Packer templates for Ubuntu

Overview

This repository contains templates for Ubuntu that can create Vagrant boxes using Packer.

Current Boxes

64-bit boxes:

• Ubuntu Server 15.04 (64-bit)
• Ubuntu Desktop 15.04 (64-bit)
• Ubuntu Server 15.04 (64-bit) with Docker preinstalled
• Ubuntu Server 14.10 (64-bit)
• Ubuntu Server 14.10 (64-bit) with Docker preinstalled
• Ubuntu Server 14.04.2 (64-bit)
• Ubuntu Desktop 14.04.2 (64-bit)
• Ubuntu Server 14.04.2 (64-bit) with Docker preinstalled
• Ubuntu Server 12.04.5 (64-bit)
• Ubuntu Desktop 12.04.4 (64-bit)
• Ubuntu Server 12.04.5 (64-bit) with Docker preinstalled

32-bit boxes:

• Ubuntu Server 15.04 (32-bit)
• Ubuntu Server 14.10 (32-bit)
• Ubuntu Server 14.04.1 (32-bit)
• Ubuntu Server 12.04.5 (32-bit)

Building the Vagrant boxes

To build all the boxes, you will need VirtualBox, VMware Fusion, and Parallels Desktop for Mac installed.

Parallels requires that the Parallels Virtualization SDK for Mac be installed as an additional preqrequisite.

A GNU Make Makefile drives the process via the following targets:

make        # Build all available box types
make test   # Run tests against all the boxes
make list   # Print out the list of all available boxes
make clean  # Clean up build detritus

To build one particular box, e.g. ubuntu1404, for just one provider, e.g. VirtualBox, first run make list subcommand:

make list

This command prints the list of available boxes. Then you can build one particular box for choosen provider:

make virtualbox/ubuntu1404

Proxy Settings

The templates respect the following network proxy environment variables and forward them on to the virtual machine environment during the box creation process, should you be using a proxy:

• http_proxy
• https_proxy
• ftp_proxy
• rsync_proxy
• no_proxy

Tests

The tests are written in Serverspec and require the vagrant-serverspec plugin to be installed with:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-serverspec

The Makefile has individual targets for each box type with the prefix test-* should you wish to run tests individually for each box. For example:

make test-box/virtualbox/ubuntu1404-nocm.box

Similarly there are targets with the prefix ssh-* for registering a newly-built box with vagrant and for logging in using just one command to do exploratory testing. For example, to do exploratory testing on the VirtualBox training environmnet, run the following command:

make ssh-box/virtualbox/ubuntu1404-nocm.box

Upon logout make ssh-* will automatically de-register the box as well.

Makefile.local override

You can create a Makefile.local file alongside the Makefile to override some of the default settings. The variables can that can be currently used are:

• CM
• CM_VERSION
• <iso_path>
• UPDATE

Makefile.local is most commonly used to override the default configuration management tool, for example with Chef:

# Makefile.local
CM := chef

Changing the value of the CM variable changes the target suffixes for the output of make list accordingly.

Possible values for the CM variable are:

• nocm - No configuration management tool
• ansible - Install Ansible
• chef - Install Chef
• chefdk - Install Chef Development Kit
• puppet - Install Puppet
• salt - Install Salt

You can also specify a variable CM_VERSION, if supported by the configuration management tool, to override the default of latest. The value of CM_VERSION should have the form x.y or x.y.z, such as CM_VERSION := 11.12.4

The variable HEADLESS can be set to run Packer in headless mode. Set HEADLESS := true, the default is false.

The variable UPDATE can be used to perform OS patch management. The default is to not apply OS updates by default. When UPDATE := true, the latest OS updates will be applied.

The variable PACKER can be used to set the path to the packer binary. The default is packer.

The variable ISO_PATH can be used to set the path to a directory with OS install images. This override is commonly used to speed up Packer builds by pointing at pre-downloaded ISOs instead of using the default download Internet URLs.

The variables SSH_USERNAME and SSH_PASSWORD can be used to change the default name & password from the default vagrant/vagrant respectively.

The variable INSTALL_VAGRANT_KEY can be set to turn off installation of the default insecure vagrant key when the image is being used outside of vagrant. Set INSTALL_VAGRANT_KEY := false, the default is true.

Contributing

1. Fork and clone the repo.
2. Create a new branch, please don't work in your master branch directly.
3. Add new Serverspec or Bats tests in the test/ subtree for the change you want to make. Run make test on a relevant template to see the tests fail (like make test-virtualbox/ubuntu1404).
4. Fix stuff. Use make ssh to interactively test your box (like make ssh-virtualbox/ubuntu1404).
5. Run make test on a relevant template (like make test-virtualbox/ubuntu1404) to see if the tests pass. Repeat steps 3-5 until done.
6. Update README.md and AUTHORS to reflect any changes.
7. If you have a large change in mind, it is still preferred that you split them into small commits. Good commit messages are important. The git documentatproject has some nice guidelines on writing descriptive commit messages.
8. Push to your fork and submit a pull request.
9. Once submitted, a full make test run will be performed against your change in the build farm. You will be notified if the test suite fails.

Acknowledgments

SmartyStreets is providing basebox hosting for the box-cutter project.