Ubuntu Cloud OVA on Windows with Virtualbox

Requirements

• Ubuntu Linux 22.04 for OVA generation.
• Windows 11 + Virtualbox 6 to run the OVA.

Install

Download desired Ubuntu Linux cloud image (OVA format):

# See references section for a download link
file="https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/jammy/current/jammy-server-cloudimg-amd64.ova"
mkdir disk
wget $file -O dist/$(basename $file)

Install tools to create Cloud Init ISO

sudo apt install cloud-image-utils; # to create cloud init iso
sudo apt install zip;               # compression
sudo apt install whois;             # for mkpasswd
sudo apt install dos2unix;          # for chaging new line endings

Usage

Set the SSH Public Key path $pk variable in build.sh.

Generate the .iso and .bat files:

./build.sh # To generate ./dist/*.*

Copy the .ova you download previously and dist/*.* files to a local Windows folder and execute first virtualbox.bat.

You can modify the publish.sh script for the copy operation (shared drive).

Optionally add 'startup.bat' to Windows Startup Programs (auto start VM on reboot).

Guest Addons

• Start VM (not headless), goto Devices - Insert Guest Additions CD image to mount the ISO image.

• From the terminal, run the following commands:

   $ sudo su
   $ apt install gcc make
   $ mkdir --parents /media/cdrom
   $ mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
   $ /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
   $ reboot

• After reboot:

   $ modinfo vboxguest
   $ sudo usermod --append --groups vboxsf -- "$USER"
   $ cat /etc/group | grep "$USER"

• Host shares should now be mounted in Ubuntu guest under /media via the installed VBoxService service, set to start on system boot-up.

• All done.

Debugging

Uncomment in build.sh the following line to inspect the files packaged into cloud-init.iso:

rm -f *-data   # uncomment to debug *-data file content

References

• https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/
• https://cloudinit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/topics/examples.html
• https://cloudinit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference/modules.html
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg/Keyboard_configuration
• https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.html#vboxmanage-modifyvm-networking
• https://gist.github.com/AugustoCiuffoletti/e0af693878e8fa9ab5b6e8d761eb9eec