OpenBSD: add VMM to ‘packer’
Channel: EuroBSDcon
Date: 2019-10-27

The sysadmin view of virtualization usually starts at a hypervisor running some kind of “image”. Packer is a framework to create such an image using various host and virtualized operating systems and adding some more bolts.

This talk shows the efforts and pitfalls of building a plugin for packer using the VMM framework on OpenBSD. Some details go down the rabbit hole (or reducing it) to provide a Go binary runnable as a plugin. For ease of installation, the ways how to package this as an OpenBSD ‘port’ are shown.

On top a bigger picture is provided on how to provide configurable OpenBSD images “at scale” by using the above accomplishments.

Philipp Buehler

Philipp uses Unix since mid 1990s and OpenBSD since 2000. Born and working in Germany mainly in Unix/Linux/BSD areas including ISP services and networking. Been an OpenBSD developer from 2002 to 2005, trying to cleanup and test pf(4). Co-founder of sysfive.com GmbH having the technical lead in designing and operating FOSS-based business plattforms.