Box-Building Caveats

The Vagrant box-building process relies on numerous Linux tools that have changed their behavior across Ubuntu releases. These caveats might apply if you’re not using the netlab release 1.8.2 or later:

• On Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (and later), the libvirt-qemu user needs read- and execute access to the VM disk file. It’s easiest to create Vagrant boxes in a subdirectory of the /tmp directory. This caveat does not apply to Ubuntu 20.04. Starting with release 1.8.2, the netlab libvirt package script always builds boxes within the /tmp directory.

• ‌virt-install might report a fatal error on Ubuntu 22.04 (and later). Execute export VIRTINSTALL_OSINFO_DISABLE_REQUIRE=1 in your shell and restart the build process. Starting with release 1.8.1, the netlab libvirt package script sets this parameter.

• If you downloaded an OVA file, you have to unpack it with the tar xvf ova_filename command. Starting with release 1.8.2, the netlab libvirt package script automatically unpacks the OVA files.

Finally, we tested the box-building scripts on Ubuntu 20.04 or 22.04. The netlab libvirt package might not work correctly on other Linux distributions.