Re: Debian images for Google Compute Engine
On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 10:17 PM, Brian Gupta <brian.gupta@brandorr.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 10:09 PM, Brian Gupta <brian.gupta@brandorr.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 9:01 PM, Jimmy Kaplowitz <jimmy@debian.org> wrote:
>>> Hi Charles,
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 09:19:59AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
>>>> Do you think you can summarise how to access the GCE images in a page on the Debian
>>>> wiki, for instance http://wiki.debian.org/Cloud/GoogleComputeEngineImage ? You
>>>> can see http://wiki.debian.org/Cloud/AmazonEC2Image and http://wiki.debian.org/Cloud/WindowsAzureImage
>>>> for examples.
>>>
>>> Sure. Right now what we have published is not images themselves, but tools for
>>> anyone to make their own. While we have of course built images internally and
>>> done testing, we would love for Debian to be the provider of official Debian
>>> images in Google Compute Engine. Publishing those images can be done by anyone
>>> we add to the debian-cloud project and does not need to be done by Googlers.
>>
>> Thanks Jimmy!! Great work!.. One clarification for those trying to
>> follow along. Unless I've missed something, there is one step that
>> might be unclear: How to select one of the prebuilt kernel images that
>> are available to use when building an image.. I've added instructions
>> inline.
>>
>>>
>>> A quick summary of usage for the very near term:
>>>
>>> 1) If you want to help and don't already have Google Compute Engine space in
>>> which to work, email David and me saying how you want to help and giving the
>>> name of your Google account (Google Apps and consumer accounts are both fine).
>>> We'll add people to whichever projects are appropriate for how they're helping,
>>> within the constraints in my previous email.
>>>
>>> 2) Use our github fork on any Linux machine to create the images. I'll submit a
>>> pull request tomorrow so that Anders can merge it into his tree. Example
>>> command line (root is needed for the loopback mounting process):
>>>
>>> # Either squeeze or wheezy should work.
>>> sudo ./build-debian-cloud gce --codename squeeze --volume-size 10
>>>
>>> 3) The image will end up in the same directory. From there, follow the steps to
>>> upload and use a custom image in Google Compute Engine, beginning with step 4
>>> here: https://developers.google.com/compute/docs/images#installinganimage
>>
>> The above instructions tell you to run:
>>
>> gcutil --project=<project-id> addimage <image-name> <image-uri>
>> --preferred_kernel=/projects/google/global/kernels/<kernel-name>
>>
>> without specifying how to find <kernel-name>
>>
>> You can use gce-v20130325 (Which is appears to be Google's latest
>> build), however, if you want a list of available kernels you can run:
>>
>> gceutil listkernels --project=google (Rather than your own project)
>
> Sorry that should read:
>
> gcutil listkernels --project=google
>
>> If someone hasn't beaten me to it, I'll try to get some of this into the wiki..
I think I captured most of the important bits here:
http://wiki.debian.org/Cloud/GoogleComputeEngineImage (I probably
won't have time to touch it for a bit, so if something needs fixing,
feel free. Also I am not an expert in MoinMoin, so if someone wants to
look over the formatting, and make improvements feel free, as I am
done editing for now.)
>>> Once official Debian images are published via the debian-cloud project, end
>>> users will be able to use them simply by adding a suitable --image option when
>>> creating their instance.
>>>
>>>> I have a question about SSH. I browsed a bit further the documentation in
>>>> https://developers.google.com/compute/docs/instances#standardssh, where I could
>>>> read: "username: [Required The username to log in that instance. Typically,
>>>> this is the username of the local user running gcutil." Will this be the
>>>> standard on Debian images as well ? Do you think that it is a practice to be
>>>> recommended for our other images ? We chose "admin" as default account,
>>>> following Ubuntu's practice to provide a default account, and adding the
>>>> constraint that it must not be branded, but if there is an even better choice,
>>>> we should consider it.
>>>
>>> That language applies to the Debian image as well. gcutil and the authorization
>>> model of Google Compute Engine provide flexibility in this regard. For example,
>>> by default, every team member of a Google Compute Engine project with "Can
>>> edit" or "Is owner" has ssh rights to new instances. This is controllable even
>>> at a per-instance level. This is managed by a cron job installed by one of our
>>> debs, also called from our startup logic - feel free to look at how it works if
>>> you're curious, it's all readable and Apache-license scripts.
>>>
>>>> Another question, for the mid-long term, do you think that it would be possible
>>>> to use the Debian Installer directly ?
>>>
>>> We're already using debootstrap, as ec2debian-build-ami did. I'm curious how
>>> you'd want debian-installer to work, but if it supports arbitrary image files
>>> as target, someone might be able to do it.
>>>
>>> - Jimmy Kaplowitz
>>> jimmy@debian.org
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-cloud-request@lists.debian.org
>>> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
>>> Archive: [🔎] 20130418010142.GI2625@kaplowitz.org">http://lists.debian.org/[🔎] 20130418010142.GI2625@kaplowitz.org
>>>
Reply to: