How to make a FreeBSD vm in virtualbox.

[Glen Barber]

On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 10:48:20AM -0700, Will Andrews wrote:
> 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.
> 

I have not had luck with creating these.

> > 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.
> 

My objection isn't necessarily that the tools are not in the base
system, but something with such a large dependency footprint like
VirtualBox is a non-ideal solution, when its alternative, mkimg(1) in
this case, requires nothing extra.

Prior to mkimg(1), qemu-img was used.  And qemu has a significantly
lower dependency footprint.

Glen

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