Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2024 12:21:17 +1030 From: Shane Ambler <FreeBSD@ShaneWare.Biz> To: Jo Durchholz <jo@durchholz.org>, "freebsd-virtualization@FreeBSD.org" <freebsd-virtualization@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Best way to have a FreeBSD VM for automated testing? Message-ID: <01ccdc98-2b8e-331f-65df-5496f8d16ead@ShaneWare.Biz> In-Reply-To: <163e57a9-0b61-414c-a8f7-109f5ac90f69@durchholz.org> References: <163e57a9-0b61-414c-a8f7-109f5ac90f69@durchholz.org>
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On 24/2/24 05:47, Jo Durchholz wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm in repeatable build land, working in Linux and developing a FreeBSD
> appliance.
>
> For tests, I need to run a FreeBSD VM, put some Python code and test
> data into it, run the script, and get the test results back.
>
> Repeatability means: Everything done with the VM needs to be scriptable
> (using a GUI for exploring is okay but things have to translate).
> Which in turn means that every setup step for a FreeBSD image comes with
> a pretty high coding and maintenance cost.
>
> So my question is:
> What's the FreeBSD image that has the least number of steps to get the
> base system up and running? I suppose it's the VM-IMAGES section, but is
> this correct?
>
> Follow-up question:
> The startup time needs to be as fast as possible. Sub-second would be
> great ("don't disrupt the developer's thought stream").
> I see the boot process from a vanilla VM-IMAGES image takes multiple
> seconds; can this be sped up to just a few seconds, or do I need to run
> the setup and create a VM snapshot at which the VM starts for each test
> run?
Firecracker - firecracker-microvm.github.io
It may add another level of setup but it provides sub-second boot times
- and can run FreeBSD
https://www.daemonology.net/blog/2022-10-18-FreeBSD-Firecracker.html
Not sure if there are any pre-built images with the firecracker kernel,
so may not meet your requirements.
--
FreeBSD - the place to B...Software Developing
Shane Ambler
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