gen-vm-image

This package can be used for generating and configuring virtual machine images.

Dependencies

The dependencies required to use this package to generate virtual machine images can be found in the dep directory for the supported distributions.

Setup

The qemu-kvm command might not be available in the default PATH. This can be determined via the which command:

which qemu-kvm

If the command is not available, the qemu-kvm might be in a different location that is not part of your current PATH. In this case, you can create a symbolic link to the qemu-kvm command in a directory

An example of this could be:

ln -s /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/qemu-kvm /usr/local/bin/qemu-kvm

The gen-vm-image command can be used to generate virtual machine images for the supported distributions. To define which images should be generated, architecture.yml file should be created and defined beforehand.

Build a Virtual Machine Image

Before an image can be generated, you first have to create an architecture file that defines which images should be built. What name this architecture file is given is not important, but it should be in YAML format and contain the following structure:

owner: <string> # The owner of the image
images: <key-value pair> # The images to be generated
    <image-name>:
        name: <string> # The name of the image
        version: <string> # The version of the image
        get_url: <string> # The URL to download the image from
        checksum:
            type: <string> # The type of checksum that should be used to validate the image. For valid types, see the supported algorithms `Here <https://docs.python.org/3/library/hashlib.html#hashlib.new>`_
            value: <string> # The checksum value that should be used to validate the image
        size: <string> # The size of the to be generated vm image disk, can use suffixes such as 'K', 'M', 'G', 'T'.

An example of such a file can be found in the examples directory.

Upon creating such a file, the gen-vm-image command can be used to generate the virtual machine image. The totality of the command can be seen below:

usage: gen-vm-image [-h] [--architecture-path ARCHITECTURE_PATH]
                         [--image-output-path IMAGE_OUTPUT_PATH]
                         [--generated-image-owner GENERATED_IMAGE_OWNER]
                         [--generate-gocd-config]
                         [--gocd-config-name GOCD_CONFIG_NAME]
                         [--gocd-build-branch GOCD_BUILD_BRANCH]

optional arguments:
-h, --help            show this help message and exit
--architecture-path ARCHITECTURE_PATH
                        The path to the architecture file that is used to configure the images to be built (default: architecture.yml)
--image-output-path IMAGE_OUTPUT_PATH
                        The output path of the built image (default: generated-images/image.qcow2)
--generated-image-owner GENERATED_IMAGE_OWNER
                        Set the uid owner of the configured image (default: qemu)
--generate-gocd-config
                        Generate a GoCD config based on the architecture file (default: False)
--gocd-config-name GOCD_CONFIG_NAME
                        Name of the generated gocd config file (default: 1.gocd.yml)
--gocd-build-branch GOCD_BUILD_BRANCH
                        The branch that GoCD should use to build images (default: main)

When the gen-vm-image command is executed, the generated VM disk image will be placed in the --image-output-path directory.

If every default value is acceptable, the VM image can be built by simply running make build in the root directory of the project:

make build