RL Lab virtual machine source code

This repository contains the RL (Networking 101) Lab VM generation scripts. The process is automated using qemu and Packer (check the requirements below).

Requirements:

• a modern Linux system;
• basic build tools (make);
• Hashicorp's Packer;
• qemu+kvm;

Preparation

First, update submodules:

git submodule init
git submodule update

Download and save a Ubuntu 22.04 Live Server install iso image.

Copy config.sample.mk as config.local.mk and edit it to point to the downloaded Ubuntu Server .iso on your disk. You might also want to change BUILD_DIR somewhere with 10GB free space and/or a faster drive (SSD recommended :P).

You might also want to ensure that packer and qemu are properly installed and configured.

Building the VM

The following Makefile goals are available (the build process is usually in this order):

• base: builds a base Ubuntu LTS install (required for the VM image);
• labvm: builds the Lab VM with all required scripts and config;
• cloudvm: builds (from labvm VM) the cloud VM, cleaned up and ready for cloud usage (e.g., AWS, OpenStack).
• labvm_edit: easily edit an already build Lab VM (uses the previous image as backing snapshot);
• labvm_commit: commits the edited VM back to its backing base;
• [*]_clean: removes the generated image(s);
• ssh: SSH-es into a running Packer VM;

If packer complains about the output file existing, you must either manually delete the generated VM from inside BUILD_DIR, or set the DELETE=1 makefile variable (but be careful):

make DELETE=1 labvm
# labvm_edit does this automatically:
make labvm

If you want to keep the install scripts at the end of the provisioning phase, set the DEBUG variable. Also check out PAUSE (it pauses packer, letting you inspect the VM inside qemu):

make PAUSE=1 DEBUG=1 labvm_edit

TODO

Still TODO: image conversion and project generation for VMWare / VirtualBox / LibVirt XML / etc?.