KVM, virt-manager, etc.

[Soren Hansen]

On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 09:43:48AM +0000, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
>> Just to clarify: You want to avoid having the user interact with the
>> installer inside the vm altogether?
> Correct.  I think we ought to provide a fully non-interactive
> bootstrap of a new guest.  If that's not fully feasible in this first
> iteration, we should work toward it.

There are a few options.

a) The ubuntu-vm-builder script I worked on during gutsy. It uses
debootstrap and a series of hacks to bootstrap a virtual machine. It'd
need some love to get into a publishable shape, but it's doable.

b) RedHat has a provisioning system called Cobbler, which could do this
as well. It sets up the a dhcp server and a tftp server which it uses to
install RedHat VM's by way of PXE booting the VM's and providing
kickseeds via a cgi. While this seems like the better solution, it needs
a fair bit of work to adhere to 1) our interpretation of the FHS and 2)
Debian Policy w.r.t. messing about with configuration files for the dhcp
and tftp servers.

> I think two good options are:
>
>  * Copy the packages from the CD at install time, so they're cached for use
>    in creating VMs
> 
>  * Install via Internet from a mirror
> 
> The former being a better user experience, and the latter being simpler to
> implement.

The filesystem on the ISO already constitutes a valid mirror, doesn't
it?  If so, it shouldn't require many lines of shell to copy the
relevant bits of the ISO to the hard drive and teach the install system
we choose to implement to check if it already has a local mirror like
that.

-- 
Soren Hansen
Ubuntu Server Team
http://www.ubuntu.com/
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