Virt-builder

virt-builder is a command line tool for building new virtual machines included in libguestfs-tools package.

http://libguestfs.org/virt-builder.1.html
List of images: http://builder.libguestfs.org/

Examples

• virt-builder --list and virt-builder --notes debian-9 to see if there is notes available.
• virt-builder debian-9 --format qcow2
• virt-builder debian-9 --format qcow2 --size 20G
• virt-builder debian-9 --format qcow2 --size 20G --hostname MY_NEW_VM_NAME
• virt-builder debian-9 --format qcow2 --size 20G --hostname MY_NEW_VM_NAME --install "PACKAGE_NAME_1,PACKAGE_NAME_2"
• virt-builder debian-9 --format qcow2 --size 20G --hostname MY_NEW_VM_NAME --install "PACKAGE_NAME_1,PACKAGE_NAME_2" --root-password password:YOUR_ROOT_PASS

List of images: http://builder.libguestfs.org/

virt-builder ubuntu-18.04 --format qcow2 --hostname YOUR_HOST_NAME --root-password password:YOUR_PASSWORD
[   2.0] Downloading: http://libguestfs.org/download/builder/ubuntu-18.04.xz
############################################################################################################## 100.0%#   ################################################################################################################### 100.0%
[ 286.1] Planning how to build this image
[ 286.1] Uncompressing
[ 288.2] Converting raw to qcow2
[ 291.1] Opening the new disk
[ 298.2] Setting a random seed
virt-builder: warning: random seed could not be set for this type of guest
[ 298.2] Setting the hostname: YOUR_HOST_NAME
[ 299.1] Setting passwords
[ 299.8] Finishing off
                   Output file: ubuntu-18.04.qcow2
                   Output size: 6.0G
                 Output format: qcow2
            Total usable space: 5.8G
                    Free space: 4.3G (74%)

Other options:

--size 40G

To boot it under libvirt use virt-install --import command.

Errors

postconf: warning: valid_hostname: invalid character 40(decimal): (none)
postconf: fatal: unable to use my own hostname

Errors were encountered while processing:
 postfix
 mailutils
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

virt-builder: error: 
        export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
        apt_opts='-q -y -o Dpkg::Options::=--force-confnew'
        apt-get $apt_opts update
        apt-get $apt_opts install 'libpcre3' 'libxml2' 'libgtk2.0-0' 
'libdbus-1-3' 'openssh-client' 'qemu-utils' 'debianutils' 'vim-tiny' 
'open-iscsi' 'xorg' 'xserver-xorg-video-all' 'fonts-dejavu' 'metacity' 
'network-manager' 'network-manager-gnome' 'dbus-x11' 'net-tools' 'curl' 
'ethtool' 'gawk' 'lsscsi' 'pciutils' 'usbutils' 'util-linux' 'xterm' 'less' 
'hwdata' 'hdparm' 'smartmontools'
      : command exited with an error

Related activities

• Install KVM in an Ubuntu Server

Related commands

• virt-v2v, virt-p2v, virt-p2v-make-disk, virt-builder, virt-v2v
• virt-rescue Run a rescue shell on a virtual machine
• virt-install
• virt-sysprep
• multipass launch

See also

• libguestfs-tools: virt-sysprep, virt-clone, virt-builder, virt-customize, virt-resize, virt-rescue, virt-sparsify, guestmount, guestfish, virt-inspector, virt-cat, virt-log, virt-df, virt-ls, virt-filesystems, virt-list-filesystems, virt-edit

http://libguestfs.org/virt-builder.1.html