This page explains how to set up and run Launchpad (for development) inside a LXC.

Why?

Launchpad development setup makes significant changes to your machine; its nice to be unaffected by those except when you are actually doing such development.

Also, launchpad has some limitations on concurrent testing per-machine and so forth - multiple container's can be used to work around this.

Make a LXC

1. Install lxc

   sudo apt-get install lxc

2. Work around 800456 (fixed in oneiric) and 801002

   sudo apt-get install cgroup-bin libvirt-bin

3. Work around 784093 (fixed in oneiric - doing this will break oneiric)

   sudo dd of=/etc/cgconfig.conf << EOF
   mount {
    cpu = /sys/fs//cgroup/cpu;
    cpuacct = /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu;
    devices = /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu;
    memory = /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu;
   }
   EOF
   sudo service cgconfig restart

4. Work around 798476 (fixed in oneiric) (optional if you run i386 or have a -tonne- of memory and don't care about 64-bit footprint.

   • Grab the patch from the bug and apply it to /usr/lib/lxc/templates/lxc-lucid. If you're running i386 already or want a 64-bit lxc then do not pass arch= on the lxc-create command line.
5. Create a config for your containers

   sudo dd of=/etc/lxc/local.conf << EOF
   lxc.network.type=veth
   lxc.network.link=virbr0
   lxc.network.flags=up
   #fuse (workaround for Bug:800886 (fixed in oneiric))
   lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 10:229 rwm
   # part of the Bug:798476 workaround - 
   # remove if you are running a 64 bit lxc or
   # 32 bit on 32-bit base os
   lxc.arch = i686
   EOF

6. Create a container [oneiric]

   sudo lxc-create -t ubuntu -n lucid-test-lp -f /etc/lxc/local.conf -- -r lucid -a i386 -b robertc

   • If you want a proxy:

     sudo http_proxy=http://host:port/ lxc-create -t ubuntu -n lucid-test-lp -f /etc/lxc/local.conf -- -r lucid -a i386 -b robertc

   • And if you want to set a custom mirror, similar to http_proxy, but set MIRROR= instead.
7. Create a container [natty]

   sudo arch=i386 lxc-create -n lucid-test-lp -t lucid -f /etc/lxc/local.conf

   • If you want to use a proxy

   sudo arch=i386 http_proxy=http://host:port/ lxc-create -n lucid-test-lp -t lucid -f /etc/lxc/local.conf

   • And if you want to set a custom mirror, similar to http_proxy, but set MIRROR= instead.
8. [natty only] (Outside the container) grab your user id and username so you can setup a bind mount outside the container:

   id -u
   id -nu

9. Start the container

   sudo lxc-start -n lucid-test-lp

   • Ignore the warning about openssh crashing - it restarts on a later event. The initial credentials are root:root.
10. Grab the ip address (handed out via libvirt's dhcp server) - you may wish to ssh in rather than using the console (seems to have better termcap experience).

    ip addr show dev eth0 | grep 'inet'

11. The new container won't have your proxy / mirror settings preserved. Customise it at this point before going further if you care about this.
12. Enable multiverse (rocketfuel-setup wants it, don't ask me why).
13. Install some additional packages we'll need to run rocketfuel-setup etc.

    apt-get install python-software-properties
    apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-virt
    apt-get update
    # oneiric:
    apt-get install bzr less sudo
    
    # natty
    apt-get install bzr less sudo lxcguest
    # select I for 'install' when prompted about console.conf

14. Inside the container add the user [natty only]:

    adduser --uid $id $username

15. Inside the container grant the user sudo rights:

    adduser $username sudo

16. To stop it now run 'poweroff -n' (normally you would use lxc-stop, but see 784093).

17. Setup a bind mount so you can access your home dir (and thus your LP source code) from within the lxc container:
    • edit /var/lib/lxc/lucid-test-lp/fstab
    • Add a line:

    /home/$username /var/lib/lxc/lucid-test-lp/rootfs/home/$username none bind 0 0

18. Start it up again - headless now, we have the ip address from before.

    sudo lxc-start -n lucid-test-lp -d

19. ssh <vm IP address> to connect to the VM. Your ssh key is already present because of the bind mount to your home dir.

20. You can now follow the getting-started on LP instructions. Be warned that changes in ~ will affect you outside the container. You will want to run rocketfuel-setup with --no-workspace if your home already has a workarea. You may need to run utilities/launchpad-database-setup separately too.

21. You probably want to follow Running/RemoteAccess has a discussion for how you can configure things so your non-container browser can access web pages from within the container.

22. rabbitmq may fail to start up. If that happens it appears to be a mnesia glitch best sorted by zapping mnesia.

    sudo rm -rf /var/lib/rabbitmq/mnesia/rabbit/*
    sudo service rabbit-mq start

References

Alternatively

You can also run in a chroot environment or a VM.