https://github.com/its-alex/packer-arch
A packer build for archlinux
https://github.com/its-alex/packer-arch
arch-linux libvirt machine packer packer-arch parallel vagrant virtualbox vmware
Last synced: about 2 months ago
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A packer build for archlinux
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/its-alex/packer-arch
- Owner: Its-Alex
- License: mit
- Created: 2018-04-01T12:51:32.000Z (about 8 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2018-04-05T06:48:58.000Z (about 8 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-10-30T17:48:20.965Z (7 months ago)
- Topics: arch-linux, libvirt, machine, packer, packer-arch, parallel, vagrant, virtualbox, vmware
- Language: Shell
- Homepage:
- Size: 15.6 KB
- Stars: 0
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 1
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE
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README
# Packer Arch
Packer Arch is a bare bones [Packer](https://www.packer.io/) template and
installation script that can be used to generate a [Vagrant](https://www.vagrantup.com/)
base box for [Arch Linux](https://www.archlinux.org/). The template works
with the default VirtualBox provider as well as with
[VMware](https://www.vagrantup.com/vmware), [Parallels](https://github.com/Parallels/vagrant-parallels)
and [libvirt](https://github.com/vagrant-libvirt/vagrant-libvirt) providers.
## Overview
My goal was to roughly duplicate the attributes from a
[DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/) Arch Linux droplet:
* 64-bit
* 20 GB disk
* 512 MB memory
* Only a single /root partition (ext4)
* No swap
* Includes the `base` and `base-devel` package groups
* OpenSSH is also installed and enabled on boot
The installation script follows the
[official installation guide](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_Guide)
pretty closely, with a few tweaks to ensure functionality within a VM. Beyond
that, the only customizations to the machine are related to the vagrant user
and the steps recommended for any base box.
## Usage
### VirtualBox Provider
Assuming that you already have Packer,
[VirtualBox](https://www.virtualbox.org/), and Vagrant installed, you
should be good to clone this repo and go:
```
$ make build
```
Then you can import the generated box into Vagrant:
```
$ make import-box
```
### VMware Provider
Assuming that you already have Packer,
[VMware Fusion](https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/) (or
[VMware Workstation](https://www.vmware.com/products/workstation/)), and
Vagrant with the VMware provider installed, you should be good to clone
this repo and go:
```
$ packer build -only=vmware-iso arch.json
```
Then you can import the generated box into Vagrant:
```
$ vagrant box add arch output/packer_arch_vmware.box
```
### Parallels Provider
Assuming that you already have Packer,
[Parallels](http://www.parallels.com/), [Parallels SDK](http://www.parallels.com/eu/products/desktop/download/) and
Vagrant with the Parallels provider installed, you should be good to clone
this repo and go:
```
$ packer build -only=parallels-iso arch.json
```
Then you can import the generated box into Vagrant:
```
$ vagrant box add arch output/packer_arch_parallels.box
```
### libvirt Provider
Assuming that you already have Packer, Vagrant with the
[vagrant-libvirt](https://github.com/vagrant-libvirt/vagrant-libvirt)
plugin installed, you should be good to clone
this repo and go:
```
$ packer build -only=libvirt arch.json
```
Then you can import the generated box into Vagrant:
```
$ vagrant box add arch output/packer_arch_libvirt.box
```
NOTE: libvirt support is limited to QEMU/KVM only.
## Known Issues
### VMware Tools
The official VMware Tools do not currently support Arch Linux, and the
[Open Virtual Machine Tools](https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools)
(open-vm-tools) require extensive patching in order to compile correctly
with a Linux 3.11 series kernel. So for the time being, I have not
included support for the tools.
No tools means that the shared folder feature will not work, and when you
run `vagrant up` to launch a VM based on the VMware box, you will see the
following error message:
> The HGFS kernel module was not found on the running virtual machine.
> This must be installed for shared folders to work properly. Please
> install the VMware tools within the guest and try again. Note that
> the VMware tools installation will succeed even if HGFS fails
> to properly install. Carefully read the output of the VMware tools
> installation to verify the HGFS kernel modules were installed properly.
Note that _this issue does not apply to VirtualBox_, as their official
guest additions work just fine.
### Vagrant Provisioners
The box purposefully does not include Puppet or Chef for automatic Vagrant
provisioning. My intention was to duplicate a DigitalOcean VPS and
furthermore use the VM for testing [Ansible](http://www.ansible.com/)
playbooks for configuration management.
## Inspiration
Inspired from [elasticdog](https://github.com/elasticdog/packer-arch)
## Liscence
[MIT](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_MIT)