1:53 p.m.
I'm running into a bit of trouble using virt-builder and I'm hoping that someone
might be able to point in the right direction.
My build process creates a custom ISO image which is subsequently used to kickstart an
Oracle X4-2 server using PXE. The ISO is a minimal install and contains a suite of
packages and customization scripts to properly configure our box during first boot. The
process works great for kickstarting baremetal machines as well as VMs created with
virt-manager or vsphere.
I'd like to be able to use virt-builder to build virtual images automatically (i.e.,
take our .ISO and generate a qcow2 of a properly installed system). Unfortunately,
virt-builder doesn't seem to like the format of my ISO image. The tool dies during
the "Setting passwords" step because it's attempting to create a temp file
in /etc and my ISO doesn't have an /etc directory at this point.
Here's a snippet that shows the error message:
[ 16.0] Setting passwords
libguestfs: trace: mktemp "/etc/shadow.guestfsXXXXXX"
libguestfs: trace: mktemp = NULL (error)
virt-builder: error: libguestfs error: mktemp: /etc/shadow.guestfsyU5Zwo:
No such file or directory
Is there a particular ISO format that virt-builder expects?
As a test, I used virt-builder to successfully create a centos-6 image. I looked in my
.cache/virt-builder directory, unxz'd the image and then mounted the partitions. It
appears that the sanitized centos-6 image is fully complete (i.e., contains a typical
filesystem, has an /etc, an /etc/passwd...etc.) whereas mine seems more like a linux image
that is in a ready-to-be-installed state.
virt-inspector on my ISO shows:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<operatingsystems>
<operatingsystem>
<root>/dev/sda</root>
<name>linux</name>
<arch>x86_64</arch>
<distro>oraclelinux</distro>
<major_version>6</major_version>
<minor_version>0</minor_version>
<package_format>rpm</package_format>
<package_management>yum</package_management>
<format>installer</format>
<mountpoints>
<mountpoint dev="/dev/sda">/</mountpoint>
</mountpoints>
<filesystems>
<filesystem dev="/dev/sda">
<type>iso9660</type>
<label>iDVA 4.95.0 x86_64</label>
<uuid>2015-11-20-19-50-52-00</uuid>
</filesystem>
</filesystems>
<applications/>
</operatingsystem>
</operatingsystems>
Likewise, if I mount my ISO I have a filesystem that looks like:
drwxrwxr-x 3 test test 4096 Nov 19 18:03 images
drwxrwxr-x 11 test test 4096 Nov 19 18:05 iqcustom
-rw-rw-r-- 1 test test 966785078 Nov 19 18:08 iqcustom.tar.gz
drwxrwxr-x 2 test test 4096 Nov 19 18:03 isolinux
-rw-rw-r-- 1 test test 2368 Nov 19 18:03 ks-dell.cfg
-rw-rw-r-- 1 test test 15158 Nov 19 18:03 ks-oracle.cfg
-rw-rw-r-- 1 test test 15985 Nov 19 18:03 ks-pxe.cfg
-rw-rw-r-- 1 test test 3061 Nov 19 18:03 ks-pxe-oracle-vm.cfg
-rw-rw-r-- 1 test test 2176 Nov 19 18:03 ks-vm.cfg
drwxrwxr-x 2 test test 36864 Nov 19 18:04 Packages
drwxrwxr-x 2 test test 4096 Nov 19 18:04 repodata
-r--r--r-- 1 test test 3106 Nov 19 18:05 TRANS.TBL
drwxrwxr-x 3 test test 4096 Nov 19 18:05
In contrast, mounting one of the partitions in the centos-6 image shows:
dr-xr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Oct 31 2014 bin
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Oct 31 2014 boot
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Oct 31 2014 dev
drwxr-xr-x. 73 root root 4096 Dec 9 16:26 etc
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Sep 23 2011 home
dr-xr-xr-x. 10 root root 4096 Oct 31 2014 lib
dr-xr-xr-x. 9 root root 12288 Oct 31 2014 lib64
drwx------. 2 root root 16384 Oct 31 2014 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Sep 23 2011 media
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Sep 23 2011 mnt
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 4096 Oct 31 2014 opt
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Oct 31 2014 proc
dr-xr-x---. 2 root root 4096 Oct 31 2014 root
dr-xr-xr-x. 2 root root 12288 Oct 31 2014 sbin
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Oct 31 2014 selinux
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Sep 23 2011 srv
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Oct 31 2014 sys
drwxrwxrwt. 2 root root 4096 Oct 31 2014 tmp
drwxr-xr-x. 13 root root 4096 Oct 31 2014 usr
drwxr-xr-x. 19 root root 4096 Oct 31 2014 var
Note: we build our ISO using mkisofs. Is there some other tool/process that we should use
to generate ISOs that satisfy virt-builder? Should I be starting from a Live CD format?
Cheers!
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