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My team has become increasingly dissatisfied with our current hosting provider, Rackspace, and we are researching alternative providers. The Chief Technology Officer really would like to go with Linode, and I am busy setting a base box for future use on Linode.

I do have some questions about my workflow on Linode. How do I create my own base image on Linode? I am using Opscode Chef to deploy and maintain our servers, and I need a base image to deploy Chef to. The base image has my administrative user already set up, ruby installed, the gem chef gem, and some basic ssh configuration. Rackspace allowed me to set up this base server and save it as an image to be reused later. Is there a way to do this on Linode? Looks like they have a backup service for additional $$$ and not sure if it fulfills my needs. I am also attempting to save an disk image via ssh as described in Linode's documentation, but so far, the process is very time consuming.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Cheers.

Jahkobi Digital
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  • It should be typical [create new disk images](https://library.linode.com/migration/migrate-server-to-linode#sph_copying-the-files) scenario. You can install chef gem in step 2 "Copying the files". Notice that any config file like `/etc/chef/chef.rb` or any key files must be excluded from this new disk image. – shawnzhu Aug 01 '13 at 00:39
  • I think what I want is a [Golden Disk Image](https://library.linode.com/server-builds#sph_golden-disk-image). Seems like i need to save that on an existing linode and clone from that image. Can anyone verify or offer suggestions? – Jahkobi Digital Aug 02 '13 at 20:49

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I would recommend using Packer for this. You can still use your Chef recipes to build the image and then package it with Packer. You have the best of both worlds.

sethvargo
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