| title | author | layout | version | tags | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
BoxGrinder Build 0.9.1 released! |
Marek Goldmann |
blog |
0.9.1 |
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I'm happy to announce BoxGrinder Build 0.9.1. The release introduces a couple of new features, plus a number of bug-fixes and functionality enhancements. Please refer to the Release Notes below for a full list of the changes.
This release is immediately available from BoxGrinder stable repo and will be available shortly in Fedora Rawhide.
A quick overview of the most notable features, bug-fixes and enhancements arriving in 0.9.1
As announced in our previous blog post, we've added support for the ElasticHosts Cloud Computing API, establishing support for a range of new Cloud Providers. You can find out more about the plugin, and some of the providers who use the ElasticHosts API via our plugin documentation and Support for New Clouds blog post.
A minor annoyance in previous versions was that if you interrupted a build (possibly manually, or due to an error), it was possible that loop devices would be left hanging around until you manually removed them, or rebooted. However, [BGBUILD-97] resolves that, and now removes any unwanted mounts automatically.
With the aid of Kuwata Lab's Kwalify, we have defined a schema for BoxGrinder Build Appliance Definitions, and implemented parsing and validation against it. Kwalify provides custom YAML parsing and validation, with strict syntax checking. A customised schema validator then checks the input against BoxGrinder's schema definitions, rapidly determining whether the input is conformant. The change to schema validated input ensures that mistakes in appliance definitions are quickly identified, and precise error messages with line numbers are generated for the user.
Previously, many problems were not detected until the build process began, or caused run-time errors. This was liable to cause confusion, as it was often not immediately obvious where the problem originated from, as all filenames and line-numbers had been lost by this stage. Furthermore, many subtle syntax errors or invalid fields were silently ignored.
For instance, a common mistake is to misspell a field, or introduce a syntax error;
namee: whoops # Bad field name
summary: just an example
repos:
- name: example-repo
baseurl: zz:/invalid_repo_path # Invalid repo path
ephemeral: truee # Typo in value
With the improved parsing and validation, this now emits:
I, INFO -- : Validating appliance definition from blah.appl file...
E, ERROR -- : Error: [line 1, col 1] [/namee] key 'namee:' is undefined.
E, ERROR -- : Error: [line 5, col 5] [/repos/0/baseurl] 'zz:/invalid_repo_path': not matched to pattern ...
E, ERROR -- : Error: [line 6, col 5] [/repos/0/ephemeral] 'truee': not a boolean. # Must be true/false
E, ERROR -- : Error: [line 1, col 1] [/] key 'name:' is required. # The field name we intended to type
You will be alerted to any errors that are possible to detect early, such as invalid field-names, patterns and value constraints. Those of you interested in the schemas, can find them the BoxGrinder Core GitHub repo.
As of VirtualBox 3.2 a virtual SATA controller is default for attaching disk devices such as VDIs. However, BoxGrinder was still producing IDE disks, which when associated with the standard SATA controller caused a Kernel panic at boot. [BGBUILD-155] resolves the issue, with the VDI now conforming to the usual VirtualBox work-flow.
- [BGBUILD-97] - some filesystems dont get unmounted on BG interruption
- [BGBUILD-155] - Images built on Centos5.x (el5) for VirtualBox kernel panic (/dev/root missing)
- [BGBUILD-164] - Guestfs writes to /tmp/ by default, potentially filling the root filesystem
- [BGBUILD-184] - Image fails to boot for Fedora 14 KVM appliance using virtio devices
- [BGBUILD-185] - Cannot create partitions smaller than 1GB
- [BGBUILD-189] - custom repos with a space bar in name won't work.
- [BGBUILD-192] - Use IO.popen4 instead open4 gem on JRuby
- [BGBUILD-196] - GuestFS fails mounting partitions where more then 3 partitions are present
- [BGBUILD-198] - root password is not inherited
- [BGBUILD-200] - /sbin/e2label: Filesystem has unsupported feature(s) while trying to open /dev/sda1
- [BGBUILD-202] - Unable to get valid context for ec2-user after login on AMI
- [BGBUILD-156] - Validate appliance definition files early and return meaningful error messages
- [BGBUILD-166] - Prevent gnome from auto-mounting device during build
- [BGBUILD-188] - Use libguestfs instead mounting partitions manually for EC2 appliances
- [BGBUILD-190] - Allow to specify kernel variant (PAE or not) for Fedora OS
- [BGBUILD-194] - Add support for ElasticHosts cloud
- [BGBUILD-187] - Use UUIDs instead of labels for partitions