Automatically create Box

[kstapelfeldt]

From Adam - Automatically create box? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66261101/using-vagrant-on-github-actions-ideally-incl-virtualbox/66261102#66261102

How do we make an .ova for people to do deployments for testing and workshops. Originally the staff would build these boxes in time for workshops. OVA VM was recently removed from the docs. Is it still useful to have an .ova and what is the best way of automatically creating one?

[kstapelfeldt]

we would have to do this from Ansible unless we want to do an .ova that bundles Docker. Could have built in web coder so they could use the IDE. Melissa says she made them by building from Ansible and exporting from VirtualBox. Ansible is a lower bar. @DonRichards provided a link: https://github.com/on-prem/action-build-ova - We are interested in using Github Actions to create an .ova automatically from a release tag. Action.yml file is where it would be.

Workshops are important, but the use case for the .ova is wider than that. We should consider this as part of Github Actions.