debvm-create: Output image in tar format if step "ext4" is skipped

Outputting the image in tar format breaks interoperability with debvm-run, but makes it easier to inspect, convert or perform additional modifications of the generated image.

This change was so easy to implement that is was worth an attempt. :)

PS: the autodetection probably needs some documentation in the man page.

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• f237e5f4 - debvm-create: Output image in tar format if file name ends in .tar

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Can you go into more detail regarding the use cases?

The output tarball created by debvm will be fed to a tar2qcow script that will generate a complete disk image (with a bootloader, a partition table, etc), basically the tool discussed in https://bugs.debian.org/1030276.

Creating a disk image from an ext4 partition is much harder (bind-mount it, copy the files...) than doing it from a tar.

This allows the reuse of debvm (and of all the nice small fixes and features it adds on top of mmdebstrap) in an qcow2-based workflow.

Would you mind wrapping this up in a different way? (I can implement it.)

I dislike the magic behavior put into the filename. It also seems like the most natural way of consuming the tar would be piping it somewhere else. As such I propose turning this into a skippable step. I imagine that you get tar output if you pass --skip ext4. Do you think this alternative interface is sensible?

--skip ext4 makes a lot of sense. I pushed an amended (and fully untested) commit that implements that.

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• beb245cb - debvm-create: Output image in tar format if step "ext4" is skipped

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changed title from debvm-create: Output image in tar format if file name ends in .tar to debvm-create: Output image in tar format if step "ext4" is skipped

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• 5aab220f - debvm-create: Output image in tar format if step "ext4" is skipped

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mentioned in commit 69ea90a7

merged