WISHLIST: Use Multistrap (optionally?) instead of Debootstrap for make-base-vm --lxc

[Michagogo]

This would essentially solve #91.

[josephbisch]

Some notes for the person who ends up implementing this:

• Add the "addimportant=true" setting to the general section of the config file for multistrap to get the same default package installation behavor as debootstrap (install important packages in addition to required packages).
• Multistrap uses apt and dpkg directly (unlike debootstrap), so it is a good idea to make multistrap optional like Michagogo suggested and leave the option to use debootstrap.

[Michagogo]

As a side note: why was this method of creating the base container chosen? AIUI there are other, more "correct" ways of creating LXCs. There's the lxc-create command for creating containers, and then other commands for cloning/snapshotting containers. In addition, containers can be started and stopped just like VMs. Why are we not simply using LXC the way it's intended to be used? It seems to me that would make the whole process much simpler, as we could simply treat a container in the same way that we do a KVM. Unless there's something I'm missing (and there probably is), this may be a route worth pursuing…

On Wednesday, May 4, 2016, Joseph Bisch [email protected] wrote:

Some notes for the person who ends up implementing this:

• Add the "addimportant=true" setting to the general section of the config file for multistrap to get the same default package installation behavor as debootstrap (install important packages in addition to required packages).
• Multistrap uses apt and dpkg directly (unlike debootstrap), so it is a good idea to make multistrap optional like Michagogo suggested and leave the option to use debootstrap.

— You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/devrandom/gitian-builder/issues/120#issuecomment-216852618

[Michagogo]

And if we want to get even more streamlined, there may not even be a need to shell out. LXC has Ruby bindings. But even if we don't touch that, using the supported LXC workflow and commands, treating it as a VM and doing everything as we do for KVM, seems to me like it would be an improvement over our current situation, where things keep breaking. For example, right now there's some kind of brokenness on Xenial (haven't really had a chance to look into it).

On Wednesday, May 4, 2016, Micha Bailey [email protected] wrote:

As a side note: why was this method of creating the base container chosen? AIUI there are other, more "correct" ways of creating LXCs. There's the lxc-create command for creating containers, and then other commands for cloning/snapshotting containers. In addition, containers can be started and stopped just like VMs. Why are we not simply using LXC the way it's intended to be used? It seems to me that would make the whole process much simpler, as we could simply treat a container in the same way that we do a KVM. Unless there's something I'm missing (and there probably is), this may be a route worth pursuing…

On Wednesday, May 4, 2016, Joseph Bisch <[email protected] javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','[email protected]');> wrote:

Some notes for the person who ends up implementing this:

• Add the "addimportant=true" setting to the general section of the config file for multistrap to get the same default package installation behavor as debootstrap (install important packages in addition to required packages).
• Multistrap uses apt and dpkg directly (unlike debootstrap), so it is a good idea to make multistrap optional like Michagogo suggested and leave the option to use debootstrap.

— You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/devrandom/gitian-builder/issues/120#issuecomment-216852618