Easiest way to get a small VM disk image?

[Kamila Součková]

Big thank you to everyone, your suggestions have been very informative! I
will go with Allan's solution, as it is simple and should work for future
releases too. If you happen to need an OpenNebula image, let me know :-)

Best,
Kamila

On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 8:47 PM Allan Jude <allanjude at freebsd.org> wrote:

> On 03/23/2018 11:42, Kamila Součková wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I want to build an OpenNebula[1]-compatible VM image of FreeBSD 11.1. One
> > requirement for my use case is that the image should initially be small
> > (not as in "take up little physical space", but as in "the size of the
> > virtual disk as visible in the VM should be small". Specifically, I want
> > the virtual disk size to be no more than 3GB (which should not be a
> > problem, as the default installation of FreeBSD takes a lot less than
> 3G).
> >
> > The VM images available in the official downloads have a virtual size of
> > 20GB. Therefore I need to somehow build my own image (or shrink the
> > existing ones). Here are the approaches I have thought about:
> >
> > - Create and partition an empty disk image, rsync the contents of the
> > official image into it. Problems: AFAIK requires a FreeBSD host to build
> > (in order to be able to create a UFS filesystem); requires juggling
> around
> > with loopback mounts and such. Probably still the most feasible option,
> but
> > I am not sure, which is why I'm asking.
> > - Create an empty image, boot it in a VM and install from an installation
> > ISO. Problem: not sure how to automate; might not get 1:1 parity with the
> > official VM image
> > - Somehow shrink the existing image. Problem: How?
> > - Find out how the official images are built and do that with a smaller
> > size. This is where this list comes in :-)
> >
> > Which (of these, or any other) is the easiest way to get a small image?
> >
> > Thanks a lot!
> >
> > Kamila
> >
> > [1] https://opennebula.org/
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>
> You should be able to generate a version of the official images easily:
>
> do an svn checkout, then:
>
> make -j <#cpus> buildworld buildkernel
> cd release
> make VMSIZE=2944M SWAPSIZE=128M VMFORMATS=raw DESTDIR=/tmp -DNOSRC
> -DNOPORTS -DNOPKG -DWITH_VMIMAGES vm-install
>
> Will create the image in /tmp/vmimages
>
> VMFORMATS can also be qcow2, vmdk, or vhd
>
> --
> Allan Jude
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