vmbuilder: Creates mostly empty EC2 images on 64-bit

[Eric Hammond]

I'm using vmbuilder on 32-bit and 64-bit EC2 instances with identical arguments except for --arch, --kernel, and --ramdisk. The 32-bit EC2 images are created fine, but the 64-bit images are practically empty except for a few /var directories.

I have tracked this down to the extra mount which is performed by vmbuilder when run on the 64-bit instance to generate a 64-bit image:

2009-12-07 07:58:23,638 INFO : Mounting target filesystems
2009-12-07 07:58:23,638 DEBUG : Mounting /
2009-12-07 07:58:23,639 DEBUG : ['mount', '-o', 'loop', '/mnt/vmbuilderDscdmG/root.img', '/mnt/vmbuilderDscdmG/target/']
2009-12-07 07:58:23,719 DEBUG : Creating /var/run in root filesystem
2009-12-07 07:58:23,720 DEBUG : Creating /var/lock in root filesystem
2009-12-07 07:58:23,720 DEBUG : Mounting /
2009-12-07 07:58:23,720 DEBUG : ['mount', '-o', 'loop', '/mnt/vmbuilderDscdmG/root_.img', '/mnt/vmbuilderDscdmG/target/']
2009-12-07 07:58:23,728 DEBUG : Creating /var/run in root filesystem
2009-12-07 07:58:23,729 DEBUG : Creating /var/lock in root filesystem
2009-12-07 07:58:23,730 DEBUG : Mounting /mnt
2009-12-07 07:58:23,730 DEBUG : ['mount', '-o', 'loop', '/mnt/vmbuilderDscdmG/____.img', '/mnt/vmbuilderDscdmG/target/mnt']
2009-12-07 07:58:23,739 INFO : Installing guest operating system. This might take some time...

The first mount of / is for the "root.img" file which is eventually used to create the actual EC2 image. Unfortunately, the second mount of "root_.img" on top of / causes everything to be written to "root_.img" which is never used to create the bundle.

Here is the ec2-bundle-image command which shows that it is looking for the system files in "root.img", and not "root_.img" (which is where they were placed because of the second mount above):

2009-12-07 08:03:29,471 DEBUG : ['ec2-bundle-image', '--image', '/mnt/dest-karmic-20091207-0758/root.img', '--cert', '/mnt/cert-XXX.pem', '--privatekey', '/mnt/pk-XXX.pem', '--user', 'XXX', '--prefix', 'ubuntu-9.10-karmic-x86_64-xxxxxxxxxxxx-20091207-0758', '-r', 'x86_64', '-d', '/mnt/vmbuilderDscdmG', '--kernel', 'aki-fd15f694', '--ramdisk', 'ari-c515f6ac']

This problem is currently making it impossible for me to generate 64-bit EC2 images.

Here is the vmbuilder command I am running. It works on 32-bit with only the obvious slight modifications:

sudo vmbuilder/vmbuilder xen ubuntu \
    --suite=karmic \
    --arch=amd64 \
    --dest=/mnt/dest-karmic-20091207-0758 \
    --tmp=/mnt \
    --ec2 \
    --ec2-version="$description" \
    --manifest=/mnt/$prefix \
    --lock-user \
    --components="main,restricted,universe,multiverse" \
    --part=part-${arch}.txt \
    --ec2-bundle \
    --ec2-upload \
    --ec2-register \
    --ec2-bucket=$bucket \
    --ec2-prefix=$prefix \
    --ec2-user=$AWS_USER_ID \
    --ec2-cert=$cert \
    --ec2-key=$pk \
    --ec2-access-key=$AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID \
    --ec2-secret-key=$AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY \
    --ec2-kernel=aki-fd15f694 \
    --ec2-ramdisk=ari-c515f6ac \
    --install-mirror=http://ec2-us-east-mirror.rightscale.com/ubuntu \
    --ppa=alestic/ppa \
    --addpkg=runurl \
    --addpkg=ncurses-dev \
    --addpkg=vim \
    --addpkg=zip \
    --addpkg=unzip \
    --addpkg=libgnutls-dev \
    --addpkg=sox \
    --addpkg=libsox-fmt-all \
    --addpkg=cracklib-runtime \
    --addpkg=wamerican \
    --addpkg=wbritish \
    --addpkg=libstdc++6 \
    --addpkg=libcurl3 \
    --addpkg=libxml2 \
    --addpkg=collectd \
    --addpkg=libc6-i386 \
    --execscript=$(pwd)/setup-xxxxxxxx-server \
    --debug

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Dec 7 10:04:29 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Ec2AMI: ami-ab15f6c2
Ec2AMIManifest: ubuntu-images-us/ubuntu-karmic-9.10-amd64-server-20091027.1.manifest.xml
Ec2AvailabilityZone: us-east-1a
Ec2InstanceType: c1.xlarge
Ec2Kernel: aki-fd15f694
Ec2Ramdisk: ari-c515f6ac
Package: python-vm-builder 0.11.3-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: User Name 2.6.31-302.7-ec2
SourcePackage: vm-builder
Tags: ec2-images
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-302-ec2 x86_64

[Eric Hammond (esh)]

No sooner entered as a bug than I think I've tracked this down to an invalid "part" file I was using:

  root 10240 a1
  root 2048 a1
  /mnt 1 b

Note the extra "root" entry.

I don't know if this can be used to create validation code to prevent other people from making this dumb mistake, but I'm marking this bug invalid now.