--tmp / -t option isn't available in python-vm-builder 0.12.2-0ubuntu3

If I may, I'd like to contend that this is not a duplicate of bug #536940. That ticket is about having a --tmpfs flag that will allow us to indicate that we wish the VM to be built in a tmpfs. That ticket is also marked as a wishlist item. This ticket is about having a flag that allows us to specify a path at which we would like the VM to be built. The -t flag can be used to build in tmpfs, but it can also be used to build in /home or wherever else I would like. What if my system had a small /tmp partition, but I had space somewhere else? Also, this flag should be a good bit simpler to implement that --tmpfs. Can we please have both flags? If not, I'd prefer this one over --tmpfs, personally. Thank you for your consideration!

You're absolutely right. Sorry. I thought -t was short for --tmpfs.

Hey Soren, thanks for your consideration!

Also, I just spoke with the powers that pay my salary, and I have received a green light to write a patch for this ticket. I'm gonna get started on that now. I've never contributed to Ubuntu before, but I assume that the standard procedure it to attach a patch to this ticket?

I made a commit to the branch for this ticket. I've definitely gotten it to use the -t flag in some places, but there are still files being created in /tmp. I haven't yet identified the code that is placing files in there, but for now I can't spend any more time on this. Hopefully my work is a good start for someone to finish this!

Yes, please don't break backwards compatbility anymore. I'm a big fan of partitioning, and my / partition is small. ubuntu-vm-builder is now barfing in lucid that -t is not available, and it runs out of disk space when using /tmp. It also doesn't seem to honor TMPDIR.

So.. any fix? workaround?

Hi Randy,

did you ever write a patch for this?

workaround:
TMPDIR=./foo
export TMPDIR
vmbuilder ....

I just did

mount -t tmpfs tmpfs tmp
vmbuilder kvm ubuntu --suite=lucid --mirror=http://localhost:3142/us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu -t /srv/serge/vmbuilder/tmp

and it is currently building in /srv/serge/vmbuilder/tmp:

root@sergelap:/srv/serge/vmbuilder# ls tmp
tmpFuRGkB tmpjYJS25

This is in natty, though. Which release are you on? I'll request an SRU of the fix.

The fix came in as part of bzr commit #37. Neither lucid nor maverick have that yet.

Please let me know if the proposed packages (in comment #12 and #12) work for you. If they do, I'll request an SRU.

maverick has seen the end of its life and is no longer receiving any updates. Marking the maverick task for this ticket as "Won't Fix".

lucid has seen the end of its life and is no longer receiving any updates. Marking the lucid task for this ticket as "Won't Fix".