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[Back to Index Page]

Packer

See https://www.packer.io/docs

Packer is a tool that enables us to create identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single source template.

Why Packer?

Speed. Deploying KVM guests with Packer-built images takes less time than provisioning servers using PXE boot.

Are you getting rid of PXE? Not anytime soon. PXE is still used to provision physical hosts (KVM hypervisors).

Install Packer

For RHEL-based systems:

sudo yum install -y yum-utils
sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://rpm.releases.hashicorp.com/RHEL/hashicorp.repo
sudo yum -y install packer

For Debian-based systems:

curl -fsSL https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-add-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(lsb_release -cs) main"
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends packer

Build Images with Qemu Packer Builder

The Qemu Packer builder is able to create KVM virtual machine images.

See JSON files for each distribution:

Build Rocky 9 image:

PACKER_LOG=1 packer build ./rocky9.json

Build Rocky 8 image:

PACKER_LOG=1 packer build ./rocky8.json

Monitoring Build Process

Packer uses VNC, therefore we can check its window with a VNC client, e.g.:

vncviewer -shared 127.0.0.1:5934

Note that your VNC port will be different.

If you are using Packer on a remote server (e.g. 10.11.1.100) where you can't access VNC directly, then you can use SSH port forwarding. See example below.

ssh -L 5934:127.0.0.1:5934 user@10.11.1.100

Install KVM Guests from Packer Images

On a KVM hypervisor that was used to "package" the image, run the following commands to deploy a rocky9 guest:

sudo cp --sparse=always ./artifacts/qemu/rocky9/rocky9.qcow2 /var/lib/libvirt/images/

sudo virt-install \
  --name rocky9 \
  --network bridge=br0,model=virtio,mac=C0:FF:EE:D0:5E:37 \
  --disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/rocky9.qcow2,size=32 \
  --ram 2048 \
  --vcpus 2 \
  --os-type linux \
  --os-variant centos8 \
  --sound none \
  --rng /dev/urandom \
  --virt-type kvm \
  --import \
  --wait 0

Provision Homelab KVM Guests

for i in 1 2 3; do \
  scp ./artifacts/qemu/rocky9/rocky9.qcow2 root@kvm${i}.hl.test:/var/lib/libvirt/images/srv3${i}.qcow2 && \
  virt-install \
  --connect qemu+ssh://root@kvm${i}.hl.test/system \
  --name srv3${i}-master \
  --network bridge=br0,model=virtio,mac=C0:FF:EE:D0:5E:3${i} \
  --disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/srv3${i}.qcow2,size=32 \
  --import \
  --ram 4096 \
  --vcpus 2 \
  --os-type linux \
  --os-variant centos8 \
  --sound none \
  --rng /dev/urandom \
  --virt-type kvm \
  --wait 0; \
done

for i in 1 2 3; do \
  scp ./artifacts/qemu/rocky9/rocky9.qcow2 root@kvm${i}.hl.test:/var/lib/libvirt/images/srv3$(($i + 3)).qcow2 && \
  virt-install \
  --connect qemu+ssh://root@kvm${i}.hl.test/system \
  --name srv3$(($i + 3))-node \
  --network bridge=br0,model=virtio,mac=C0:FF:EE:D0:5E:3$(($i + 3)) \
  --disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/srv3$(($i + 3)).qcow2,size=32 \
  --import \
  --ram 8192 \
  --vcpus 4 \
  --os-type linux \
  --os-variant centos8 \
  --sound none \
  --rng /dev/urandom \
  --virt-type kvm \
  --wait 0; \
done