Gentoo in Azure Cloud (with Virtualbox)

[hydrapolic]

Currently there is no Gentoo Linux image in Azure cloud, but it's possible to create your own. Here is a way to do it, which worked for me.

[*] Create a virtual machine in Virtualbox (be sure to use VHD file type)
[*] Create a bios boot partition (2MB) and a 15GB partition for the system (ext4), no swap

Disk /dev/sda: 14.7 GiB, 15728640000 bytes, 30720000 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 00E0A79F-5E60-4C77-818E-2228F542E204

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 6143 4096 2M BIOS boot
/dev/sda2 6144 30719966 30713823 14.7G Linux filesystem

[*] Install a basic Gentoo machine (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:AMD64/Full/Installation)
[*] You will need to following packages to be present:
- app-emulation/wa-linux-agent (https://github.com/hydrapolic/gentoo/tree/master/app-emulation/wa-linux-agent)
- net-fs/nfs-utils
- net-misc/dhcpcd
[*] When compiling your kernel, be sure to include:
- HYPERV (STORAGE, NET...)
- NTFS
- UDF
[*] Add "console=ttyS0 earlyprintk=ttyS0" to your kernel boot parameters

Now you need to upload the image to Azure. Install https://www.npmjs.com/package/azure-cli, then:
# azure login
# azure storage account create gentoo
# azure vm image create gentoo --blob-url https://gentoo.blob.core.windows.net/gentoo.vhd --os Linux ~/.VirtualBox/Machines/gentoo/gentoo.vhd
# azure vm create -g @your_ssh_login@ -p @your_ssh_pass@ -e 22 @your_machine_name@ gentoo

More info: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-linux-create-upload-generic/#general-linux-installation-notes

[oblivion_vr]

Hi @hydrapolic
me and my team is working on setting up Gentoo image on Azure.
Wanted to ask you if the steps listed by you will still work as of today. If not, then what changes are required?



Thanks,

[hydrapolic]