Tuesday, February 1, 2022

[SOLVED] Build to deploy guest on KVM hangs

Issue

I'm using Jenkins to automate the deploy of a virtual appliance. The first step is to build a standard CentOS 7 minimal vm in KVM. I wrote a short bash script to do this task which works when running locally on the KVM machine:

#!/bin/bash

#Variables
diskpath="/var/lib/libvirt/images/"
buildname=$(date +"%m-%d-%y-%H-%M")
vmextension=".dsk"

#Change to images directory
cd /var/lib/libvirt/images/

#Deploy VM with with kickstart file
sudo virt-install \
--name=$buildname \
--nographics \
--hvm \
--virt-type=kvm \
--file=$diskpath$buildname$vmextension \
--file-size=20 \
--nonsparse \
--vcpu=2 \
--ram=2048 \
--network bridge=br0 \
--os-type=linux \
--os-variant=generic \
--location=http://0.0.0.0/iso/ \
--initrd-inject /var/lib/libvirt/images/autobuild-ks.cfg \
--extra-args="ks=http://0.0.0.0/ks/autobuild-ks.cfg console=ttyS0"

(IP address i have changed for the purposes of security)

The ISO and the kickstart file are stored on another server and they can both be accessed via http for the purposes of making this script work. To be clear, the script does work.

The problem I have is, when I put this script into Jenkins as a build step, the script works; however, it hangs at the end after the OS has been installed and the kvm guest begins the shutdown process.

here is the kickstart file:

#version=DEVEL
# System authorization information
auth --enableshadow --passalgo=sha512
# Use Network installation media
url --url=http://0.0.0.0/iso
# Use graphical install
#graphical
# Run the Setup Agent on first boot
firstboot --enable
ignoredisk --only-use=sda
# Keyboard layouts
keyboard --vckeymap=gb --xlayouts='gb'
# System language
lang en_GB.UTF-8

# Network information
network  --bootproto=dhcp --device=ens160 --ipv6=auto --activate
network  --hostname=hostname.domain.com

# Root password
rootpw --iscrypted 
taken_encryption_output_out_for_the_purposes_of_security
#Shutdown after installation
shutdown
# System services
services --enabled="chronyd"
# System timezone
timezone Europe/London --isUtc
# System bootloader configuration
bootloader --append=" crashkernel=auto" --location=mbr --boot-
drive=sda
autopart --type=lvm
# Partition clearing information
clearpart --none --initlabel

%packages
@^minimal
@core
chrony
kexec-tools

%end

%addon com_redhat_kdump --enable --reserve-mb='auto'

%end

%anaconda
pwpolicy root --minlen=6 --minquality=50 --notstrict --nochanges --
notempty
pwpolicy user --minlen=6 --minquality=50 --notstrict --nochanges --
notempty
pwpolicy luks --minlen=6 --minquality=50 --notstrict --nochanges --
notempty
%end

I suspect it's something to do with the shutdown option in the Kickstart file but unsure. When I ssh to the kvm server, I can see my newly created vm so the script does work but Jenkins hangs.

[root@sut-kvm01 ~]# virsh list --all
 Id    Name                           State
----------------------------------------------------
 -     09-22-17-16-21                 shut off

So far I have tried shutdown, reboot and obviously halt is default in the kickstart file and they have not worked for me either.

Any ideas how I can get the build to complete successfully? If it hangs, I can't move on to what will be build step number 2.

Help please :-)


Solution

Ok so I managed to figure out what the issue was. The issue was nothing to do with Jenkins or the script but rather to do with the kickstart file. In a nutshell, I was editing the wrong kickstart file. The file i was editing was the default kickstart file in the /root/ directory but that is not the same file that was being injected into memory by the script so the changes I made were having no effect.

Note to self - just because the script works, does not mean the answer to the problem isn't written in the script.



Answered By - Rob Barnes
Answer Checked By - Katrina (WPSolving Volunteer)
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