[CentOS-devel] Status report: packaging VirtualBox Guest Additions

[Michael Vermaes]

On Tuesday, 20 September 2016, François Cami <fcami at fedoraproject.org
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','fcami at fedoraproject.org');>> wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Michael Vermaes <mvermaes at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > On Tuesday, 20 September 2016, Laurentiu Pancescu <lpancescu at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> On 17/09/16 21:52, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> >>
> >>> Can you use the much more recent gcc in the dev-toolset-4
> >>> repositories, which is in turn enabled by the the centos-release-scl
> >>> and centos-release-scl-rh packages? It would mean using a customized
> >>> koji or mock setup and activating a BuildRequires
> >>
> >>
> >> No, we have to use the same compiler used for building the kernel. [1]
> The
> >> only way is to get the patch from the gcc 4.9 branch backported (it
> seems
> >> small in the diff, but I don't know how much different were the code
> bases
> >> of 4.8 and 4.9 by that time).  Even then, having kernels older than
> 3.11 is
> >> likely to remain a problem, if we insist on choosing this route to the
> Guest
> >> Additions.
> >>
> >> I spent almost the entire last week investigating this, reading
> VirtualBox
> >> code and trying different things - probably a few days more in total,
> since
> >> I started.  I started reading Packer's intro Thursday evening, and the
> >> missing bits about its "virtualbox-iso" builder and the "vagrant"
> >> postprocessor the next morning. [2]  By the end of the day, I already
> had an
> >> automated, repeatable way of building Vagrant images for CentOS 6 and 7,
> >> based on our official kickstarts and our Netinstall ISOs, with the
> >> VirtualBox  Guest Additions preinstalled and fully working.  I'm much
> more
> >> inclined to go this way.  I'm not sure if it would be possible to use
> CBS,
> >> but I could use Jenkins to generate the images, by allocating a node to
> run
> >> VirtualBox and Packer natively. Would this be acceptable from others'
> >> perspective?
> >>
> >> Would the SCL SIG be willing to also provide Packer, besides Vagrant?
> >> Right now, I'm downloading the Packer binary directly from upstream; for
> >> production purposes, I'd feel more comfortable with getting it from SCL.
> >>
> >> Best regards,
> >> Laurențiu
> >>
> >> [1]
> >> https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch12.html#ts_linux-kernelm
> odule-fails-to-load
> >> [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_holes
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> CentOS-devel mailing list
> >> CentOS-devel at centos.org
> >> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-devel
> >
> >
> > For what it's worth, we had been using Packer to build CentOS Vagrant
> boxes
> > from the templates provided at https://github.com/chef/bento until
> recently,
> > as there wasn't an 'official' CentOS box for the VMware provider. Since
> I am
> > currently working on using Packer's vmware-vmx builder to repackage your
> new
> > VMware box to include the VMware Tools (the VMware equivalent to the
> > Virtualbox guest additions), I would be interested to know if you would
> > pursue a similar approach (using Packer) for VMware?
>
> CentOS 7 ships open-vm-tools, so enabling the vmtoolsd unit should be
> enough.
> Or am I missing anything?
>
> > I realise this is a bit off-topic for your current issue with Virtualbox,
> > but it would be great to have the official CentOS Vagrant boxes well
> > supported under both Virtualbox and VMware.
> >
> > Let me know what I can do to assist in this.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > CentOS-devel mailing list
> > CentOS-devel at centos.org
> > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-devel
> >
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS-devel mailing list
> CentOS-devel at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-devel
>

Including open-vm-tools in the box would be a necessary first step, but my
experience is that it's still necessary to load the vmhgfs driver as well,
in order to get shared folder support working. As discussed at
https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2073804:

*- Why does an operating system release not include the vmhgfs driver?*

*The vmhgfs driver has not been contributed upstream. To work around this
situation, install VMware Tools bundled with the Workstation or Fusion
products, which will install the missing vmhgfsdrivers. The VMware Tools
installer will not disturb inbox VMware drivers included in the OS.*
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