Hi, I want to know if there is a tool that automate the installation of various Linux distributions into VM images. My goal is to be able to create VM on-demand for each software building and testing job. This does not have to be specific to Xen because I should be able to use qemu-img to covert between various image types. I found that there are 2 main approaches of this kind of work. 1. Use Kickstart or Preseeding to automate OS installation in VM. 2. Use yum or debootstrap to install OS into mounted VM image. However, this method requires some work to make image bootable and run properly.>From what I found, the second approach might be a lot faster in termsof image creation time and Xen-tools seems to fall into this category as well. However, current list of supported distribution of Xen-tools is quite limited (Only CentOS4 for RPM-based) Is there other alternatives? -- Thawan Kooburat Graduate Student Department of Computer Science UW-Madison _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 5:17 AM, Thawan Kooburat <kthawan@gmail.com> wrote:> I found that there are 2 main approaches of this kind of work. > 1. Use Kickstart or Preseeding to automate OS installation in VM. > 2. Use yum or debootstrap to install OS into mounted VM image.> Is there other alternatives?install an OS manually, then use the disk as template for new installations. i.e. new installation is just copying the old disk. Some preparation for the template is necessary though. For example, with RHEL5 you need to at least: - edit network config so it use DHCP or disabled, to avoid IP address conflict - remove /etc/ssh/*key*, so each domU has its own unique ssh server keys. -- Fajar _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 05:17:50PM -0500, Thawan Kooburat wrote:> Hi, > > I want to know if there is a tool that automate the installation of > various Linux distributions into VM images. My goal is to be able to > create VM on-demand for each software building and testing job. > > This does not have to be specific to Xen because I should be able to > use qemu-img to covert between various image types. > > I found that there are 2 main approaches of this kind of work. > 1. Use Kickstart or Preseeding to automate OS installation in VM. > 2. Use yum or debootstrap to install OS into mounted VM image. > However, this method requires some work to make image bootable and run > properly. > > >From what I found, the second approach might be a lot faster in terms > of image creation time and Xen-tools seems to fall into this category > as well. However, current list of supported distribution of Xen-tools > is quite limited (Only CentOS4 for RPM-based) > > Is there other alternatives? >Yeah.. there is. Install ''template'' VM once, and then just clone it when you need new instances. -- Pasi _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users