FreeBSD Packer Templates

This repository contains a collection of tools and scripts to build FreeBSD images using Packer for a variety of target providers.

Installation

To use this set of Packer templates, the following prerequisites is required:

1. GNU make(1)

2. Go

3. Install a recent version of Vagrant (you're on your own for this one)

4. Install a recent version of Packer:

   make install-packer
   

5. Install a recent version of cfgt(1):

   make install-cfgt
   

6. Install one or more providers:

   1. Vagrant
   2. VMware Fusion 8.5.7 or newer
   3. VirtualBox

   Important

   If you are using VMware Fusion, VMware Fusion Pro is required in order to have headless booting of FreeBSD images. With VMware Fusion Pro, a new setting will appear under Preferences -> Network -> Uncheck the Require authentication to enter promiscuous mode box.

   

   The alternative is to add the following to your Vagrantfile:

   Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
     # ...
     config.vm.provider "vmware_fusion" do |v|
      v.gui = true
     end
     # ...
   end
   

7. Install the sudo command aliases to enable NFS synced folders. On macOS:

   make install-nfs-mac
   

8. Patch Vagrant:

   make patch-vagrant
   

9. Verify dependencies are correctly installed:

   make verify
   

Optional:

• reST doc tools. Assumes virtualenv(1) and pip(1) have been installed and are available in PATH:

  make install-rst2pdf
  

Usage

• See the README.rst in one of the top-level directories for details (e.g. 11/README, 12/README)

• To see the latest snapshot from a given release, run show-latest.sh with the version number you want (and optionally the architecture as the 2nd argument, defaults to amd64):

  $ sh show-latest.sh 12.0
  arch: amd64
  checksum_url: https://download.FreeBSD.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/12.0/CHECKSUM.SHA512-FreeBSD-12.0-CURRENT-amd64-20170526-r318945
  iso_checksum: 8c76c3b4b7daf75bbaa100b3062a336a3df3a44d53bdce3912394e7c3512a4b51209fa27e857cec35a868725ca27e4c5b176159ccfe81252f25679b9bc059d98
  iso_filename: FreeBSD-12.0-CURRENT-amd64-20170526-r318945-disc1.iso
  iso_url: https://download.FreeBSD.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/12.0/FreeBSD-12.0-CURRENT-amd64-20170526-r318945-disc1.iso
  iso_version: 12.0
  $ sh show-latest.sh 11.1
  arch: amd64
  checksum_url: https://download.FreeBSD.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/11.1/CHECKSUM.SHA512-FreeBSD-11.1-PRERELEASE-amd64-20170525-r318893
  iso_checksum: fa0467019f4b899f08b0567767597bb72c328cdeea131d1cd3d3cfc9971c1451c946a581a13fb37e19aadbd6dda925015c84e94578d585d252646da0ff3e715a
  iso_filename: FreeBSD-11.1-PRERELEASE-amd64-20170525-r318893-disc1.iso
  iso_url: https://download.FreeBSD.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/11.1/FreeBSD-11.1-PRERELEASE-amd64-20170525-r318893-disc1.iso
  iso_version: 11.1
  $ sh show-latest.sh 11.0
  arch: amd64
  checksum_url: https://download.FreeBSD.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/11.0/CHECKSUM.SHA512-FreeBSD-11.0-STABLE-amd64-20170510-r318134
  iso_checksum: 257d4fa23d4b0d6f3dbe5e1ffce2f834eecee92d2102911993346a663bd377037a10ca451bb4048eed67a4ed4fe3328b106eda647c5fb3a28414b6e306eb4a64
  iso_filename: FreeBSD-11.0-STABLE-amd64-20170510-r318134-disc1.iso
  iso_url: https://download.FreeBSD.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/11.0/FreeBSD-11.0-STABLE-amd64-20170510-r318134-disc1.iso
  iso_version: 11.0
  

FreeBSD Notes

• The VM is set to have 1024MB of RAM and a 20GB drive
• Vagrant NFS synced folders are enabled by default and exported to the guest as /local.
• EFI bootloader doesn't work

Vagrant Notes

• Install sudo(8) command specs for NFS shared folders:

  make install-nfs-mac
  

• Vagrant NFS Shared Folders: There is a bug in Vagrant that prevents NFS shared folders from working. To apply a patch to work around this bug:

  make patch-vagrant
  

• Initialize Vagrant using:

  vagrant init --minimal <box name>
  

• Initialize Vagrant boxes using a specific provider and clean up if there's a failure:

  vagrant up --provider=vmware_fusion --destroy-on-error
  

• Start the Vagrant VM:

  vagrant up
  

• Connect to the VM:

  vagrant ssh
  

• Hack away

  Tip

  cd /local assuming NFS synced folders is working

• Suspend the Vagrant VM:

  vagrant suspend
  

• Destroy a suspended VM:

  vagrant destroy
  

• See all images:

  vagrant global-status
  

Packer Notes

• Packer config files are written using JSON5 and translated to regular JSON using cfgt(1).

• To change the provider used to build an image, pass PROVIDER=<MY_PROVIDER_NAME> Defaults to vmware-iso but virtualbox, parallels, triton, and others may work for a given template.

• Packer may fail because the bsdinstall menus have changed when building a -CURRENT or -STABLE image. To identify and fix this, pass in a populated EXTRA_OPTS variable to GNU make(1):

  make 11.1-20170519-zfs TARGET=vmware-iso EXTRA_OPTS="-var headless=false -debug"
  

  (and submit a patch fixing the menu change).

• If Packer fails to connect via SSH to the instance to do the post-install it is possible there are too many SSH keys loaded in your agent. Prefix your GNU make(1) command with env SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/dev/null ... or look at the output from ssh-add -l to see if you have more than 3x keys loaded.

• Joyent maintains a branch of Packer that supports native JSON5 (f-json5). It periodically lags behind master but should be reasonably up to date.

Contributing

Patches welcome! Specifically, as new snapshots or releases are made, please feel free to submit PRs.

• Issues: https://github.com/brd/packer-freebsd/issues
• PRs: https://github.com/brd/packer-freebsd/pulls