Demonstrate lxc clone via overlayfs and ubuntu-cloud clone hook supporting user-data.

lxc-clone-readme.sh

###
### Fast cloning with overlayfs, and specifying user-data on clone
###   blog post: 
###   http://ubuntu-smoser.blogspot.com/2013/08/lxc-with-fast-cloning-via-overlayfs-and.html
###

### Eventually, this should make it into 13.10 and the stable lxc ppa
### https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-lxc/+archive/stable
### But right now you'll have to use the daily ppa.

$ sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:ubuntu-lxc/daily
$ sudo apt-get update --quiet
$ sudo apt-get install --assume-yes --quiet lxc

### Now, create a pristine 'source' container which we'll clone repeatedly
### The create will download a tarball of the root filesystem from
### http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com and extract it, so this will take some
### time. Subsequent create's will use the cached download.
$ sudo lxc-create -n source-precise-amd64 -t ubuntu-cloud -- \
   --release=precise --arch=amd64

### Compare to clone and delete a container with and without overlayfs
###
$ TIMEFORMAT=$'real: %3R user: %3U system: %3S'

### First the old method.
$ time sudo lxc-clone -o source-precise-amd64 -n test1
Created container test1 as copy of source-precise-amd64
real: 29.842 user: 17.392 system: 21.616

$ time sudo lxc-destroy -n test1
real: 2.766 user: 0.184 system: 2.528

## Now using overlayfs snapshot
$ time sudo lxc-clone --snapshot -B overlayfs -o source-precise-amd64 -n test1
Created container test1 as snapshot of source-precise-amd64
real: 0.143 user: 0.024 system: 0.044

$ time sudo lxc-destroy -n test1
real: 0.044 user: 0.008 system: 0.028

###
### Its clear that the clone and destroy were more than a little bit faster.
### 29 seconds to 0.14 seconds, and 2.8 to 0.04 seconds respectively.
###
### Now, lets see about performance of booting a system, and demonstrate
### passing user-data.
###
### You can see options you can pass to 'clone' for the ubuntu-cloud
### clone with '/usr/share/lxc/hooks/ubuntu-cloud-prep --help'
### The most useful are probably '--userdata' and '--auth-key'

### use a user-data script that just powers off to time boot to shutdown
$ printf "%s\n%s\n" '#!/bin/sh' '/sbin/poweroff' > my-userdata

### clone then start without overlayfs
$ sudo lxc-clone -o source-precise-amd64 -n p1 \
    -- --userdata=my-userdata
$ time sudo lxc-start -n p1
<4>init: hwclock main process (6) terminated with status 77
real: 14.137 user: 10.804 system: 1.468

### clone then start with overlayfs
$ sudo lxc-clone -o source-precise-amd64 --snapshot -B overlayfs -n p2 \
    -- --userdata=my-userdata
$ time sudo lxc-start -n p2
<4>init: hwclock main process (6) terminated with status 77
...
 * Will now halt

real: 12.489 user: 10.944 system: 1.672


### So, we see above that overlayfs start/stop was a bit faster.
### I think those differences are inside the realm of noise, but
### they do demonstrate that at least for this test there was not
### a huge cost for the benefit of overlayfs.

trunk-to-daily-ppa.txt

### to install these hooks from a git branch to your local system that is
### running a daily ppa, you can do the following

git clone https://github.com/smoser/lxc
git checkout fix-userdata


## copy the hook into place
sudo cp hooks/ubuntu-cloud-prep /usr/share/lxc/hooks

## copy the new template and then replace the macro variables
## that would normally be replaced during build.
sudo cp templates/lxc-ubuntu-cloud.in \
      /usr/share/lxc/templates/lxc-ubuntu-cloud

sudo sed -i -e 's,@LOCALSTATEDIR@,/var/lib/lxc,'
     -e 's,@LXCHOOKDIR@,/usr/share/lxc/hooks,'
     /usr/share/lxc/templates/lxc-ubuntu-cloud