Creating a minimal Ubuntu Server VM

The other day I documented a kickstart process for creating base CentOS VM images. I tried but failed to get ubuntu installed using kickstart. Rather than learn the normal ubuntu process I figured I’d install manually. Beyond that, the approach is basically the same:

• Download ubuntu server, I chose the 64-bit LTS iso (10.04).
• create new empty VM called vanilla-ubuntu.
• Resize the disk image to 10GB.
• set RAM to 256MB.
• disable just about all options including audio support, usb support, printer support, file sharing, etc.
• set to NAT networking.
• attach ubuntu iso to cdrom drive.
• Accept all installer defaults, but select OpenSSH server as additional system to install
• Log in as created user
• run sudo passwd root to set the root password
• sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade
• to work around this bug, sudo rm /etc/motd.tail
• sudo shutdown -h now.
• open the settings pane, open the hard disk panel, and select “clean up disk”.
• disconnect and remove the floppy drive. Disconnect the DVD drive.
• (optional), open the directory containing the VM location in the terminal and mv *.vmwarevm/* . && rm -r *.vmwarevm. When you next open the VM (you will need to use File > Open), select “I moved it”.
• Make a backup copy of the virtual machine files, this is your clean VMWare-independent base VM.
• Start the virtual machine.
• in the Fusion menu, select Virtual Machine > Install VMWare tools, and install the tools:

  mkdir /mnt/cdrom
  mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
  cd /tmp
  tar zxf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools*.tar.gz
  ./vmware-install.pl --default
  cd
  rm -Rf /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib
  

• Shut down the virtual machine
• Make a backup copy of the virtual machine files, this is your clean VMWare-ready base VM.

One thing that’s easy to notice is how lightning fast ubuntu starts up. The other thing to notice is just how old CentOS / RHEL 5 really is, and IMNSHO how overdue RHEL 6 was (and CentOS 6 is):

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS	CentOS 5.6
# uname -r 2.6.32-31-server # python -V Python 2.6.5 # perl -v This is perl, v5.10.1 ... # apt-cache show ruby1.9.1 | grep Version Version: 1.9.1.378-1	# uname -r 2.6.18-238.9.1.el5 # python -V Python 2.4.3 # perl -v This is perl, v5.8.8 ... # yum info ruby.x86_64 | grep Version Version : 1.8.5

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