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Supported virtualization platforms and build types
TurnKey works well with all the major virtualization platforms (e.g., VMWare, VirtualBox, Parallels, Xen, QEMU/KVM, etc.). It provides appliances in a range of build types optimized and pre-tested for various popular virtualization platforms.
If you don't already have virtualization software installed, VirtualBox is available in a free open source edition for most major OSs. VMWare Player and Server products are proprietary but free to download. KVM is 100% free software built into the Linux kernel which supports many front-end management tools. Proxmox Virtual Environment is a free, open source enterprise grade hypervisor which provides both KVM and LXC.
Build type | Headless | Packaging | Installation | Kernel | Extras | Works best with... |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Generic hybrid ISO | No | ISO Live CD/USB image | Custom installer (di-live) |
linux-generic |
Bare metal hardware Any virtual machine (e.g., KVM, Hyper-V, XenServer) that can install from CD or ISO image. |
|
VM optimized (OVA) | No |
Stream-able OVA archive file containing a read-only, compressed ("type 3") VMDK disk image and an OVF VM configuration file |
Import OVA; VirtualBox and VMware support "double-click" import | linux-generic | open-vm-tools |
VirtualBox VMWare products (Player, Workstation, Server, ESX, vSphere) |
VM optimized (VMDK) | No |
ZIP file containing a writeable VMDK disk image and a VMX VM configuration file |
None (pre-installed, ready-to-run hard disk image) | linux-generic | open-vm-tools |
VirtualBox (use existing hard disk) Low-end VMWare products (Player, Workstation, Server) QEMU/KVM also it has been reported that VMDK works with Xen HVM although not confirmed |
OpenStack | Yes |
Tarball containing filesystem image, kernel and initrd files |
Extract tarball, register AMI with Glance (blog post) (links to tutorial videos) |
linux-generic |
headless initialization fence, userdata integration, ebsmount, preseeding |
OpenStack |
Proxmox | Yes |
Tarball containing appliance filesystem optimized to run on Proxmox VE (LXC) |
Download & import template via the "TurnKey channel" within the webUI or manually download tarball and upload to PVE Supports v4.x (LXC) |
n/a |
headless initialization fence, preseeding |
Proxmox VE Other container (i.e. OpenVZ/LXC) based cloud and virtualization solutions.... |
Xen | Yes |
Tarball containing appliance filesystem optimized to run as a Xen domU guest |
Varies between Xen setups | n/a |
headless initialization fence, preseeding |
Any Xen based private or public cloud... |
LXC | Yes |
Tarball of container (LXC) build (see Proxmox build) |
TurnKey LXC template (news announcement) | n/a |
|
Any Linux distribution that supports LXC (undocumented) |
Docker | Yes |
Docker images hosted on the docker index |
Docker (news announcement) | n/a |
headless initialization fence, preseeding, preconfigured run and expose |
Any Linux distribution that supports Docker |
Other virtualization platforms
Whilst other VM platforms aren't specifically supported, many support VMDK and/or there is often a way to use an existing format (e.g. install from ISO). Often tools are provided with your virtualization software of choice to convert images to the one required. Examples that have been documented are:
Headless vs non-headless builds
In a conventional installation (e.g., from a Live CD ISO) the user has interactive access to the virtual console during deployment and first boot.
By contrast, headless builds are not expected to provide the user with interactive access to the virtual console.
The main difference this creates is when and how the system interacts with the user to set passwords, basic application configurations:
- In non-headless builds, the appliance is setup by the user on first boot.
- In headless builds, the appliance is setup by the user on first login.
For further details see the inithooks documentation.
VM optimized images
These are images optimized for deployment on Virtual Machines, using popular virtualization software (e.g., VirtualBox, VMWare, Parallels).
Features
- Pre-installed: Appliance is pre-installed to a VMDK hard disk image.
- Includes open-vm-tools: VMWare tools contain drivers which improves performance when running an appliance under VMWare. When running under VirtualBox or other virtualization platforms, the included open-vm-tools are not used.
Pros and cons
- The main advantage: easier setup as no installation step is required. Better performance on VMWare out of the box.
- The main disadvantage: can't be deployed to non-virtualized bare metal hardware.
Flavors
VM optimized images are available in two closely related formats:
- OVA build: as of v14.0 this is the new recommended VM build. It is a single file (.ova) archive built from our VMDK; processed with VMWare's OVFtool. It contains:
- Disk image: read-only, compressed VMDK hard disk image.
- OVF VM configuration file: OVF is a standards-based Virtual Machine configuration format.
- Compatibility:
- VirtualBox: supports OVA import via "double-click" or via an import appliance wizard which converts the OVA to a native VirtualBox format. The conversion process takes a few minutes.
- VMWare products: OVA is supported by all current VMware products such as Player, Workstation, Server, ESX and vSphere. It too will import with "double-click" or via the import wizard.
- VMDK VM build: previously this was the primary VM build offered for download. We continue to offer it as it can be imported into KVM without conversion (and possibly others such as Xen HVM). It can also be used with VirtualBox and VMware if preferred. It is a zip archive which includes:
- Disk image: Ready-to-run, writeable VMDK hard disk image.
- VMX VM configuration file: VMX is a legacy VMware-only Virtual Machine configuration format.
- Compatibility:
- VirtualBox: supports adding the VMDK as a virtual hard disk. The VM hardware (e.g., RAM) has to be configured by hand as VMX is not supported by VirtualBox. See the virtualbox installation tutorial.
- Low-end legacy VMWare products: VMX is point-and-click on VMWare Player, VMWare Workstation, VMWare Server.
Generic ISO
This is a single master image format that can be installed anywhere.
Features
- Custom installer (di-live): can install appliance to any available storage device.
- Live CD demo mode: allow users to try appliance without installing.
- Generic kernel: includes bare metal hardware support, and most types virtual machines (e.g., VMWare, VirtualBox, Xen HVM, Parallels).
Pros and cons
- The main advantage: a single universal image format that works (almost) anywhere.
- The main disadvantage: an ISO needs to be installed by hand and includes no out of the box virtualization optimizations.
OpenStack builds
These are TurnKey builds for the OpenStack cloud platform.
Features:
- EBS auto-mounting support: we've updated our custom EBSmount mechanism for OpenStack, which automatically mounts EBS devices when attached.
- Support for automating instance setup: via the user-data scripts mechanism.
- Automatic APT configuration on boot: saves bandwidth costs by using the closest package archive for maximum performance.
- SSH key support: instances that are launched with a key-pair will be configured accordingly.
- SSH host key fingerprints displayed in system log: verification of server to prevent man-in-the-middle (mitm) attacks.
- Randomly generated root password: is set on first boot, and displayed in the system log **.
- Randomly generated mysql/postgres passwords: the MySQL root and/or PostgreSQL postgres passwords are set to to the same random password as root **.
- Instance metadata python library and CLI: used internally, but useful for advanced users. (learn more).
** Because OpenStack builds are used in headless deployments (without a console), they include an inithook which preseeds default values, and random passwords.
See the OpenStack builds announcement for more details.
Proxmox builds
TurnKey Proxmox builds are optimized for container-based lightweight virtualization (LXC) via Proxmox v4.x+. They are available directly from the "TurnKey channel" within the Proxmox VE webUI. They should also work on v3.x (OpenVZ - or vanilla OVZ) but have not been extensively tested.
See also LXC or the OpenVZ builds announcement (historic info).
OpenNode builds
These are TurnKey builds optimized to run in OpeNode as lightweight OpenVZ containers. OpenNode supports automatic download and deployment of TurnKey solutions through opennode-tui - its textual user interface.
See the related OpenNode news announcement for details.
Xen builds
These are TurnKey filesystem tarballs optimized to run as domU guests in Xen based private or public cloud setups.
See the Xen builds announcement for details.
LXC builds
The TurnKey LXC template is the same as the Proxmox build. The TurnKey LXC appliance leverages TurnKey these builds and patches them on the fly for deployment. They should work with vanilla LXC or OpenVZ but it's currently not documented.
See the TurnKey LXC announcement for details.
Docker builds
These are TurnKey builds optimized to run as docker containers, supporting automatic download via the docker public index.
See the TurnKey Docker docs for details.
Comments
Hyper-V
Could you start provide documentation, if not support, for Hyper-V users? It would be great if you would start offering ready-to-go VM appliances pre-packaged with Integration Services, but please at least provide some explicit guidance here regarding which format is recommended for use with Hyper-V.
Special Hyper-V integration will have to be community driven
Work on more advanced configurations such as using Integration Services will have to be community driven since we don't currently have a Hyper-V environment on hand for testing.
Hyper-V
Why don't you have a Hyper-V enviroment? Microsoft gives Hyper-V server for free and you can also use Azure for free for 30 days to create VM's and export the VHD and config. Where there is a will, there is a way. I sense lack of will here, because you are "So Open-Source" and Microsoft is "So Evil".
It's purely pragmatic...
The reason why we don't have a Hyper-V build is mostly pragmatic. We're a bootstrapped company, with limited resources, so we have to pick our battles very carefully. None of us are Windows users and we don't have access to any Hyper-V hardware. That makes the prospect of Hyper-V build development expensive and clunky.
We did have a developer looking into Azure builds at one point (perhaps a year or so ago), but the budget (and the free period) ran out before we had a reliable build process. So we had to shelve it. We do hope to revisit that at some point, but seeing as how far behind we are (Debian Stretch was released in June and we still don't even have a public v15.0 beta!), it's not likely to happen anytime soon.
Most of the alternate builds were originally developed by the community, many are still be maintained by the community. So, it could be argued that there isn't a Hyper-V build because there hasn't been enough interest in TurnKey from Hyper-V developers!
If you are interested in working on it, I'm more than happy to coach you! It'd be awesome to have a Hyper-V build! Even if you don't have the skills, as you say, "where there's a will, there's a way"! If you're keen enough, you can do it! FWIW, I'm "self taught" and developed the initial OpenVZ build (what's now the Proxmox/LXC build) back when I was a community volunteer. So it's totally doable. And like I said, I'll support you as much as I can.
So let's get a Hyper-V build happening! Please start a new thread on the forums. I'll respond ASAP with some suggested reading to get you started.
Hope to see your post in the forums really soon! :)
And about use with KVM virtualization ?
Please say something about how to use these imageswith KVM virtualization !
You can install the ISO on KVM
Or you can import and convert the VMDK build to KVM
I haven't tested it but I have read that it is easy with built in KVM/qemu tools!
[update] Just realised that it's here in the docs...! :)
Any CI commands to run on Ubuntu / CentOS?
Any CL commands to install a Turnkey LAMP / LAPP image on a generic VPS Ubuntu or CentOS image?
- sudo apt-get -y XXXX
- sudo wget http://
- yum -y install XXXX
where's the download link
I can't find the download link?
Download links are on appliance pages
Alternatively you can hunt for appliances manually via our mirror network: http://mirror.turnkeylinux.org/turnkeylinux/images/
Or our SourceForge page: https://sourceforge.net/projects/turnkeylinux/