BoxGrinder Build usage instructions

Main usage

After you install BoxGrinder Build you'll have boxgrinder-build command available. Use --help switch for more information:

$ sudo boxgrinder-build --help

Usage: boxgrinder-build [appliance definition file] [options]

A tool for building VM images from simple definition files.

Homepage:
    http://boxgrinder.org/

Documentation:
    http://boxgrinder.org/tutorials/

Examples:
    $ boxgrinder-build jeos.appl                                                           # Build KVM image for jeos.appl
    $ boxgrinder-build jeos.appl -f                                                        # Build KVM image for jeos.appl with removing previous build for this image
    $ boxgrinder-build jeos.appl --os-config format:qcow2                                  # Build KVM image for jeos.appl with a qcow2 disk
    $ boxgrinder-build jeos.appl -p vmware --platform-config type:personal,thin_disk:true  # Build VMware image for VMware Server, Player, Fusion using thin (growing) disk
    $ boxgrinder-build jeos.appl -p ec2 -d ami                                             # Build and register AMI for jeos.appl
    $ boxgrinder-build jeos.appl -p vmware -d local                                        # Build VMware image for jeos.appl and deliver it to local directory

Options:
    -p, --platform [TYPE]            The name of platform you want to convert to.
    -d, --delivery [METHOD]          The delivery method for selected appliance.
    -f, --force                      Force image creation - removes all previous builds for selected appliance. Default: false.

Plugin configuration options:
    -l, --plugins [PLUGINS]          Comma separated list of additional plugins. Default: empty.

        --os-config [CONFIG]         Operating system plugin configuration in format: key1:value1,key2:value2.
        --platform-config [CONFIG]   Platform plugin configuration in format: key1:value1,key2:value2.
        --delivery-config [CONFIG]   Delivery plugin configuration in format: key1:value1,key2:value2.

Logging options:
        --debug                      Prints debug information while building. Default: false.
        --trace                      Prints trace information while building. Default: false.
    -b, --backtrace                  Prints full backtrace if errors occur whilst building. Default: true if console log is set to debug or trace, otherwise false.

Common options:
        --help                       Show this message.
        --version                    Print the version.

Plugin options - overriding configuration

Using CLI options you can override the configuration placed in BoxGrinder configuration file. Use --PUGINTYPE-config switch to set or override plugin configuration:

$ sudo boxgrinder-build jeos.appl --os-config format:qcow2 -p vmware --platform-config disk_type:thin,type:personal -d sftp --delivery-config username:marek,path:/home/marek

You can specify one switch more than once. Above example is equivalent to this:

$ sudo boxgrinder-build jeos.appl --os-config format:qcow2 -p vmware --platform-config disk_type:thin --platform-config type:personal -d sftp --delivery-config username:marek --delivery-config path:/home/marek

Version information

$ sudo boxgrinder-build --version

BoxGrinder Build 0.9.0

Available os plugins:
 - rhel plugin for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
 - fedora plugin for Fedora
 - centos plugin for CentOS

Available platform plugins:
 - virtualbox plugin for VirtualBox
 - vmware plugin for VMware
 - ec2 plugin for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)

Available delivery plugins:
 - ebs plugin for Elastic Block Storage
 - cloudfront plugin for Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)
 - sftp plugin for SSH File Transfer Protocol
 - ami plugin for Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)
 - local plugin for Local file system
 - s3 plugin for Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)