We just published our Debian/Ubuntu appliance builder for OpenVZ (of course perfectly usable on Proxmox VE).
Short description
Creating high quality appliances is a difficult task and requires deep knowledge of the underlying operating system. So we created the 'Debian Appliance Builder' to simplify that task. 'dab' is a script to automate the creation of OpenVZ appliances. It is basically a rewrite of debootstrap in perl, but uses OpenVZ instead of chroot and generates OpenVZ templates. Another difference is that it supports multi-stage building of templates. That way you can execute arbitrary scripts between package installation steps to accomplish what you want.
Furthermore, some common tasks are fully automated - like setting up a database server (mysql or postgres). To accomplish minimal template creation time, packages are cached to a local directory, so you do not need a local Debian/Ubuntu mirror (although this would speed up the first run). All generated templates includes an appliance description file. Those can be used to build appliance repositories.
Virtual appliances are a well known and quite successful way to demonstrate and run server software. But till now, no high quality appliance builder for OpenVZ was available.
Anybody is talking about the economic and financial crisis – a good chance to bring powerful open source software to the enterprise customer – start now using OpenVZ for virtual appliances!
All details:
http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Debian_Appliance_Builder
Best Regards,
Martin Maurer
martin@proxmox.com
http://www.proxmox.com
________________________________________ ____________________________
Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH
Kohlgasse 51/10, 1050 Vienna, Austria
Short description
Creating high quality appliances is a difficult task and requires deep knowledge of the underlying operating system. So we created the 'Debian Appliance Builder' to simplify that task. 'dab' is a script to automate the creation of OpenVZ appliances. It is basically a rewrite of debootstrap in perl, but uses OpenVZ instead of chroot and generates OpenVZ templates. Another difference is that it supports multi-stage building of templates. That way you can execute arbitrary scripts between package installation steps to accomplish what you want.
Furthermore, some common tasks are fully automated - like setting up a database server (mysql or postgres). To accomplish minimal template creation time, packages are cached to a local directory, so you do not need a local Debian/Ubuntu mirror (although this would speed up the first run). All generated templates includes an appliance description file. Those can be used to build appliance repositories.
Virtual appliances are a well known and quite successful way to demonstrate and run server software. But till now, no high quality appliance builder for OpenVZ was available.
Anybody is talking about the economic and financial crisis – a good chance to bring powerful open source software to the enterprise customer – start now using OpenVZ for virtual appliances!
All details:
http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Debian_Appliance_Builder
Best Regards,
Martin Maurer
martin@proxmox.com
http://www.proxmox.com
________________________________________
Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH
Kohlgasse 51/10, 1050 Vienna, Austria


Comments
I hacked the code a bit to make a jaunty (ubuntu 9.04) template.
I had to make a (small) edit to the dab script and the ubuntu 9.04 boot scripts, but otherwise very nice tool.
thanks,
martin
We needed to have a working VM for 8.10 and 9.04 and changed the DAB a little. I will email you my diff for it doesn't paste well in this thread (messes things up).
Patch for DAB 2009_05_12 : http://wiki.process.io/8.10-n-9.04.patch
Make for DAB 2009_05_12_INTREPID_JAUNTY:http://wiki.process.io/dab_2009-05-12_INTREPID_JAUNTY.tar.gz
Templates 8.10 and 9.04 at : http://wiki.process.io/intrepid+jaunty.tar.gz
Best regards,
Sebastiaan
My email address is sebastiaan.blommers@gmail.com
Thank any way!
Sebastiaan