arch-boxes

Arch-boxes provides automated builds of the Arch Linux releases for different providers and post-processors. Check the providers or post-processor sections if you want to know which are currently supported.

Dependencies

You'll need the following dependencies:

• packer (for basic usage)
• vagrant (for vagrant images)
• qemu (for libvirt provider support)
• virtualbox (for virtualbox support)
• VMware Workstation Pro (for vmware support)

variables

Here is an overview over all variables you can set in vagrant.json or local.json:

• iso_url: the url to the ISO. This can be an url or a filepath beginning with file://
• iso_checksum_url: the url to the checksum file. This can be an url or a filepath beginning with file://
• iso_checksum_type: this specifies the hashing algorithm for the checksum.
• disk_size: this specifices the disk size in bytes.
• memory: this specifies the size of the RAM in bytes.
• cpus: this specifies the number of cores for your VM.
• headless: this sets GUI on or off.
• vagrant_cloud_token: here you can specify the vagrant cloud token for uploading your box to the vagrantcloud. If you don't have a vagrant cloud token you can ignore this variable. Without a token the boxes will be built, but the upload step step will fail.
• write_zeroes: this variable is empty. if you set any string in this variable it will fill the box with zeros to reduce the size. DO NOT use this if you are running a SSD. It will harm your SSDs lifetime
• boot_wait: this specifies the time packer should wait for booting up the ISO before entering any command.

how to start the build process locally

If you want to build the boxes locally without uploading them to the Vagrant cloud you need to edit the local.json before you start the build. set the right iso_url and the right iso_checksum_url. Then you can start the build for virtualbox only with the following command:

packer build -only=virtualbox-iso local.json

how to start the build process for official builds

The official builds are done on our Arch Linux Buildserver.

packer build vagrant.json

providers

• virtualbox-iso
• qemu/libvirt
• vmware-iso

post-processors

• vagrant

Troubleshooting

Parallel build fails

If the parallel build fails this is mostly because the KVM device is already occupied by a different provider. You can use the build option parallel=false for building the images in a queue instead of parallel. But don't be surprised that that the build process will take longer. Any other option is to disable KVM support for all other providers except one.

Start packer with -parallel=false:

packer build -parallel=false vagrant.json

Checking cloud-init support in our qcow2 images:

$ packer build cloud.json
$ cp release/Arch-Linux-cloudimg-amd64-2020-02-24.img disk.img

# Copied from (with minor changes): https://cloudinit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/topics/datasources/nocloud.html
$ { echo instance-id: iid-local01; echo local-hostname: cloudimg; } > meta-data

$ printf "#cloud-config\npassword: passw0rd\nchpasswd: { expire: False }\nssh_pwauth: True\n" > user-data

## create a disk to attach with some user-data and meta-data (require cdrkit)
$ genisoimage  -output seed.iso -volid cidata -joliet -rock user-data meta-data

## create a new qcow image to boot, backed by your original image
$ qemu-img create -f qcow2 -b disk.img boot-disk.img

## boot the image and login as 'arch' with password 'passw0rd'
## note, passw0rd was set as password through the user-data above,
## there is no password set on these images.
$ qemu-system-x86_64 -m 256 \
   -net nic -net user,hostfwd=tcp::2222-:22 \
   -drive file=boot-disk.img,if=virtio \
   -drive file=seed.iso,if=virtio