suite=karmic --flavour=virtual
>> --arch=amd64 --mirror=http://192.168.1.3:9999/ubuntu
>> --libvirt=qemu:///system --ip=192.168.1.54 --part=vmbuilder.partition
>> --templates=mytemplates --user=john --name=john --pass=john --addpkg
>> =vim-nox --addpkg=unattended-upgrades --addpkg=acpid
>> --raw=/dev/virtmachs/vm4 --mem=256 --hostname=vm4 --bridge=br0
Soren> [...]
>> (['/usr/sbin/debootstrap', '--arch=amd64', 'karmic', '/tmp/tmpSCGmm5',
>> 'http://192.168.1.3:9999/ubuntu']) returned 1. stdout: E: debootstrap
>> can only run as root
>> , stderr:

Soren> VMBuilder has not in recent history been able to run as
Soren> non-root. It did for a few weeks in January 2008 (if memory
Soren> server), but I doubt very many people noticed this.

Sure, I understand.  My wrapper script is called (and checks for) by
sudo/root privs.  I'd suggest that vmbuilder do the same thing.  Check
for UID or EUID being root (0) and bailing otherwise with a nice message.  

Should I hack up something like this for you?

>> Does anyone have a document listing the changes or upgrade process to
>> be used between Karmic and Lucid versions of vmbuilder?  I've been
>> looking around, but not having any success on this.

Soren> I hope, by the time of release, nothing will have changed
Soren> incompatibly since Karmic.

Excellent!  I'm happy to help with testing.  Please let me know what I
can do.

John