vmbuilder(1)

NAME

vmbuilder - builds virtual machines from the command line

SYNOPSIS

vmbuilder <hypervisor> <distro> [OPTIONS]...
<hypervisor>   Hypervisor  image  format.  Valid  options: xen kvm vmw6
vmserver
<distro>      Distribution. Valid options: ubuntu

DESCRIPTION

This manual page documents the vmbuilder command. vmbuilder is a program that builds virtual machines from the command line, but can have other interfaces implemented through its plugin mechanism. You can pass command line options to add extra packages, remove packages, choose which version of Ubuntu, which mirror etc. On recent hardware with plenty of RAM, tmpdir in /dev/shm or using a tmpfs, and a local mirror (see apt-proxy or apt-mirror), you can bootstrap a vm in less than a minute.

OPTIONS

NOTE: Only common basic options are described here. Many options can

be added through plugins and others, they depends on the hypervisor and distro you specify. Please use vmbuilder <hypervisor> <distro> --help for a full options list.

-h, --help

Show this help message and exit.

-c ALTCONFIG --config

Specify the path to an optional configuration file. [default:None]. /etc/vmbuilder.cfg and ~/.vmbuilder.cfg are always read if present. The content of the configuration file is explained at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/JeOSVMBuilder#Using%20configuration%20files.

-d DEST, --dest DEST

Specify the destination directory. [default:<hypervisor>-<distro>]. Config option: destdir.

--debug

Show (a lot of) debug information

-v, --verbose

Show progress information

-q, --quiet

Silent operation

-t TMP, --tmp TMP

Use TMP as temporary working space for image generation. Defaults to $TMPDIR if it is defined or /tmp otherwise. [default: /tmp]

--templates DIR

Prepends dir to template search path. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/JeOSVMBuilder#Modifying%20the%20libvirt%20template%20to%20use%20bridging for an example.

-o, --overwrite

Force overwrite of destination directory if it already exist. [default: False]

--in-place

Install directly into the filesystem images. This is needed if your $TMPDIR is nodev and/or nosuid, but will result in slightly larger file system images.

--tmpfs OPTS

Use a tmpfs as the working directory, specifying its size or "-" to use tmpfs default (suid,dev,size=1G).

-m MEM, --mem MEM

Assign MEM megabytes of memory to the guest vm. [default: 128]

Guest partitioning options

--part PATH

Allows to specify a partition table in PATH each line of partfile should specify (root first):

mountpoint size

one per line, separated by space, where size is in megabytes. You can have up to 4 virtual disks, a new disk starts on a line containing only '---'. ie:

root 2000
/boot 512
swap 1000
--/var 8000
/var/log 2000

The following three options are not used if --part is specified:

--rootsize SIZE

Size (in MB) of the root filesystem [default: 4096]. Discarded when --part is used.

--optsize SIZE

Size (in MB) of the /opt filesystem. If not set, no /opt filesystem will be added. Discarded when --part is used.

--swapsize SIZE

Size (in MB) of the swap partition [default: 1024]. Discarded when --part is used.

Network related options:

--domain DOMAIN

Set DOMAIN as the domain name of the guest. Default: The domain of the machine running this script.

--ip ADDRESS

IP address in dotted form [default: dhcp]

Options below are discarded if --ip is not specified

--mask VALUE IP mask in dotted form [default: based on ip setting].

--net ADDRESS

IP net address in dotted form [default: based on ip setting].

--bcast VALUE

IP broadcast in dotted form [default: based on ip setting].

--gw ADDRESS

Gateway (router) address in dotted form [default: based on ip setting (first valid address in the network)].

--dns ADDRESS

DNS address in dotted form [default: based on ip setting (first valid address in the network)]

Post install actions:

--copy FILE

Read 'source dest' lines from FILE, copying source files from host to dest in the guest's file system.

--execscript SCRIPT, --exec SCRIPT

Run SCRIPT after distro installation finishes. Script will be called with the guest's chroot as first argument, so you can use chroot $1 <cmd> to run code in the virtual machine.

libvirt integration:

--libvirt=URI

Add VM to given URI

Scripts:

--firstboot PATH

Specify a script that will be copied into the guest and executed the first time the machine boots. This script must not be interactive.

--firstlogin PATH

Specify a script that will be copied into the guest and will be executed the first time the user logs in. This script can be interactive.

DEVELOPMENT

vmbuilder is a python program that offers a very simple mechanism to increase functionalities, interfaces, support other distribution and hypervisors. Feel free to join the project at https://launchpad.net/vmbuilder

COMPATIBILTY

vmbuilder includes a command line interface compatibility with its ancestor ubuntu-vm-builder. This compatibility does not include template or configration files which now use a newer format. Programs or script that were relying on ubuntu-vm-builder should continue working without any issues if the do not use templates or configuration files.

SUPPORT

Feel free to join #ubuntu-virt on freenode to get some help or just say hello.

SEE ALSO

apt-proxy(8), apt-mirror(8)

The vmbuilder tutorial available at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/JeOSVMBuilder

The CheetahTemplate documentation for syntax of the template files at http://www.cheetahtemplate.org/docs/users_guide_html/

AUTHOR

vmbuilder is Copyright (C) 2007-2008 Canonical Ltd. and written by Soren Hansen <soren@canonical.com> with the help of others, see /usr/share/doc/python-vm-builder/AUTHORS for more details.

Oct 2008 VMBUILDER(1)