Ubuntu cloud images and virt-manager

gistfile1.txt

* How to create a Ubuntu VM on your local Ubuntu KVM from Ubuntu cloud images.

1. Get the ubuntu cloud image (.img file from) 

mkdir temp; cd temp;

wget http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/trusty/20140101.55/trusty-server-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img

2. Create a file "seed"

cat seed

#cloud-config
password: passw0rd
chpasswd: { expire: False }
ssh_pwauth: True
ssh_import_id: kirkland  # what is this? kirkland comes from the blog I copied this from


3. Create a "seed.img" from the above

cloud-localds seed.img seed

4. sudo cp trusty-server-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img /var/lib/libvirt/images/

5. sudo cp seed.img /var/lib/libvirt/images/

sudo apt-get install virt-manager -y

6. tell libvirt to re-scan for new files


virsh pool-refresh default

7. Create a copy of your img.

sudo virsh vol-clone --pool default trusty-server-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img test.img

virsh pool-refresh default


8. sudo virt-manager

a) New -> Give a name
b) Choose "local install media" (iso or cdrom)
c) Locate your install media -> "use iso image" -> "seed.img"

d) select mem and cpu. 
e) enable storage for this VM -> choose existing storage -> test.img

finish

9. username: ubuntu ; password = passw0rd


10.  After a reboot, the seed.img is no longer in cdrom, so you will not be able to login
So you need to edit the VM config to add a CDROM and then add seed.img in it.
This will makesure that a reboot will let you login.

Since this is the first google result for "virt-manager install ubuntu cloud image" I feel like I should point out what the ssh_import_id parameter is for: it imports one or more public SSH keys from a Launchpad.net (default or with "lp:" prefix) or Github.com (with "gh:" prefix) user account. You can log in via ssh using those keys instead of a password.

So if you set ssh_import_id to "kirkland" it will add the public keys of Launchpad user kirkland (who is an Ubuntu developer) to the default user's $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys file. This allows him to log in to your VM without a password. Probably not what you want!

Note: only guaranteed to work with official Ubuntu images. Also supposed to work with some Debian, Alpine, and Google Container OS images, but I haven't tried. The ssh-import-id command has to be installed in the image.