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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​

  • Check apt source address can be changed (solution: add apt sources in http/user-data)
  • Add Variable hcl file (solution : add variables in template.pkr.hcl file)
  • Add network configuration shell script
  • Check bridge setting
  • Add Ansible Provisioning (solution : add ansible files)
  • 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)
  • 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​

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​

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