#100 New Doc about ServerVM & ImageFactory needs review
Closed by pboy. Opened by pboy.

There is a new documentation about creating (custom) Server VMs using ImageFactory.

ImageFactory – How to Create a Virtual Machine Disk Image

The text needs a Review.


Metadata Update from @pboy:
- Issue tagged with: user documentation

Metadata Update from @pboy:
- Issue assigned to cooltshirtguy

Issue tagged with: in progress

I've gone through the tutorial one time. It took some time since I had to setup an environment for it. I'm going to divide up my notes in 2 ways. The first way is technical and the second way will be about wording.

Technical

I'm go to start by saying that I wasn't successful. I need to go back and debug my work. Here's the things that I feel need to be updated. You can correct my if I'm wrong as this is the first time I've heard of or used ImageFactory.

Under Preparation
I think this needs to be explained better. Under Creating a working environment that last sentence is, "It is therefore recommended to create a virtual machine if possible and use nested virtualization in it." Then step 1 is optional Install a Fedora Server Virtual Machine. Nothing about bare-metal anywhere. It's optional but there's not another option.
I also think the nested virtualization should be before "Optional: Install a Fedora Server virtual machine" It's a requirement for doing the VM and someone might be using old hardware that doesn't support that feature. Some mobile CPU's don't support nested virtualization too. There needs to be a statement about whatever you use you'll need an additional 25G for ImageFactory.

Under Install ImageFactory
It's missing the filesystems with mount points for the imgaefactory directory
It states, Create a thin volume of max. 20 G for imagefactory working directory. What's the mountpoint and which filesystem to format it with? I figured it out by looking at the next screenshot.

Step C Repeat the last 2 steps to create a logical volume of 10 G named OZ and mounted at /var/lib/oz. What filesystem do you want to use? Does it matter?

Step 2 and step 3 Using sudo for commands, which is fine but you get to the next section and it doesn't specify.

"Set up a working directory"

[…]$mkdir ~/imagefactory

Root or a user?

The kickstart file
This is just a suggestion Why not just do a wget instead of separate link. Depending on which environment you setup ~/Downloads may not me an option. Besides just put it in the imagefactory directory in 1 step.

Step 2 use git, need to make sure git is installed. It might need to be added to the Preparation section.

The download URL helper file
Are you downloading this? from Where? Is this in the git clone files? Are you providing a sample of a default file here. What's the way to find the regional locations? I think there needs to be some clarification about the file itself.

Working with FactoryImage

Command below. user or root? Seems like it would need root privileges.

imagefactory --debug base_image --file-parameter install_script \
     fedora-server-kvm-dev-fl.ks  fedora-server-kvm-dev.tdl \
     --parameter offline_icicle true

There's my notes for the technical side. I'll try to get the wording done later this week.

Merged into the text and published.

Metadata Update from @pboy:
- Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)

Metadata