NeCTAR Images

This repository contains the scripts used for building the official images used by the NeCTAR Research Cloud.

We use Ansible to provision images, which are build using Packer and the QEMU/KVM provider from ISO with kickstart/preseed.

Setup

Refer to the ImageBuilding page in the Nectar Wiki.

Testing

A Vagrant file is present which is useful for testing the Ansible roles are working correctly.

Run vagrant status in the top level directory for a list of available virtual machine profiles you can test.

To launch a test Vagrant instance, use the following command:

vagrant up --no-destroy-on-error <name>

The Vagrant config prefers the libvirt backend, which is ideal for Linux machines but you'll need to set it up yourself and support non-root access. The virtualbox provider is also enabled if you'd prefer to use that.

You can set the provider manually on the command line using the provder argument. For example:

vagrant up --provider virtualbox