PMR2 VirtualBox Image generator (OSX, MacOS Mojave 10.14.3)

Instead of just providing documentation on how to build the whole thing, it would be useful to also have a working script that will build the whole thing. Following was the original documentation done for Gentoo.

Do note that this relies on vboxtools. Documentation on how these scripts actually work (and how to make them work) to come. In brief, follow the instructions on creating a base Gentoo system, and then call activatevm to spawn a new bash session. Before executing gentoo/script.sh, ensure that all relevant variables are filled with a defined value.

In order to implement the VirtualBox Image in MacOS, there are two conditions to be considered:

• MacOS is built based on Unix which is similar to Linux but they still have a number of differences
• Bash version in MacOS is 3.2.x which does not support some commands in the cloned scripts

Therefore, before continuing to the next process, it is necessary to prepare the MacOS environment:

• MacOS usually is not equipped with wget so firstly is installing wget

$ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
$ brew install wget --with-libressl

• Since MacOS is based on Unix,therefore, it's sed command behaves slightly different to Linux. As an alternative, we can install gsed which operates as same as sed in Linux

$ brew install gnu-sed --with-default-names
$ ln -s /usr/local/bin/gsed /usr/local/bin/sed

• The date command in MacOS is also has different behaviour so it is replaced by gdate. gdate is included in coreutils. Then, create a date symlink pointing to gdate

$ brew install coreutils
$ ln -s /usr/local/bin/gdate /usr/local/bin/date

• Installing Bash version > 4.0

$ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" < /dev/null 2> /dev/null
$ brew install bash

• Configure the terminal to the new bash

$ sudo bash -c 'echo /usr/local/bin/bash >> /etc/shells'
$ chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash

Roughly speaking, the whole build process may be achieved by doing:

$ git clone https://github.com/metatoaster/vboxtools.git
Cloning into 'vboxtools'...
...
$ git clone https://github.com/PMR2/pmr2vbox.git
Cloning into 'pmr2vbox'...
...
$ # the create-gentoo command defaults to checking for the correct
$ # signature of the downloaded images; the following commands will
$ # acquire the right signatures; please verify this against the
$ # Gentoo installation handbook linked in the documentation on the
$ # landing page of the vboxtools repository

This point is describing the modification conducted to the original scripts. Otherwise, you may continue to the next command directly.

• File: vboxtools/bin/createvm-gentoo

  • Replace: #!/bin/bash, with: #!/usr/bin/env bash without replacement the script is pointing to the old bash

• File: vboxtools/lib/gentoo

  • Replace: #!/bin/bash, with: #!/usr/bin/env bash

• File: vboxtools/lib/utils

  • Replace the body of set_vm_mac_ip () with:

    name="$1"
    net="$2"
    VBOX_MAC=$(
        VBoxManage showvminfo "${name}" | grep "${net}" | \
        gsed -r 's/.*MAC: ([0-9A-F]*).*/\1/' | gsed -r 's/(.{2})/:\1/g' | \
        cut -b 2- | sed 's/0\([0-9A-Za-z]\)/\1/g'
    )
    info "mac is $VBOX_MAC"
    VBOX_IP=$(
        arp -an | grep -i ${VBOX_MAC} | cut -d'(' -f2 | cut -d')' -f1
    )
    if [ -z $VBOX_IP ]; then
        warn "failed to derive IP"
        return 1
    fi
    info "ip is $VBOX_IP"
    export VBOX_MAC=$VBOX_MAC
    export VBOX_IP=$VBOX_IP

• Find below code, then remove the 'export' statement

  export VBOX_SSH_FLAGS=(
      -oBatchMode=Yes
      -oUserKnownHostsFile="${VBOX_KNOWN_HOSTS}"
      -i "${VBOX_PRIVKEY}"
  )

$ gpg --keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 0xBB572E0E2D182910
gpg: requesting key 0xBB572E0E2D182910 from hkp server ...
...
$ gpg --keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 0xDB6B8C1F96D8BF6D
gpg: requesting key 0xDB6B8C1F96D8BF6D from hkp server ...
...
$ # create the vm; this process will take a while, a snack and/or
$ # drink is suggested.
$ vboxtools/bin/createvm-gentoo -U -n pmr_demo
2018-10-04 16:00:00 URL:http://distfiles.gentoo.org/...
...
gpg: Signature made Thu 04 Oct 2018 13:51:26 NZDT
gpg:                using RSA key E1D6ABB63BFCFB4BA02FDF1CEC590EEAC9189250
gpg: Good signature from "Gentoo ebuild repository signing key ...
...
completing installation, removing installation script
Waiting for VM "pmr_demo" to power on...
VM "pmr_demo" has been successfully started.
Once the VM is fully booted, connect to it with the following command:
    vboxtools/bin/connectvm "pmr_demo"
...
$ # installation completed, but instead of connecting to the VM once
$ # it fully boots up, it may be activated using:
$ vboxtools/bin/activatevm pmr_demo
spawning new shell (ctrl-d to exit)
$ # the shell should actually be prefixed with the name of the VM
$ # the prompt should appear as `(pmr_demo) $`
$ pmr2vbox/gentoo/script.sh
 * Bringing up interface eth1
 *   dhcp ...
...

Once all that is done, it should result in a VirtualBox instance that contain an instance with a base set of models. The instance may be opened with a web browser; one possible method is:

$ xdg-open http://${VBOX_IP}:8280/pmr

Alternatively, replace xdg-open with echo and then copy/paste the URL to the address bar of a web browser.