raw os install

Is there any way to setup an install process that will run from an ISO image?

We have some application virtual servers that are only easily installed from an ISO image.

Status: 
Active

Comments

Is this for KVM or Xen virtual systems?

Its Xen.

Some are HVM some are paravirt.

Unfortuantely, Cloudmin doesn't offer any way to boot a Xen guest off a CD for installation purposes, sorry. However, you can set this up manually and then bring the guest under Cloudmin's control (using the Add menu) once it is installed..

Hmmm. That sort of bites.

It sort defeats the purpose of cloudmin.

Possibly provisioning of new virtual servers should be abstracted so that different provisioning policies can be used.

It would be nice to be able to take other peoples virtual container like rPath or Jumpbox containers and provision them.

It may be possible to support Jumpbox images in Cloudmin, as they are most likely in a format similar to Cloudmin's own images ..

Any idea what format they use? If it is just a raw disk image, that should be usable..

What would be the chances of making provisioning modular or part of the plugin mechanism?

If it were a plugin kind of think I could con someone here to put togher a plugin or two.

For a raw install it would be nice to be able to create a new vm that starts up in a paused state. Then connect a VNC session to it and release it to run.

That's a good suggestion .. I will work on adding support for creating an 'empty' Xen instance that can boot from a CD image.

We have some serious perl geeks here if you would like some help.

We are trying to build up a bit of a virtual hosting service that can host a variety of OS's. Linux, windows and possibly others and we can put some effort into making changes to reach this end.

I would also like to see something. We like to use Turnkey Linux images. They're available in ISO and VMware formats. They also have a Launch To EC2 Cloud option. In their instructions, they give an example of installing the ISO on a VirtualBox instance, but it looks like VirtualBox has a GUI installer for that.

On the Turnkey site under their Base product (http://www.turnkeylinux.org/core) they say this about what platforms it will run on:

# Runs on bare metal in addition to most types of virtual machines (e.g., VMWare, VirtualBox, Xen HVM, KVM).
# Target formats:

* Installable Live CD ISO
o Supports installation to an available storage device.
o Supports running in a non-persistent (demo) mode.
* Virtual machine image
o No installation needed
o VMDK HD image
o OVF support included

I would also like to vote for this feature, to have an option where we / the end user can install an OS from an ISO, and then we can have an "ISO Store" in Cloudmin where we can possibly download community provided ISO's automatically, like we have with the image files?

Hi Jamie.

Ever get anywhere with this?

Thanks.

Still working on it .. it's pretty complex actually, as it changes the way Cloudmin currently works.

I was just wondering. We can create our own, but it would be nice to use some pre-built ones. Not a major issue.