Fedora Cloud 44

Fedora Cloud 44 VM creation on a Linux host using KVM

This gives us a fairly minimal UEFI based VM with /var /home and / on a btrfs volume, a FAT16 EFI partition and an ext4 boot partition.

Download Fedora Cloud 44

mkdir -p ~/VMs/base_images/Fedora/44
# Set an appropriate folder icon:
gio set -t string ~/VMs/ISOs/Linux/AWS metadata::custom-icon file://"${HOME}"/Pictures/icons/folder-fedora.svg

curl \
--location https://ftp2.osuosl.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/test/44_Beta/Cloud/x86_64/images/Fedora-Cloud-Base-Generic-44_Beta-1.2.x86_64.qcow2 \
--output ~/VMs/base_images/Fedora/44/Fedora-Cloud-Base-Generic-44_Beta-1.2.x86_64.qcow2

Setup tmux windows (Optional)

# Setup the tmux server:
tmux new -s split_vm
# Split the tmux screen so we can see both terminal windows simultaneously:
tmux split-window

Define the VM name and location

# Define the new VM name:
export VMNAME="fedora-cloud-44-01"
mkdir -p ~/VMs/"${VMNAME}"
cd ~/VMs/"${VMNAME}"
# Set an appropriate folder icon:
gio set -t string ~/VMs/"${VMNAME}" metadata::custom-icon file://"${HOME}"/Pictures/icons/folder-fedora.svg

Create the cloud-init user-data file

The following cloud-init file automates almost everything that we did in the Fedora Server example above.

nano -w "${HOME}/VMs/${VMNAME}/${VMNAME}-user-data.yaml"

And paste in the following contents:

#cloud-config

# Grow the disk partitions to fill the "physical" disk
growpart:
  mode: auto
  devices: ['/']

write_files:
  - path: /etc/dnf/dnf.conf
    owner: root:root
    permissions: '0644'
    defer: true
    content: |
      # see `man dnf.conf` for defaults and possible options
      [main]
      exclude=mercurial,subversion
  - path: /run/scripts/test-script.sh
    content: |
      #!/usr/bin/env bash
      touch /opt/testing.txt
      printf "Test script executed successfully!" >> /opt/testing.txt
    permissions: '0755'

hostname: VMNAME
create_hostname_file: true
fqdn: VMNAME.btv.internal.asuresoftware.com
prefer_fqdn_over_hostname: true

# Disable password authentication over SSH
# https://cloudinit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference/modules.html#set-passwords
ssh_pwauth: false
# Do not print SSH keys to the console during cloud-init setup
no_ssh_fingerprints: true
ssh:
  emit_keys_to_console: false

users:
  - name: patrickmslattery
    gecos: User with SSH key configured and sudo nopasswd enabled
    lock_passwd: false
    groups: sudo
    sudo: ['ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL']
    shell: /bin/zsh
    ssh_authorized_keys:
      - "ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIJGbdZXGee0zdBqQaDsUXOgp/1DuD3b3YlHREEtne8OV patrick.slattery@asuresoftware.com"
      - "sk-ssh-ed25519@openssh.com AAAAGnNrLXNzaC1lZDI1NTE5QG9wZW5zc2guY29tAAAAINasnNd3FLrNWPJTGBbAc8bA7I+HdH8gtkHvEaWtG6gZAAAABHNzaDo= patrick.slattery@asuresoftware.com - YubiKey Red"

# Run dnf upgrade
package_upgrade: true
package_reboot_if_required: true
# Install the following packages:
packages:
  - git
  - jq
  - yq
  - htop
  - zsh
  - curl
  - wget
  - fzf
  - powerline-go
  - powerline-fonts
  - https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.5.4/powershell-7.5.4-1.rh.x86_64.rpm

timezone: "America/New_York"
# timezone: "Etc/UTC"

runcmd:
  # - [ "sh", "-c", 'echo "IP is: \4" >> /etc/issue' ] # Not needed on this image
  # Set Zsh as the default shell for default user
  - [ "chsh", "-s", '$(which zsh) patrickmslattery' ]
  # Install Oh My Zsh for the default user
  - runuser -l patrickmslattery --command 'sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)" --unattended'
  - [ sh, "/run/scripts/test-script.sh" ]

# Reboot the VM when install is complete
power_state:
  delay: now
  mode: reboot
  message: Rebooting...
  timeout: 30
  condition: True

Update the hostname:

sed -i "s/VMNAME/${VMNAME}/g" "${HOME}/VMs/${VMNAME}/${VMNAME}-user-data.yaml"
grep ${VMNAME} "${HOME}/VMs/${VMNAME}/${VMNAME}-user-data.yaml"

Validate the cloud-init user-data file

sudo cloud-init schema --config-file "${HOME}/VMs/${VMNAME}/${VMNAME}-user-data.yaml" --annotate

You should get: Valid schema ???-user-data.yaml

Creating the VM

# Copy the base image to the VM specific directory:
rsync --progress ~/VMs/base_images/Fedora/44/Fedora-Cloud-Base-Generic-44_Beta-1.2.x86_64.qcow2 ~/VMs/${VMNAME}/${VMNAME}-vda.qcow2
# NOTE: THIS IS VERY SLOW WHEN RUNNING UNDER TMUX

# How big is the allocated disk?
qemu-img info ~/VMs/${VMNAME}/${VMNAME}-vda.qcow2
#  file format: qcow2
#  virtual size: 5 GiB (5368709120 bytes)
#  disk size: 555 MiB

# Extend the base image by 10GB
qemu-img resize ~/VMs/${VMNAME}/${VMNAME}-vda.qcow2 +10G
#  Image resized.

# Create the VM with 2GB of RAM initially:
virt-install \
  --connect qemu:///session \
  --hvm \
  --name "${VMNAME}" \
  --memory "2048",maxmemory="8192" \
  --vcpus "2" \
  --disk path="${HOME}/VMs/${VMNAME}/${VMNAME}-vda.qcow2",bus=virtio \
  --os-variant "fedora-rawhide" \
  --graphics none \
  --network bridge:virbr0 \
  --boot uefi \
  --noautoconsole \
  --sound none \
  --cloud-init user-data="${HOME}/VMs/${VMNAME}/${VMNAME}-user-data.yaml" \
  --import

Wait for the VM to reboot or shutdown before moving on to the next steps. This will take about 4 minutes in total. If the VM shuts down instead of rebooting then turn it back on again.

VM IP v4 address

The VMs IP v4 should be clearly listed on the VM console, where it can be selected and copied from.

::: info

Note that this VM is setup by default with a text console, not a graphical console.

:::

# This assigns the contents of the clipboard to the variable: `IP_ADDRESS`
# Copy and paste the command line below into a terminal but don't press Enter:
export IP_ADDRESS=$(wl-paste) && printf "IP_ADDRESS: ${IP_ADDRESS}\n"

Copy the IP address from the VM console now

TODO_NEED_IMAGE

Then press enter to the line above.

Then you can copy/paste the following on the VM host machine:

sudo sed -i "/${VMNAME}/d" /etc/hosts
echo -e "${IP_ADDRESS} ${VMNAME}" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts > /dev/null
cat /etc/hosts
# Remove any prior instances of the VM listed in the SSH known_hosts file:
sed -i "/${VMNAME}/d" ~/.ssh/known_hosts
grep "${VMNAME}" ~/.ssh/known_hosts

Connect to the VM with the SSH key on the YubiKey

# With the YubiKey inserted:
ssh -o "IdentitiesOnly=yes" -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_sk patrickmslattery@${IP_ADDRESS}

Expected response:

Warning: Permanently added '192.168.122.92' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.
➜  ~ hostname
fedora-cloud-44-01.btv.internal.asuresoftware.com

Increase the memory allocation of the VM (Optional)

# SSH to the VM
ssh ${IP_ADDRESS}
# Run htop in the VM so we can see the RAM usage live
htop

# Jump between tmux windows
CTRL + B + ARROW_DOWN

#----------------------------------------
# On the VM Host
# Set memory to 8GB (8388608 KiB) while the VM is live (do it while htop is running):
export VMNAME="fedora-cloud-44-01"
virsh setmem --domain "${VMNAME}" --size 8388608 --live

Destroying the VM when work is complete

cd ~
virsh shutdown "${VMNAME}"
sleep 10
virsh undefine "${VMNAME}" --remove-all-storage --nvram
rm -rf "${HOME}/VMs/${VMNAME}"

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