[gentoo-dev] Creating development virtual machine

[gentoo-dev] Creating development virtual machine

[Jigme Datse Yli-RAsku]

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I am looking to create a virtual machine which I can use to test to see
about my development efforts (currently with LedgerSMB) and getting
appropriate ebuild files created on a base install.  I currently have no
virtualization software installed on the main development machine, so
that is as of now, largely irrelevant, but in the future I would like to
have the possibility of hosting my built boxes "in the cloud" so if
there is any virtualization system which likely would make that easier
(or at least not more difficult) that may be a factor.

Jigme Datse Yli-Rasku

-- 
Jigme Datse Yli-Rasku
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250-505-6117

Jigme Datse Yli-Rasku
PO Box 270
Rossland, BC V0G 1Y0
Canada

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Creating development virtual machine

[Daniel Campbell]

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On 08/20/2016 04:56 PM, Jigme Datse Yli-RAsku wrote:
> I am looking to create a virtual machine which I can use to test to see
> about my development efforts (currently with LedgerSMB) and getting
> appropriate ebuild files created on a base install.  I currently have no
> virtualization software installed on the main development machine, so
> that is as of now, largely irrelevant, but in the future I would like to
> have the possibility of hosting my built boxes "in the cloud" so if
> there is any virtualization system which likely would make that easier
> (or at least not more difficult) that may be a factor.
> 
> Jigme Datse Yli-Rasku
> 

As many would likely tell you, it depends on what sort of development
you intend on doing.

To start, I suggest qemu and KVM. They're libre software and there's a
GUI frontend if you don't feel like manual configuration or shell
scripting. I've used it to build a completely free/libre Gentoo
installation, which I intend to use on a laptop in the future.

Our wiki has some decent pages on qemu and KVM. If the image files are
the correct format (I'm not sure what format cloud providers prefer),
they should work just fine. I would focus on using the correct image
format and then building what some call a stage4. I think there are more
tools for creating stage4s, but ultimately that's what you and I both
are looking at: ready-to-go Gentoo installs that come with some needed
software.
-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Creating development virtual machine

[Jigme Datse Yli-RAsku]

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I think you pointed me in a direction I am quite happy to go in.

My current development project is getting LedgerSMB to install on a more or less bare (Stage3?) Gentoo system. 

I will likely (after that has been managed) be looking at the Matrix Protocol starting with the synapse homeserver and the vector web client. 

For these, the development effort that *I* intend to be making would be to get it so that the install on gentoo will work correctly through portage. 

I believe that I would have to end up being on the "official gentoo development" so as to be able to handle issues through gentoo supported tools. 

Thank you very much. 

On 2016-08-20 17:15, Daniel Campbell wrote:
> On 08/20/2016 04:56 PM, Jigme Datse Yli-RAsku wrote:
> > I am looking to create a virtual machine which I can use to test to see
> > about my development efforts (currently with LedgerSMB) and getting
> > appropriate ebuild files created on a base install.  I currently have no
> > virtualization software installed on the main development machine, so
> > that is as of now, largely irrelevant, but in the future I would like to
> > have the possibility of hosting my built boxes "in the cloud" so if
> > there is any virtualization system which likely would make that easier
> > (or at least not more difficult) that may be a factor.
> >
> > Jigme Datse Yli-Rasku
> >
>
> As many would likely tell you, it depends on what sort of development
> you intend on doing.
>
> To start, I suggest qemu and KVM. They're libre software and there's a
> GUI frontend if you don't feel like manual configuration or shell
> scripting. I've used it to build a completely free/libre Gentoo
> installation, which I intend to use on a laptop in the future.
>
> Our wiki has some decent pages on qemu and KVM. If the image files are
> the correct format (I'm not sure what format cloud providers prefer),
> they should work just fine. I would focus on using the correct image
> format and then building what some call a stage4. I think there are more
> tools for creating stage4s, but ultimately that's what you and I both
> are looking at: ready-to-go Gentoo installs that come with some needed
> software.
>

-- 
Jigme Datse Yli-Rasku
jigme.datse@datsemultimedia.com (Preferred address for new messages)
250-505-6117

Jigme Datse Yli-Rasku
PO Box 270
Rossland, BC V0G 1Y0
Canada

.......................................................................
... This message should be electronically signed, and if the sender ...
... has your public key, may also be encrypted. ...
... If you have any questions about this, please email, or call. ...
... ...
... Note, unknown calls likely will go to voicemail. ...
... Please leave a message if you get voicemail. ...
.......................................................................





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Re: [gentoo-dev] Creating development virtual machine

[Robin H. Johnson]

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On Sat, Aug 20, 2016 at 05:15:13PM -0700, Daniel Campbell wrote:
> ready-to-go Gentoo installs that come with some needed
> software.
Release Engineering does already publish cloud-ready stage4 tarballs.

In the very near future, I intend to for releng/infra to be publishing
the pre-converted qcow2 images, but for the moment, you can convert them
yourselves:

1. Grab a cloud stage4:
$ curl http://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/amd64/autobuilds/current-stage4-amd64-hardened+cloud/stage4-amd64-hardened+cloud-20160811.tar.bz2

2. emerge app-emulation/diskimage-builder

3. symlink the tarball as needed:
$ ln -s stage4-amd64-hardened+cloud-20160811.tar.bz2 gentoo-stage4-hardened.tar.bz2

4. Convert it to a QCOW2 disk image:
$ GENTOO_PROFILE=hardened/linux/amd64 \
  DIB_IMAGE_CACHE=`pwd` disk-image-create \
  --offline \
  --image-size 2 \
  --mkfs-options='-T news,floppy' \
  gentoo vm

5. Use image.qcow2 in the dir to boot the VM, either with cloud-init to
inject a root password/ssh keys, or modify the image yourself first
(convert to raw format, loopmount w/ -o offset=$((1024*1024)), convert
back to QCOW2 afterwards).

6. You'll want to look at growpart and related tools if you intend to
having space to work on stuff on the VM; it's deliberately very small,
and I'd like to shave a little more space off to fit into a 1GiB disk
with more room to spare.

** Right now:
- 1GiB volume w/ ~50MiB free
- 2GiB volume w/ ~1050MiB free
- 1536MiB volume w/ ~679MiB free


-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Trustee & Treasurer
E-Mail   : robbat2@gentoo.org
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