[gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Harry Putnam]

The times I've tried to get a recent gentoo version running in a vm on
windows turned out to be labor taking days to get right.

Does anyone know if there is a fairly current gentoo appliance
somewhere that I can just install and then update or customize?

I'd prefer to run it with vbox but if the appliance is vmware created
that's ok too.  I do have a license up to 6.5.

If that isn't available maybe someone has a fairly current kernel
config that is known to boot on a windows host with guest gentoo.

As I recall from my efforts, there were always problems with something
to do with scuzzi drivers or whatnot.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Mark Knecht]

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:
> The times I've tried to get a recent gentoo version running in a vm on
> windows turned out to be labor taking days to get right.
>
> Does anyone know if there is a fairly current gentoo appliance
> somewhere that I can just install and then update or customize?
>
> I'd prefer to run it with vbox but if the appliance is vmware created
> that's ok too.  I do have a license up to 6.5.
>
> If that isn't available maybe someone has a fairly current kernel
> config that is known to boot on a windows host with guest gentoo.
>
> As I recall from my efforts, there were always problems with something
> to do with scuzzi drivers or whatnot.

Hi Harry,
   I have an up-to-date Gentoo 64-bit/KDE Virtualbox VM but I haven't
tested it on a Windows host. I suppose could try that given some time.

   I'd have no problem donating a copy if people wanted it and there
was some public place that we could put it. I don't want to run a
server here to do that though. It looks like it would be around 5GB if
I cleaned out /usr/portage/distfiles.

- Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[kashani]

On 6/22/2011 2:52 PM, Harry Putnam wrote:
> If that isn't available maybe someone has a fairly current kernel
> config that is known to boot on a windows host with guest gentoo.
>

http://badapple.net/files/gentoo-vbox.config
Windows 7, vbox 4.0.8, gentoo-sources-2.6.36-r5, no video drivers

kashani

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Albert Hopkins]

On Wednesday, June 22 at 16:52 (-0500), Harry Putnam said:

> The times I've tried to get a recent gentoo version running in a vm on
> windows turned out to be labor taking days to get right.
> 
> Does anyone know if there is a fairly current gentoo appliance
> somewhere that I can just install and then update or customize?
> 
> I'd prefer to run it with vbox but if the appliance is vmware created
> that's ok too.  I do have a license up to 6.5.
> 
> If that isn't available maybe someone has a fairly current kernel
> config that is known to boot on a windows host with guest gentoo.
> 
> As I recall from my efforts, there were always problems with something
> to do with scuzzi drivers or whatnot.

I have a program that I use to create Gentoo VM appliances.  I have no
idea if it works with vbox or vmware as I run KVM, but I think it
*should* work.  Anyway if you want to try it you can or, if you want, it
also builds stage4 tarballs, so I can build you a stage4 tarball of a
base Gentoo install pretty easily (including kernel).  The stage4
(excluding portage) would be ~90MB (bz2).  The disk image (compressed
QCOW is about 120MB).

RE: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Pandu Poluan]

-original message-
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance
From: Albert Hopkins <marduk@letterboxes.org>
Date: 2011-06-23 07:11

>I have a program that I use to create Gentoo VM appliances.  I have no
>idea if it works with vbox or vmware as I run KVM, but I think it
>*should* work.  Anyway if you want to try it you can or, if you want, it
>also builds stage4 tarballs, so I can build you a stage4 tarball of a
>base Gentoo install pretty easily (including kernel).  The stage4
>(excluding portage) would be ~90MB (bz2).  The disk image (compressed
>QCOW is about 120MB).

Any such program to build XenServer appliances (.xva) ?

Rgds,
--
FdS Pandu E Poluan
~ IT Optimizer ~

Sent from Nokia E72-1

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Matthew Finkel]

On 06/22/11 20:11, Albert Hopkins wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, June 22 at 16:52 (-0500), Harry Putnam said:
>
>> The times I've tried to get a recent gentoo version running in a vm on
>> windows turned out to be labor taking days to get right.
>>
>> Does anyone know if there is a fairly current gentoo appliance
>> somewhere that I can just install and then update or customize?
>>
>> I'd prefer to run it with vbox but if the appliance is vmware created
>> that's ok too.  I do have a license up to 6.5.
>>
>> If that isn't available maybe someone has a fairly current kernel
>> config that is known to boot on a windows host with guest gentoo.
>>
>> As I recall from my efforts, there were always problems with something
>> to do with scuzzi drivers or whatnot.
> I have a program that I use to create Gentoo VM appliances.  I have no
> idea if it works with vbox or vmware as I run KVM, but I think it
> *should* work.  Anyway if you want to try it you can or, if you want, it
> also builds stage4 tarballs, so I can build you a stage4 tarball of a
> base Gentoo install pretty easily (including kernel).  The stage4
> (excluding portage) would be ~90MB (bz2).  The disk image (compressed
> QCOW is about 120MB)

The only issue with qcow2 is that in order to use it with VB, IIRC you
need to convert it to raw before you can import it.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Albert Hopkins]

On Wednesday, June 22 at 21:31 (-0400), Matthew Finkel said:

> > The stage4
> > (excluding portage) would be ~90MB (bz2).  The disk image (compressed
> > QCOW is about 120MB)
> 
> The only issue with qcow2 is that in order to use it with VB, IIRC you
> need to convert it to raw before you can import it.

Perhaps, but it's trivial to convert qcows to other formats.

RE: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Albert Hopkins]

On Thursday, June 23 at 08:16 (+0700), Pandu Poluan said:

> Any such program to build XenServer appliances (.xva) ?

I haven't any.  I have no experience with XenServer appliances.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Matthew Finkel]

On 06/22/11 22:14, Albert Hopkins wrote:
> Perhaps, but it's trivial to convert qcows to other formats.
>
Oh, don't get me wrong, that's one reason I use qcow2 myself, but it's
either something he would have to deal with when he received it or the
conversion would increase the size of the disk image that would be
shipped to him.

Was just throwing in my 2-cents :)

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Thursday 23 June 2011 08:16:33 Pandu Poluan wrote:
> -original message-
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance
> From: Albert Hopkins <marduk@letterboxes.org>
> Date: 2011-06-23 07:11
> 
> >I have a program that I use to create Gentoo VM appliances.  I have no
> >idea if it works with vbox or vmware as I run KVM, but I think it
> >*should* work.  Anyway if you want to try it you can or, if you want, it
> >also builds stage4 tarballs, so I can build you a stage4 tarball of a
> >base Gentoo install pretty easily (including kernel).  The stage4
> >(excluding portage) would be ~90MB (bz2).  The disk image (compressed
> >QCOW is about 120MB).
> 
> Any such program to build XenServer appliances (.xva) ?

Shouldn't it work similarly?
Eg. start an appliance and install using the stage4?

I use Xen directly and as long as I can create and fill the partitions for the 
VM, any "creation" tool should work.

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Albert Hopkins]

On Thursday, June 23 at 00:35 (-0400), Matthew Finkel said:

> Oh, don't get me wrong, that's one reason I use qcow2 myself, but it's
> either something he would have to deal with when he received it or the
> conversion would increase the size of the disk image that would be
> shipped to him.

Yes, of course a raw image file will typically be bigger than a
compressed qcow, just as an unpacked stage4..tar.bz2 file is going to be
bigger than the original archive.  But in terms transferability,
compressed qcows are more efficient since they only include *used*
blocks and they are compressed.  I can convert the image into any of a
number of formats, but the issue then is it will be bigger, and thus
take me longer to upload it and the OP to download it.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Albert Hopkins]

On Thursday, June 23 at 09:54 (+0200), Joost Roeleveld said:

> > Any such program to build XenServer appliances (.xva) ?
> 
> Shouldn't it work similarly?
> Eg. start an appliance and install using the stage4?
> 
> I use Xen directly and as long as I can create and fill the partitions
> for the 
> VM, any "creation" tool should work.


Yes the stage4 should work similarly.  However Pandu was asking about
building ".xva" which I know nothing about, unless an .xva is similar
to/same as a stage4 (I have no idea)?

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Thursday 23 June 2011 07:18:38 Albert Hopkins wrote:
> On Thursday, June 23 at 09:54 (+0200), Joost Roeleveld said:
> > > Any such program to build XenServer appliances (.xva) ?
> > 
> > Shouldn't it work similarly?
> > Eg. start an appliance and install using the stage4?
> > 
> > I use Xen directly and as long as I can create and fill the partitions
> > for the
> > VM, any "creation" tool should work.
> 
> Yes the stage4 should work similarly.  However Pandu was asking about
> building ".xva" which I know nothing about, unless an .xva is similar
> to/same as a stage4 (I have no idea)?

.xva is a format specifically for Citrix Xen.

There are tools to convert "classic" Xen VMs to "xva" files:
http://www.xen.org/files/xva/README

I would be willing to assist in getting this tool to work with your program. 
All I'd need is a copy of your program along with assistance from Pandu Poluan 
to test the resulting XVA files.

I do not run Citrix XenServer and have no need for it as Xen itself works fine 
for me.

-- 
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Albert Hopkins]

On Thursday, June 23 at 13:45 (+0200), Joost Roeleveld said:

> > Yes the stage4 should work similarly.  However Pandu was asking
> about
> > building ".xva" which I know nothing about, unless an .xva is
> similar
> > to/same as a stage4 (I have no idea)?
> 
> .xva is a format specifically for Citrix Xen.
> 
> There are tools to convert "classic" Xen VMs to "xva" files:
> http://www.xen.org/files/xva/README
> 
> I would be willing to assist in getting this tool to work with your
> program. 
> All I'd need is a copy of your program along with assistance from
> Pandu Poluan 
> to test the resulting XVA files.
> 
> I do not run Citrix XenServer and have no need for it as Xen itself
> works fine 
> for me.

Thank you. I downloaded the xva.py script and created a target to
create .xva files.  The script appeared to run fine.  No errors, but I
cannot verify that the .xva is good.  I used hvm and converted the raw
image.  The .xva is 4.1G whereras the original raw image is only 414MB
(sparse).  The .xva appears to be a tar file, but I guess w/o the -S
flag passed to gnu tar.

My program is hosted on bitbucket[1].  The documentation for it is
outdated.

-a

[1] https://bitbucket.org/marduk/virtual-appliance/wiki/Home

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Pandu Poluan]

On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 18:18, Albert Hopkins <marduk@letterboxes.org> wrote:
>
> On Thursday, June 23 at 09:54 (+0200), Joost Roeleveld said:
>
> > > Any such program to build XenServer appliances (.xva) ?
> >
> > Shouldn't it work similarly?
> > Eg. start an appliance and install using the stage4?
> >
> > I use Xen directly and as long as I can create and fill the partitions
> > for the
> > VM, any "creation" tool should work.
>
>
> Yes the stage4 should work similarly.  However Pandu was asking about
> building ".xva" which I know nothing about, unless an .xva is similar
> to/same as a stage4 (I have no idea)?

Um, an ".xva" is more like a qcow2 file.

With Citrix' XenCenter, all I have to do is "import" the xva, and
XenServer automagically creates a VM with a specified RAM, specified
storage, specified cores, etc.

Of course these settings (RAM, storage, cores) can be modified
post-import, but usually xva-makers already set the settings to the
recommended minimum. So, it saves the xva users from planning stage
:-)

Plus, xva-packaged appliances are usually already configured to run in
PV-mode, thus giving the highest performance over XenServer.

Rgds,
--
Pandu E Poluan
~ IT Optimizer ~
Visit my Blog: http://pepoluan.posterous.com
Google Talk:    pepoluan
Y! messenger: pepoluan
MSN / Live:      pepoluan@hotmail.com (do not send email here)
Skype:            pepoluan
More on me:  My LinkedIn Account  My Facebook Account

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Pandu Poluan]

On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 20:12, Albert Hopkins <marduk@letterboxes.org> wrote:
>
>
> On Thursday, June 23 at 13:45 (+0200), Joost Roeleveld said:
>
>> > Yes the stage4 should work similarly.  However Pandu was asking
>> about
>> > building ".xva" which I know nothing about, unless an .xva is
>> similar
>> > to/same as a stage4 (I have no idea)?
>>
>> .xva is a format specifically for Citrix Xen.
>>
>> There are tools to convert "classic" Xen VMs to "xva" files:
>> http://www.xen.org/files/xva/README
>>
>> I would be willing to assist in getting this tool to work with your
>> program.
>> All I'd need is a copy of your program along with assistance from
>> Pandu Poluan
>> to test the resulting XVA files.
>>
>> I do not run Citrix XenServer and have no need for it as Xen itself
>> works fine
>> for me.
>
> Thank you. I downloaded the xva.py script and created a target to
> create .xva files.  The script appeared to run fine.  No errors, but I
> cannot verify that the .xva is good.  I used hvm and converted the raw
> image.  The .xva is 4.1G whereras the original raw image is only 414MB
> (sparse).  The .xva appears to be a tar file, but I guess w/o the -S
> flag passed to gnu tar.
>
> My program is hosted on bitbucket[1].  The documentation for it is
> outdated.
>
> -a
>
> [1] https://bitbucket.org/marduk/virtual-appliance/wiki/Home

I'll give it a drive tomorrow (already 21:13 here in my country)

Rgds,
-- 
Pandu E Poluan
~ IT Optimizer ~
Visit my Blog: http://pepoluan.posterous.com
Google Talk:    pepoluan
Y! messenger: pepoluan
MSN / Live:      pepoluan@hotmail.com (do not send email here)
Skype:            pepoluan

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Matthew Finkel]

On 06/23/11 07:15, Albert Hopkins wrote:
>
> On Thursday, June 23 at 00:35 (-0400), Matthew Finkel said:
>
>> Oh, don't get me wrong, that's one reason I use qcow2 myself, but it's
>> either something he would have to deal with when he received it or the
>> conversion would increase the size of the disk image that would be
>> shipped to him.
> Yes, of course a raw image file will typically be bigger than a
> compressed qcow, just as an unpacked stage4..tar.bz2 file is going to be
> bigger than the original archive.  But in terms transferability,
> compressed qcows are more efficient since they only include *used*
> blocks and they are compressed.  I can convert the image into any of a
> number of formats, but the issue then is it will be bigger, and thus
> take me longer to upload it and the OP to download it
Yup, exactly :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Thursday 23 June 2011 09:12:15 Albert Hopkins wrote:
> On Thursday, June 23 at 13:45 (+0200), Joost Roeleveld said:
> > > Yes the stage4 should work similarly.  However Pandu was asking
> > 
> > about
> > 
> > > building ".xva" which I know nothing about, unless an .xva is
> > 
> > similar
> > 
> > > to/same as a stage4 (I have no idea)?
> > 
> > .xva is a format specifically for Citrix Xen.
> > 
> > There are tools to convert "classic" Xen VMs to "xva" files:
> > http://www.xen.org/files/xva/README
> > 
> > I would be willing to assist in getting this tool to work with your
> > program.
> > All I'd need is a copy of your program along with assistance from
> > Pandu Poluan
> > to test the resulting XVA files.
> > 
> > I do not run Citrix XenServer and have no need for it as Xen itself
> > works fine
> > for me.
> 
> Thank you. I downloaded the xva.py script and created a target to
> create .xva files.  The script appeared to run fine.  No errors, but I
> cannot verify that the .xva is good.  I used hvm and converted the raw
> image.  The .xva is 4.1G whereras the original raw image is only 414MB
> (sparse).  The .xva appears to be a tar file, but I guess w/o the -S
> flag passed to gnu tar.

Yes, that's what I read on the web as well. A tar-file filled with silly-named 
files and an XML-file containing the configuration. :)

> My program is hosted on bitbucket[1].  The documentation for it is
> outdated.
> 
> -a
> 
> [1] https://bitbucket.org/marduk/virtual-appliance/wiki/Home

I'll have a look at it later.

-- 
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Albert Hopkins]

On Thursday, June 23 at 12:32 (-0400), Matthew Finkel said:

> On 06/23/11 07:15, Albert Hopkins wrote:
> >
> > On Thursday, June 23 at 00:35 (-0400), Matthew Finkel said:
> >
> >> Oh, don't get me wrong, that's one reason I use qcow2 myself, but it's
> >> either something he would have to deal with when he received it or the
> >> conversion would increase the size of the disk image that would be
> >> shipped to him.
> > Yes, of course a raw image file will typically be bigger than a
> > compressed qcow, just as an unpacked stage4..tar.bz2 file is going to be
> > bigger than the original archive.  But in terms transferability,
> > compressed qcows are more efficient since they only include *used*
> > blocks and they are compressed.  I can convert the image into any of a
> > number of formats, but the issue then is it will be bigger, and thus
> > take me longer to upload it and the OP to download it
> Yup, exactly :-)
> 

I've uploaded a (390MB) vmdk.  I've been told by someone that it works
with vmware (not sure what version).

This was build just a few minutes ago with the latest stage3 tarball and
the latest portage snapshot.

http://starship.python.net/crew/marduk/base.vmdk

The root password is blank. It will force you to change it on first
login.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Albert Hopkins]

On Thursday, June 23 at 12:52 (-0400), Albert Hopkins said:


> I've uploaded a (390MB) vmdk.  I've been told by someone that it works
> with vmware (not sure what version).
> 
> This was build just a few minutes ago with the latest stage3 tarball and
> the latest portage snapshot.
> 
> http://starship.python.net/crew/marduk/base.vmdk
> 
> The root password is blank. It will force you to change it on first
> login.


Last night I realized that the mirror I had used to download stage3s and
portage snapshots hadn't been updated in over 30 days.

So I changed mirrors and re-created an image.  The new image should have
packages from the latest snapshot (as of an hour ago).  Also it has the
2.6.38-gentoo-r6 kernel.  The complete package list is here[1].  The
compressed vmdk image (89MB) is here[2].

[1] http://starship.python.net/crew/marduk/base-dist-package.lst
[2] http://starship.python.net/crew/marduk/base-dist.vmdk.bz2

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[James Wall]

Albert,
Thanks for sharing the guest image. I have gotten it installed on my
virtualbox to allow me to experiment with it. Thanks again for sharing
your work.

James Wall
--
No trees were harmed in the sending of this message. However, a large
number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Albert Hopkins]

On Monday, June 27 at 18:47 (-0500), James Wall said:

> Albert,
> Thanks for sharing the guest image. I have gotten it installed on my
> virtualbox to allow me to experiment with it. Thanks again for sharing
> your work.

Cool, now I at least know it works with vmware and virtualbox.

I will probably be uploading updated images every few days or so.

-a

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[James Wall]

On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 7:46 PM, Albert Hopkins <marduk@letterboxes.org> wrote:
>
>
> On Monday, June 27 at 18:47 (-0500), James Wall said:
>
>> Albert,
>> Thanks for sharing the guest image. I have gotten it installed on my
>> virtualbox to allow me to experiment with it. Thanks again for sharing
>> your work.
>
> Cool, now I at least know it works with vmware and virtualbox.
Just for clarification and in case anyone else needs help with this,
the steps I followed in Virtualbox were as follows:
1. Create a new VM and select to add an existing disk image. I
navigated to the uncompressed file and selected it.
2. I then went into the properties of the VM and changed the
controller type to SCSI and readded the disk image.
Since I quickly realized I wanted more space to use as my
distfiles/portage server for my network, I then ran
3. VBoxManage clonehd /path/to/base-dist.vmdk /path/to/base-dist.vdi
--format VDI ; VBoxManage modifyhd /path/to/base-dist.vdi --resize
102400
4. I then went into the settings and selected the new image to have
the disk space available and partitioned the drive with the new space
set aside for /usr/portage/
> I will probably be uploading updated images every few days or so.
>
> -a
>
>
>
>
Hope this is useful.
James
--
No trees were harmed in the sending of this message. However, a large
number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Albert Hopkins]

On Monday, June 27 at 22:44 (-0500), James Wall said:

> 2. I then went into the properties of the VM and changed the
> controller type to SCSI and readded the disk image.

If you let me know what controller virtualbox "natively" uses I can add
that to the kernel config.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[James Wall]

On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 8:07 AM, Albert Hopkins <marduk@letterboxes.org> wrote:
>
>
> On Monday, June 27 at 22:44 (-0500), James Wall said:
>
>> 2. I then went into the properties of the VM and changed the
>> controller type to SCSI and readded the disk image.
>
> If you let me know what controller virtualbox "natively" uses I can add
> that to the kernel config.
>
>
>
>
>

Albert,
it uses the AHCI driver for the sata controller.
James Wall
--
No trees were harmed in the sending of this message. However, a large
number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Albert Hopkins]

On Tuesday, June 28 at 09:32 (-0500), James Wall said:

> Albert,
> it uses the AHCI driver for the sata controller.

You know it's odd, I was just talking with someone yesterday about why
don't the hypervisors default to AHCI since it's somewhat universal by
now.

Anyway, I will rebuild an image with AHCI support and upload it shortly.

-a

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT virtual stuff] gentoo vm appliance

[Albert Hopkins]

On Tuesday, June 28 at 10:57 (-0400), Albert Hopkins said:

> Anyway, I will rebuild an image with AHCI support and upload it
> shortly.

Done, uploaded to the same place:

http://starship.python.net/crew/marduk/base-dist.vmdk.bz2

I also made the image bigger (10GB).  Oddly enough, it compresses
smaller than the other by a couple of megs.

-a