In the Autumn, I wrote about some experiments I did using KVM and virtual machines to build and test MariaDB binary packages on a number of different platforms. In the period since then I added some polish and refinements, and the system is now running well for some time. We build and test packages for Debian (4 and 5), Ubuntu (8.04 to 10.04), Centos 5, and generic Linux; amd64 and i386 architectures.
To better control the startup and shutdown of the virtual
machines, I created a small wrapper script around KVM called
runvm
. This wrapper encapsulates the steps needed to
boot up a virtual machine, run a series of commands inside it,
and shut it down gracefully afterwards. Some special care is
taken in the script to ensure that the …