How to make a FreeBSD vm in virtualbox.

[Will Andrews]

On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 8:17 AM, Glen Barber <gjb at freebsd.org> wrote:
>> The difference is that with a vmdk you must get the exact
>> combinations of items correct or you will wind up with a FreeBSD
>> instance that will not boot.  With the ova, you just run a single
>> command "VBoxManage FreeBSD.ova" and stuff "just works", or you can
>> even just double click on the downloaded file from within your OS
>> X / Windows/ whatever host and it "just works".

What about shipping Vagrant boxes instead?  I've found those easy to
build automation on top of.

> Your script relies on VirtualBox being installed on the build machine,
> which I do not like.  This is one of the major reasons I'm happy Marcel
> added VMDK support to mkimg(1) - all the components to create the
> formatted disk image exist in the base system.
[...]
> I strongly oppose depending on building VirtualBox (which has
> implications of its own) for producing VM images, especially when the
> disk image can be created using base utilities alone.  Given that,
> relying on a third-party utility is a step backwards.

Requiring that all tools used in the release process ship with the
base system means FreeBSD will never offer any first-party images for
use with third party tools, obstructing community development around
them.  That would be a shame.

--Will.