vmctl
is a script that automates the installation, provisioning and
management of Arch Linux virtual machines.
qemu
curl
expect
Just copy the vmctl
script anywhere in your PATH
, or clone the repository
and create a symbolic link to vmctl
in your PATH
.
The vmctl install
command can be used to create an Arch Linux virtual machine
on the fly, wherever you are. It does the following:
- It downloads the latest Arch Linux installer ISO image if none was downloaded or a new one is available.
- It creates a
qemu
disk file. - It boots a new KVM that uses the ISO file as as CDROM and automates the installation of Arch Linux in the virtual machine (no user prompt required).
- It can install extra packages and run custom post-installation provisioning scripts.
Usage: vmctl install [-o <output-disk-image>] [-a <architecture>] [-s <disk-size>]
[-m <memory>] [-h <hostname>] [-P <root-password>] [-u <non-root-username>]
[-p <non-root-user-password>] [-z <timezone>] [-l <locale>] [-M <arch-mirror-url>]
[-K] [extra qemu arguments]
-o <output-disk-image> Path of the output disk image (default: ./arch.img)
-a <architecture> Target architecture (default: x86_64)
-s <disk-size> Disk size (default: 8G)
-m <memory> RAM size in KB (default: 2048)
-h <hostname> VM hostname (default: qemu)
-P <root-password> Root password. If not specified it will be prompted
-u <non-root-username> Username for the main non-root user
-p <non-root-user-password> Password for the non-root user. If not specified it will be prompted
-z <timezone> System timezone (default: UTC)
-l <locale> System locale (default: en_US.UTF-8)
-M <arch-mirror-url> Arch Linux download mirror URL (default: http://mirror.cj2.nl/archlinux/iso/latest/)
Consult https://archlinux.org/download/ for a full list of the available download mirrors.
-K Disable pacman keyring checks during installation. It's potentially unsafe,
but it can be an option if downloading the keys takes too long.
If a required option is not specified on the command line then it will be interactively prompted to the user (defaults are available for most of the options).
Non-interactive example:
vmctl install \
-h my_vm \
-a x86_64 \
-s 16G \
-m 2048 \
-P root \
-u myuser \
-p password \
-z Europe/Amsterdam \
-o arch-base.img
If you want to install an extra list of packages besides the default ones, then
specify them in a file named PKGLIST
in the same directory as the disk image file.
If you want to run a custom post-installation script after the core system has been
installed, then create a custom script named post-install.sh
in the same directory
as the disk image file.
The keyring population process may currently (as of March 2022) take a long time. This is a known issue.
qemu-img resize "$imgfile" +10G
qemu-img create -o backing_file="$imgfile",backing_fmt=raw -f qcow2 img1.cow
This is particularly useful if you want to have a "base" image and several customized images built on it.
qemu-img convert -O vdi disk.img disk.vdi