Packer QEMU Template

Packer QEMU Template for Ubuntu 22.04.02 live server

Prerequisite

• Packer (v1.9.4)
• Packer Plugin Qemu (v1.0.9)
• Packer Provisioner ansible (v1.1.0)
• QEMU (7.1.0, v8.0.2 (slirp enabled))
• Ansible (2.15.4)

Packer install

wget -O- https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(lsb_release -cs) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hashicorp.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install packer

Packer plugin install

packer plugins install github.com/hashicorp/qemu
packer plugins install github.com/hashicorp/ansible

TODO list

• [x] Check apt source address can be changed (solution: add apt sources in http/user-data)
• [x] Add Variable hcl file (solution : add variables in template.pkr.hcl file)
• [ ] Add network configuration shell script
• [ ] Check bridge setting
• [x] Add Ansible Provisioning (solution : add ansible files)
• [x] Upgrade QEMU version and check compatibility (solution: v8.0.2 checked in WSL2 env)
• [ ] Add automatic deploy is possible with any tools (e.g. vagrant, canonical maas)
• [x] Check packer-maas : https://github.com/canonical/packer-maas/tree/main/ubuntu (solution: can be upload template to maas)
• [ ] Consider make CI/CD pipeline for QEMU image
• [ ] arm64 supported

Install QEMU

• install libslirp v4.7.0 (from https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/slirp/libslirp.git)
• install QEMU v8.0.2 (./configure --enable-slirp needed)
• install libvirtd 9.2.0 (https://download.libvirt.org/)

How To Build QEMU image with Packer

Build QEMU image by running following command

PACKER_LOG=1 packer build --force template.pkr.hcl

or more specific command

PACKER_LOG=1 packer build -only=qemu.template --force .

Expected build result in case of success

2023/09/24 23:37:03 [INFO] (telemetry) ending qemu.template
==> Wait completed after 13 minutes 55 seconds
Build 'qemu.template' finished after 13 minutes 55 seconds.
==> Builds finished. The artifacts of successful builds are:

2023/09/24 23:37:03 machine readable: qemu.template,artifact-count []string{"1"}
==> Wait completed after 13 minutes 55 seconds

in case of building image without KVM accelerate, it can take more time than 1 Hour (Takes 1 Hour 16 minutes with following options : without accelerate, cpu=3, memory=4096 option).

How To Run QEMU image built by Packer

• bios option needed ( if bios option doesn't exist, boot hangs )
• vnc 0.0.0.0:1 means access vnc is possible from any_address:5901
• NOTE : -nographic -serial mon:stdio option does not support in

  qemu-system-x86_64 -name 22-04-live-server \
  -netdev user,id=user.0,hostfwd=tcp::4141-:22 \
  -device virtio-net,netdev=user.0 \
  -drive file=./output/ubuntu-server-22-04-2-amd64-template,if=virtio,cache=writeback,discard=ignore,format=qcow2 \
  -machine type=q35,accel=kvm \
  -smp 4 \
  -m 4096M \
  -bios ./OVMF/OVMF_efi_target_system_is_x86.fd \
  -vnc 0.0.0.0:1

• if upper command does not respond, use following command.

  
  qemu-system-x86_64 -name 22-04-live-server \
  -netdev user,id=user.0,hostfwd=tcp::4141-:22 \
  -device virtio-net,netdev=user.0 \
  -drive file=./output/ubuntu-server-22-04-2-amd64-template,if=virtio,cache=writeback,discard=ignore,format=qcow2 \
  -machine type=q35,accel=kvm \
  -smp 4 \
  -m 4096M \
  -bios ./OVMF/OVMF_efi_target_system_is_x86.fd

# Custom Configuration

## Password Generation in http/user-data

`openssl passwd -6 -salt xyz`

result of following command should be added in user-data

cloud-config

user-data: users:

• name: ubuntu passwd: "{Add openssl result here}"

## How to set vnc server in QEMU running server
- vnc_bind_address set "0.0.0.0" in template.pkr.hcl
- open inbound ports if you use cloud services (Azure, AWS, GCP)
- open firewall like following commands

open 5900~6000 port

sudo ufw allow 5900:6000/tcdp sudo ufw allow 5900:6000/udp

restart firewall setting

sudo ufw disable sudo ufw enable

sudo ufw status

# Upload template file to Canonical MAAS

## How to upload template file

- Refer following link (https://maas.io/docs/how-to-customise-images#heading--how-to-upload-packer-images-to-maas)
- Need packer packages for generating Ubuntu template.

sudo apt install packer sudo apt install qemu-utils sudo apt install qemu-system sudo apt install ovmf sudo apt install cloud-image-utils

- Upload packer image to MAAS

$ maas admin boot-resources create \ name='custom/ubuntu-raw' \ title='Ubuntu Custom RAW' \ architecture='amd64/generic' \ filetype='ddgz' \ content@=ubuntu-2204-server.dd.gz