[ubuntu-cloud] How are Ubuntu images built?

Spike Spiegel fsmlab at gmail.com
Fri Nov 19 23:54:12 GMT 2010


Hi again,

On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 6:51 PM, Scott Moser <smoser at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> See info at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UEC/Images/Publishing

ah, great, thanks. That seems indeed to point to a branch of vmbuilder
that has a working ec2 plugin (just commenting based on a cursory look
at the code tho). How come the one in maverick is more recent (0.12)
and yet broken (no ec2 plugin)?

> All code for building these images is available publicly, and the above
> should give you what you need.

yep, it looks like it does, I'll try a build tomorrow

> 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 .

ah, believe it or not I hadn't seen those. I still need to be able to
build images myself tho, but I can use those as a term of comparison,
thanks.

> 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.

it's actually not a problem of speed, I "simply" need to be able to
build images locally for different targets and needs, using them on
ec2 is just part of the story.

> 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.

I'd very much like to avoid solving problems already solved, but my
problem is not to have an ubuntu image on ec2 with some
customizations, my problem is really being able to programmatically
build those images myself.

vmbuilder is exactly what I need and have been tried to use, except
that the one shipped with maverick is clearly broken and couldn't find
a working one until you pointed out yours (thanks again!). But it's
true tho that I'd like to also understand this process a bit more in
details. It seems that the required tasks boil down to:
* create an image file
* partition it
* debootstrap $distro
* install suitable kernel
* configure/install grub2
* fix up hosts/network
* fix up fstab
* disable hwclock

* pick and bundle with a pv-grub kernel from amazon

> 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.

I don't have any problems with them, I think they are great. It's just
not what I'm after, sorry.

thanks for everything again,

Spike

-- 
"Behind every great man there's a great backpack" - B.



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