<!-- Some styling for better description lists --><style type='text/css'>dt { font-weight: bold;float: left;display:inline;margin-right: 1em} dd { display:block; margin-left: 2em}</style> 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 ***: staticsafe has quit IRC (Ping timeout: 241 seconds) <br> staticsafe has joined #arpnetworks <br> jcv has quit IRC (Ping timeout: 246 seconds) <br> jcv has joined #arpnetworks 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 :) ***: sjackso has joined #arpnetworks 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 ***: mnathani__ has joined #arpnetworks kellytk: Yea, neat stuff happening with virt and automation of FBSD ***: mnathani_ has quit IRC (Ping timeout: 250 seconds) <br> mnathani_ has joined #arpnetworks <br> mnathani__ has quit IRC (Ping timeout: 250 seconds) 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