Azure Alpine Linux builder

Usage

• Export ALPINE_ROOT=<root password>, where <root passsword> will form the password for the root user account within the image.
• Run make build
• Pick up the alpine-3.15.0-r0.vhd output to within ./out

Deployment - Azure:

• Azure Subscription: Create an Image Library (Azure Compute Library)
• Image Library: Create an Image Profile (VM Image Definition)
• Image Profile: Create an Image Version (VM Image Definition Version)
• Image Profile Version: Upload the created VHD

Instantiation - Azure:

• Deploy a VM from the deployed Image Profile
• VM: Reset Password: Set the SSH key for a connecting user via WAAgent
• (alpine specific) VM: Reset Password: Set a local password for this user (see notes)
• Connect over SSH with the newly created user/key

Process - Packer

• Downloads and verifies the alpine-virt ISO
• Boots in QEMU and uses setup-alpine to perform an installation
• Serves setup-alpine answers file through Packer/http
• Installs the hvtools package and enables the hv_kvp_daemon for azure hyper-v guest integration
• Builds and installs the azure WAAgent

Security:

• WAAGent is run with OS.EnableFirewall=n, as it's IPtables declarations do not currently function correctly under Alpine. No claim is made on the impact of this to your specific setup and configuration. Patches welcome if anyone has a solution to enable this without conflict.
• The Root user is made available locally, including over the serial console, with the password ALPINE_ROOT defined when the image is created, this should be changed after deployment if local access and/or over serial console is a concern and/or desired feature.

Development

• Image can be auto-started locally with for testing after built via qemu/kvm via make local

Notes

• [0] The root user while not available over SSH, will be available locally, including over the Azure Serial Console.
• [1] A password is required to be set for newly created users, in addition to a public key, via the azure console. This is required to unlock the user and allow authentication, even over SSH when key based.
• A full build should be expected to take 1-2 minutes, excluding ISO Download.
• You can expect to wait for "Waiting for SSH to become available..." for a number of minutes, while the system bootstraps via CLI.
• ALPINE_ROOT one liner: export ALPINE_ROOT=$(openssl rand -hex 12) && echo $ALPINE_ROOT

Prerequisites

• Requires: make, packer, QEMU and either KVM or HVF for acceleration
• Run make deps-<platform> to install automatically, where platform is the host distribution, and currently one of alpine|...

License:

MIT and/or MIT compatible

See SPDX tags for specific copyright attributions

Inspired by https://github.com/tomconte/packer-alpine-azure (unmaintained)