vmbuilder for vmserver fails with vmxtemplate undefined

[spiceisland]

Binary package hint: ubuntu-vm-builder

This is under Jaunty alpha 5(ish).

Having followed the instructions on https://help.ubuntu.com/8.10/serverguide/C/jeos-and-vmbuilder.html, I managed to install ubuntu-vm-builder and get apt-proxy installed and running in order to create a kvm-based ubuntu-hardy image thus:

vmbuilder kvm ubuntu --suite hardy --flavour virtual --arch i386 -o --mirror http://localhost:9999/ubuntu --addpkg acpid

The resulting image boots quite happily under kvm.

I then decided to re-run the command to produce a VMWare Server equivalent:

vmbuilder vmserver ubuntu --suite hardy --flavour virtual --arch i386 -o --mirror http://localhost:9999/ubuntu --addpkg acpid

This NEARLY works, but dies at the last moment:

...
2009-03-12 08:43:47,352 INFO Copying to disk images
2009-03-12 08:44:21,273 INFO Installing bootloader
2009-03-12 08:44:24,119 INFO Unmounting target filesystem
2009-03-12 08:44:24,414 INFO Converting /tmp/vmbuilderB4UNWR/disk0.img to vmdk, format ubuntu-vmserver/disk0.vmdk
2009-03-12 08:44:55,874 INFO Cleaning up
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/vmbuilder", line 29, in <module>
    VMBuilder.run()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/VMBuilder/__init__.py", line 66, in run
    frontend.run()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/VMBuilder/plugins/cli/__init__.py", line 67, in run
    vm.create()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/VMBuilder/vm.py", line 463, in create
    self.deploy()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/VMBuilder/vm.py", line 184, in deploy
    getattr(self.hypervisor, 'deploy')()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/VMBuilder/plugins/vmware/vm.py", line 46, in deploy
    vmdesc = VMBuilder.util.render_template('vmware', self.vm, vmxtemplate, { 'disks' : self.disks(), 'vmhwversion' : self.vmhwversion, 'cpu' : self.vm.cpu, 'mem' : self.vm.mem, 'hostname' : self.vm.hostname, 'arch' : self.vm.arch, 'guestos' : (self.vm.arch == 'amd64' and 'ubuntu-64' or 'ubuntu') })
NameError: global name 'vmxtemplate' is not defined

I shall attach the output of re-running the command with the --debug option ...

root@graham-desktop:~# lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu jaunty (development branch)
Release: 9.04

root@graham-desktop:~# apt-cache policy ubuntu-vm-builder
ubuntu-vm-builder:
  Installed: 0.10-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 0.10-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 0.10-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[spiceisland (graham-hudspith)]

I've created an apport-generated duplicate of this bug report over at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vm-builder/+bug/359473.

This problem still occurs with the 0.10-0ubuntu2 release of ubuntu-vm-builder.

[Mekk (marcin-kasperski)]

Faced the same problem on 9.10:

$ sudo vmbuilder \
        vmserver \
        ubuntu \
        --suite hardy \
        --dest image \
        --components 'main,universe' \
        --arch 'i386' \
        --rootsize '4096' \
        --swapsize '512' \
        # user and network options, which I prefer to skip
        --addpkg openssh-server \
        --addpkg nginx

Effect:

(... long trace of running builder ...)

2009-05-04 18:39:08,752 INFO Copying to disk images
2009-05-04 18:39:35,009 INFO Installing bootloader
2009-05-04 18:39:39,481 INFO Unmounting target filesystem
2009-05-04 18:39:42,657 INFO Converting /home/marcin/tmp/vmbuilderKLpQhq/disk0.img to vmdk, format /home/marcin/image/disk0.vmdk
2009-05-04 18:40:30,012 INFO Cleaning up
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/vmbuilder", line 29, in <module>
    VMBuilder.run()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/VMBuilder/__init__.py", line 66, in run
    frontend.run()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/VMBuilder/plugins/cli/__init__.py", line 67, in run
    vm.create()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/VMBuilder/vm.py", line 463, in create
    self.deploy()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/VMBuilder/vm.py", line 184, in deploy
    getattr(self.hypervisor, 'deploy')()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/VMBuilder/plugins/vmware/vm.py", line 46, in deploy
    vmdesc = VMBuilder.util.render_template('vmware', self.vm, vmxtemplate, { 'disks' : self.disks(), 'vmhwversion' : self.vmhwversion, 'cpu' : self.vm.cpu, 'mem' : self.vm.mem, 'hostname' : self.vm.hostname, 'arch' : self.vm.arch, 'guestos' : (self.vm.arch == 'amd64' and 'ubuntu-64' or 'ubuntu') })
NameError: global name 'vmxtemplate' is not defined

[Mekk (marcin-kasperski)]

My very strong bet is that one should add

   self.

before vmxtemplate - so it reads:

       vmdesc = VMBuilder.util.render_template('vmware', self.vm, self.vmxtemplate, { 'disks' : self.disks(), 'vmhwversion' : self.vmhwversion, 'cpu' : self.vm.cpu, 'mem' : self.vm.mem, 'hostname' : self.vm.hostname, 'arch' : self.vm.arch, 'guestos' : (self.vm.arch == 'amd64' and 'ubuntu-64' or 'ubuntu') })

PS Obviously the problem is only related to VmWare images (as it is present in class VMWare)

[Mekk (marcin-kasperski)]

With the fix above builder progresses further and faces the next problem:

  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/VMBuilder/plugins/vmware/vm.py", line 46, in deploy
    vmdesc = VMBuilder.util.render_template('vmware', self.vm, self.vmxtemplate, { 'disks' : self.disks(), 'vmhwversion' : self.vmhwversion, 'cpu' : self.vm.cpu, 'mem' : self.vm.mem, 'hostname' : self.vm.hostname, 'arch' : self.vm.arch, 'guestos' : (self.vm.arch == 'amd64' and 'ubuntu-64' or 'ubuntu') })
AttributeError: 'VM' object has no attribute 'cpu'

I am just to try replacing

    self.vm.cpu

with

    self.vm.cpus

(as is in KVM version)

[Mekk (marcin-kasperski)]

.. and the latter seems to help.

So, to summarize:

1) There is a bug in ubuntu-vm-builder 0.10-0ubuntu2 (current Jaunty version) which makes it fail during image conversion when vmserver image is generated

2) To fix the bug, two trivial edits in VMBuilder/plugins/vmware/vm.py are needed:

- replace self.vm.cpu with self.vm.cpus
- replace vmxtemplate with self.vmxtemplate

(both fixes in deploy method of VMWare class, line 38 of vm.py)

[austin (bang-a-rang)]

Thanks Mekk,

Making those 2 changes fixed this issue for me. I am using xubuntu 9.04.