phenix image

phenix image is a tool for quickly creating vm images with debian-based OSes. It is a wrapper of the vmdb2 tool which, in turn, is a wrapper of qemu-img, parted, kpartx, and debootstrap. It works in two steps:

1. Create an image configuration by specifying things like release code, packages, scripts to run after building, and filesystem overlays.
2. Build the image.

How it works

In step 1, the tool compiles command line arguments, scripts, and filesystem overlay paths on disk into an Image vmdb configuration file in the phenix datastore. The scripts and overlays are specified on the command line by path.

In step 2, the tool runs vmdb2 with the generated Image config which then creates the VM image. The image commands below show how to build commonly-used images from configs saved in the repo and how to create those configs from command-line arguments, scripts, and overlays saved in the repo.

Images

Proxy Info

Note if building images behind a proxy, you may also need to edit and add the proxy script to your build.

bennu

Official SCEPTRE image used for running bennu in experiments (includes brash shell).

The max size of the VM disk in the example below is set to 10 gigabytes, but can be customized as needed. Running the built command will result in /phenix/bennu.qc2.

phenix image create -O /phenix/vmdb2/overlays/bennu,/phenix/vmdb2/overlays/brash -T /phenix/vmdb2/scripts/aptly,/phenix/vmdb2/scripts/bennu --format qcow2 --release focal -c bennu --size 10G
phenix image build bennu -o /phenix -c -x

Ubuntu

Basic Ubuntu image with a few packages added. The Ubuntu version built can be changed via --release, e.g. --release focal will build Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa).

The max size of the VM disk in the example below is set to 10 gigabytes, but can be customized as needed. Running the built command will result in /phenix/ubuntu.qc2.

phenix image create -T /phenix/vmdb2/scripts/aptly,/phenix/vmdb2/scripts/ubuntu --format qcow2 --release focal -c ubuntu --size 10G
phenix image build ubuntu -o /phenix -c -x

Image Update

If you change overlays and/or scripts on disk and rebuild an image with the same image config file, the changes will not be reflected in the newly built image. This is because the image is built from the config, not from the scripts/overlays on disk. Therefore, you have to update the config before you rebuild the image. To do so without having to re-run phenix image create and all of its command-line arguments just run phenix image update name where name is the name of your config. This command will update the config file with any changes made to the overlays and scripts on disk. Moreover, if they cannot be found on disk, no changes will be made to that overlay/script that cannot be found.