Vagrant project to generate FreeBSD based Vagrant boxes with ZFS and UFS

For the impatient

git clone [email protected]:punktDe/vagrant-freebsd-boxbuilder.git
cd vagrant-freebsd-boxbuilder
vagrant up
vagrant halt
./package.sh
cd test
./test.sh

Networking considerations

VirtualBox reserves the 192.168.56.0/21 range of IPv4 addresses for host-only networking. The default address of the box in this project is 192.168.57.57. If that collides with your local infrastructure set a different one in the Vagrantfile. Make sure not to pick the lowest one in the respective network, which is reserved for the host by VirtualBox.

For more details see the relevant VirtualBox documentation.

Files

• Vagrantfile - how to start and provision the box
• files/* - config files that are copied into the final box
• test/test.sh - small test shellscript that provisions both boxes, logs you in via ssh, then destroys them again

Parameters to tweak

In Vagrantfile:

• $build_box - which box to use for building
• $build_cores - how many cores to use for building
• $freebsd_version - which FreeBSD version to install in the target boxes
• $freebsd_version_upgrade - are we performing a major version upgrade - yes|no?
• $initial_package_list - which packages you want in your box by default
• ${zfs|ufs}_disk_size - size of hard disk for respective target box
• ${zfs|ufs}_swap_size - swap size for respective target box

How does it work?

Use vagrant up or vagrant provision (on subsequent runs) to:

• Deploy and start the named build box.
• Create second and third HDD via VBoxManage.
• Create ZFS disk layout on second hard disk.
• Create UFS disk layout on third hard disk.
• Install FreeBSD in the configured version to the destination disks.
• Run freebsd-update on both installations.
• Install some packages on both disks.
• Perform basic configuration and create vagrant user on both disks.

When the job is finished use vagrant halt followed by ./package.sh script to create .box files from the disk images.

Use cd test; ./test.sh to deploy and boot both boxes, so you can check if everything is consistent. Boxes will be destroyed automatically after you log out again.

Useful info

• When making changes, shutdown via vagrant halt before each new vagrant up --provision.

Major version upgrade

• Keep e.g. 14.0 as the $build_box and set $freebsd_version to "14.1"

• Set $freebsd_version_upgrade to "yes"

• Build the project - this will lead to a 14.1 box with 14.0 packages installed

• Manually import this box, set it as the new $build_box in Vagrantfile, set $freebsd_version_upgrade to "no" and build again:

  vagrant box add --name punktde/freebsd-141-ufs freebsd-141-ufs.box
  vi Vagrantfile
  vagrant destroy
  vagrant up