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   mercutio: what
   <br> vmdk is for vmware
   kellytk: What are my options for automating installation of a VPS instance?
   mercutio: in what context
   kellytk: I would like to automate the installation of new VPS instances, so I don't have to manually work through bsdinstall of each
   <br> I could package a custom install image with a bsdinstall script if booting to custom images were supported
   mercutio: arp vm's come with existing base images for freebsd, openbsd, etc.
   kellytk: Yes I understand that.  However that's for a manual install
   mercutio: i don't get what you're asking
   kellytk: Do you not automate any deployment?
   mercutio: you mean using puppet?
   <br> etc
   kellytk: I should say provisioning
   mercutio: provisioning is mostly automated.
   kellytk: Basically, you can start up a VPS with a standard install image, and manually work through the bsdinstall dialogs, or you can automate the process so you come back and it's done for you
   mercutio: but if you just get a freebsd arp vm it'll have the base install already done.
   kellytk: Using a custom install image is a common way of accomplishing this
   <br> How then do you provide things such as a custom partition map?
   mercutio: yeah there are multiple ways to automate installs.
   <br> you can do dhcp, and not set a hostname
   <br> and then haev exactly the same image
   <br> but if you want static ip set normalyl and hostnames etc then you need to have slight variations.
   <br> but unless you have like 20+ vm's
   <br> you'll probably find it's faster just to isntall by hand and not worry about it :/
   <br> i mean the bulk work load of maintaining multiple vm's is specing, deciding what they run, architecture etc.
   kellytk: Ok
   mercutio: and the install just goes along on it's own mostly
   kellytk: I won't be relying on manual installs, but thanks
   mercutio: automation usually helps only if you're doing things a lot, or there are complications
   kellytk: Yea, sure does
   mercutio: well good luck :)
   kellytk: Thank you
   <br> Have you seen Jetpack?
   mercutio: nope
   kellytk: iocage?
   <br> Do you run FBSD?
   mercutio: a little
   <br> not much
   kellytk: Oh
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   RandalSchwartz: I run FBSD on 6 servers right now
   <br> no wait.. 7
   <br> forgot about my DO box
   <br> my "buildbot" box
   <br> $5/mo for 20G of SSD running FBSD 10.1, spins up in 55 seconds.  No CDROM access, so I can't put down ZFS on root though. :(
   <br> "use promo code FLOSS in the billing section for a free $10 credit!" :)
   mercutio: probably not enough ram for zfs
   <br> i wonder what freebsd is like with low ram and zfs
   <br> linux is pretty bad for it
   RandalSchwartz: well, they have bigger ram boxes, but they don't offer root on /
   <br> err.. root on zfs
   <br> root is always on / :)
   mercutio: zfsonlinux is acquiring large block size finally
   <br> there's a lot of development on the open source zfs fork in general.
   RandalSchwartz: is it fairly useable?  can it boot from zfs?
   <br> oops... gotta relocate...
   mercutio: it can boot
   <br> but i don't boot off it
   <br> it's been usable for ages.
   brycec: I do have several Linux systems that boot off ZFS, can confirm it works fine.
   RandalSchwartz: cool
   <br> maybe I can finally learn linux then :)
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   kellytk: I've got FreeBSD instances virtualized on this development Mac using Parallels, and it's all working very well
   <br> What a boost to development
   sjackso: <u>kellytk</u>: I've done similar things, though I wound up using VirtualBox because it was easier to deal with headless/screenless VMs.
   kellytk: <u>sjackso</u>: That's an interesting thought.  How did Parallels come up short WRT headless VMs?
   sjackso: <u>kellytk</u>: it's been some months now, so I don't rightly remember.  It's possible that it works fine but I just didn't figure it out.
   <br> In general it seemed like VB had better tools for controlling things from the command line, so it was easier to write scripts to start and stop VMs, etc.
   <br> (looks like I would have been okay if I'd done a little googling and found http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17098927/how-do-i-run-ubuntu-server-headless-using-parallels-desktop )
   kellytk: Oh
   <br> <u>sjackso</u>: Was this on a Mac host?
   sjackso: <u>kellytk</u>: Yeah
   kellytk: I'm currently working out synchronizing a local folder to a remote (the FBSD instance) directory.  Fortunately my SFTP client of choice apparently supports this.  Did you tool anything for that?
   sjackso: <u>kellytk</u>: I haven't done anything fancier than scp and git remotes.
   mnathani_: <u>sjackso</u>: how does one setup virtualbox headless? do you use vagrant?
   kellytk: Is 10 minutes too short to expire name resolution cache locally running unbound?  The services running on the box must adapt to name address changes in no more than 10 minutes
   brycec: <u>mnathani_</u>: Let me introduce you to vboxmanage :P https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.html
   <br> Though I suspect if he was anything like me before I discovered Proxmox, and even after for various reasons I still ran a VirtualBox host, he just creates the VM graphically
   <br> but it starts and runs headlessly
   <br> I would just connect to the host and open VirtualBox over X forwarding
   <br> (VirtualBox always handled USB passthrough much, much better than KVM or OpenVZ for that matter)
   kellytk: <u>brycec</u>: Have you worked with iocage or Jetpack?
   brycec: Never even heard of Jetpack
   <br> @google Jetpack
   BryceBot: 1,230,000 total results returned for 'Jetpack', here's 3
   <br> 3ofcoins/jetpack · GitHub (https://github.com/3ofcoins/jetpack) jetpack - **PROTOTYPE** FreeBSD Jail/ZFS based implementation of the  Application Container Specification.
   <br> Jet pack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_pack) The most common use of the jetpack has been in extra-vehicular activities for  astronauts. Despite decades of advancement in the technology, the challenges of  ...
   <br> square/jetpack · GitHub (https://github.com/square/jetpack) Jun 3, 2015 ... jet.pack: package your JRuby rack app for Jetty. Contribute to jetpack  development by creating an account on GitHub.
   brycec: I've toyed with replacing my usage of ezjail with iocage, but just not a lot of time right now.
   <br> (And neither of those applied to my usage of VirtualBox or KVM/qemu that I was talking about)
   kellytk: That's correct
   mnathani_: <u>brycec</u>: thanks
   brycec: I aliased vboxmanage to 'v' I used it so frequently :)
   RandalSchwartz: wow - you can run "standard" containers directly on freebsd?
   <br> it shouldn't be hard, since freebsd can be nudged to understand linux syscalls directly
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   kellytk: Yea, neat stuff happening with virt and automation of FBSD
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   mercutio: how much isolation is there?
   <br> hmm i never had any problems with passing usb controllers through with xen
   <br> other than knowing which ports i'd passed through
   <br> but you can determine that reasonably quickly.
   <br> as for usb devices, i didn't know qemu could pass specific usb devices through