[ubuntu-cloud] How are Ubuntu images built?

[Scott Moser]

On Fri, 19 Nov 2010, Spike Spiegel wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> thanks for your answer
> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 12:24 AM, John Pugh <john.pugh at canonical.com> wrote:
>
> > I think this is what you are looking for...
> > https://code.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-on-ec2/vmbuilder/automated-ec2-builds
>
> that's useful, thanks.
>
> > I believe it uses a patched version of vmbuilder to produce images.
>
> any idea where I could find this? I've spent the day looking at the
> vmbuilder bzr branch and the git repo from the debian vmbuilder. They
> seem both owned by Soren, the debian one being older but with a
> working ec2 plugin. Unfortunately then it knows nothing about more
> recent ubuntu releases so not really usable. Likewise the ubuntu one
> is unusable because the ec2 plugin is broken (register_plgin(EC2) is
> actually commented out and fixing that part just turned up more
> errors).

See info at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UEC/Images/Publishing
All code for building these images is available publicly, and the above
should give you what you need.

Personally, if I were just wanting to create images based on ubuntu and
have them on EC2 or UEC, I would start with the ones at
http://uec-images.ubuntu.com .

Unless you're was adding a very large amount of packages, or changes that would
take a long time to run on boot, I would simply boot our public EC2
instances and customize them with cloud-init input, or with scripts run
via ssh on first boot, or with puppet.

If that process is too slow for you, then I would recommend building your
own by downloading the tarballs from uec-images, and then mounting the
images loopback and making whatever changes you need, and then publishing
them from there.

If you're just interested in banging your head and solving problems that
I've already solved, then I might recommend using vm-builder (or
live-helper) and walking through all that.

If you have problems with our public images, please raise them. I've
several times asked for input on how to make them better.  We really do
want them to be the best available images.

Scott