[clug] Virtual Machine 'farms'?

[Andrew Janke]

> Does anyone have experience in setting up adhoc VM "farms" using VMWare or
> VirtualBox?

> I'm looking specifically for help in the area of setting up new VMs based on
> a 'template' (ie: specify the Ethernet address, turn off fripperies such as
> USB, CD, Floppy, turn on PXE booting), which I can then boot and take over
> using a configuration management system such as Chef.

I use FAI for such games on Debian/Ubuntu for build testing. A simple
C/L install from no to go takes about 2-3 minutes. (The apt mirror is
local via NFS).

I once got into the game of cloning images and the likes but given the
speed of the install and the likes I just don't bother anymore and
make a new one each time.  Incidentally I use the same FAI PXE boot,
install and reboot method for installing ream machines too.  Keeps
things simple as it makes things very easy to test.


a (still loving my SSDs')