diff --git a/util/vm/build.py b/util/vm/build.py
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..a6876ee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/util/vm/build.py
@@ -0,0 +1,321 @@
+#!/usr/bin/python
+
+"""
+build.py: build a Mininet VM
+
+Basic idea:
+
+    prepare
+    - download cloud image if it's missing
+    - write-protect it
+
+    build
+    -> create cow disk for vm
+    -> boot it in qemu/kvm with text /serial console
+    -> install Mininet
+
+    test
+    -> make codecheck
+    -> make test
+
+    release
+    -> shut down VM
+    -> shrink-wrap VM
+    -> upload to storage
+
+
+Notes du jour:
+
+- our infrastructure is currently based on 12.04 LTS, so we
+  can't rely on cloud-localds which is only in 12.10+
+
+- as a result, we should download the tar image, extract it,
+  and boot with tty0 as the console (I think)
+
+- and we'll manually add the mininet user to it
+ 
+- and use pexpect to interact with it on the serial console
+
+Something to think about:
+
+Maybe download the cloud image and customize it so that
+it is an actual usable/bootable image???
+
+
+"""
+
+
+import os
+from os.path import exists, splitext
+from glob import glob
+from urllib import urlretrieve
+from subprocess import check_output, call, Popen, PIPE
+from tempfile import mkdtemp, NamedTemporaryFile
+from sys import exit
+from time import time
+
+# boot can be slooooow!!!! need to debug/optimize somehow
+TIMEOUT=120
+
+VMImageDir = os.environ[ 'HOME' ] + '/vm-images'
+
+ImageURLBase = {
+    'raring-server-amd64':
+    'http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/raring/current/'
+    'raring-server-cloudimg-amd64'
+}
+
+
+def run( cmd, **kwargs ):
+    "Convenient interface to check_output"
+    print cmd
+    cmd = cmd.split()
+    return check_output( cmd, **kwargs )
+
+
+def srun( cmd, **kwargs ):
+    "Run + sudo"
+    return run( 'sudo ' + cmd, **kwargs )
+
+
+# Install necessary packages
+print '* Installing package dependencies'
+packages = ( )
+run( 'sudo apt-get -y update' )
+run( 'sudo apt-get install -y'
+     ' kvm cloud-utils genisoimage qemu-kvm qemu-utils'
+     ' e2fsprogs '
+     ' landscape-client'
+     ' python-setuptools' )
+run( 'sudo easy_install pexpect' )
+import pexpect
+
+
+def popen( cmd ):
+    "Convenient interface to popen"
+    print cmd
+    cmd = cmd.split()
+    return Popen( cmd )
+
+
+def remove( fname ):
+    "rm -f fname"
+    return run( 'rm -f %s' % fname )
+
+
+
+def imageURL( image ):
+    "Return base URL for VM image"
+    return ImageURLBase[ image ]
+
+
+def imagePath( image ):
+    "Return base pathname for VM image files"
+    url = imageURL( image )
+    fname = url.split( '/' )[ -1 ]
+    path = os.path.join( VMImageDir, fname )
+    return path
+
+
+def fetchImage( image, path=None ):
+    "Fetch base VM image if it's not there already"
+    if not path:
+        path = imagePath( image )
+    tgz = path + '.tar.gz'
+    disk = path + '.img'
+    kernel = path + '-vmlinuz-generic'
+    floppy = path + '-floppy'
+    if exists( disk ) and exists( kernel ):
+        print '* Found', disk, 'and', kernel
+    else:
+        dir = os.path.dirname( path )
+        run( 'mkdir -p %s' % dir )
+        if not os.path.exists( tgz ):
+            url = imageURL( image ) + '.tar.gz'
+            print '* Retrieving', url
+            urlretrieve( url, tgz )
+        print '* Extracting', tgz
+        run( 'tar -C %s -xzf %s' % ( dir, tgz ) )
+    # Make sure Mininet user is there
+    os.chmod( disk, 0664 )
+    addMininetUser( disk )
+    # Write-protect disk image so it remains somewhat pristine;
+    # We will not use it directly but will use a COW disk
+    print '* Write-protecting disk image', disk
+    os.chmod( disk, 0444 )
+    return disk, kernel
+
+
+def addTo( file, line ):
+    "Add line to file if it's not there already"
+    if call( [ 'sudo', 'grep', line, file ] ) != 0:
+        call( 'echo "%s" | sudo tee -a %s' % ( line, file ), shell=True )
+
+
+def disableCloud( bind ):
+    "Disable cloud junk for disk mounted at bind"
+    print '* Disabling cloud startup scripts'
+    modules = glob( '%s/etc/init/cloud*.conf' % bind )
+    for module in modules:
+        path, ext = splitext( module )
+        override = path + '.override'
+        call( 'echo manual | sudo tee ' + override, shell=True )
+
+
+def addMininetUser( img ):
+    "Add mininet user/group to root filesystem image"
+    print '* Adding mininet user to', img
+    # 1. We bind-mount / into a temporary directory, and
+    # then mount the volume's /etc and /home on top of it!
+    bind = mkdtemp()
+    mnt = mkdtemp()
+    srun( 'mount -B / ' + bind )
+    srun( 'mount %s %s' % ( img, mnt ) )
+    srun( 'mount -B %s/etc %s/etc' % ( mnt, bind ) )
+    srun( 'mount -B %s/home %s/home' % ( mnt, bind ) )
+    def chroot( cmd ):
+        "Chroot into bind mount and run command"
+        call( 'sudo chroot %s ' % bind + cmd, shell=True )
+    # 2. Next, we delete any old mininet user and add a new one
+    chroot( 'deluser mininet' )
+    chroot( 'useradd --create-home mininet' )
+    print '* Setting password'
+    call( 'echo mininet:mininet | sudo chroot %s chpasswd -c SHA512'
+          % bind, shell=True )
+    # 2a. Add mininet to sudoers
+    addTo( bind + '/etc/sudoers', 'mininet ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL' )
+    # 2b. Disable cloud junk
+    disableCloud( bind )
+    chroot( 'sudo update-rc.d landscape-client disable' )
+        # 2c. Add serial getty
+    print '* Adding getty on ttyS0'
+    chroot( 'cp /etc/init/tty1.conf /etc/init/ttyS0.conf' )
+    chroot( 'sed -i "s/tty1/ttyS0/g" /etc/init/ttyS0.conf' )
+    # 3. Lastly, we umount and clean up everything
+    run( 'sync' )
+    srun( 'umount %s/etc ' % bind )
+    srun( 'umount %s/home ' % bind )
+    srun( 'umount %s' % bind )
+    srun( 'umount ' + mnt )
+    run( 'rmdir ' + mnt )
+    # 4. Just to make sure, we check the filesystem
+    run( 'e2fsck -y ' + img )
+
+
+def makeCOWDisk( image ):
+    "Create new COW disk for image"
+    disk, kernel = fetchImage( image )
+    cow = disk + '.qcow2'
+    print '* Creating COW disk', cow
+    remove( cow )
+    run( 'qemu-img create -f qcow2 -b %s %s' % ( disk, cow ) )
+    print '* Resizing COW disk and file system'
+    run( 'qemu-img resize %s +8G' % cow )
+    srun( 'modprobe nbd')
+    srun( 'qemu-nbd -c /dev/nbd0 ' + cow )
+    srun( 'e2fsck -fy /dev/nbd0' )
+    srun( 'resize2fs /dev/nbd0' )
+    srun( 'qemu-nbd -d /dev/nbd0' )
+    return cow, kernel
+
+
+def boot( cow, kernel ):
+    """Boot qemu/kvm with a COW disk and local/user data store
+       returns: popen object to qemu process"""
+    if 'amd64' in cow:
+        kvm = 'qemu-system-x86_64'
+    elif 'i386' in cow:
+        kvm = 'qemu-system-i386'
+    else:
+        print "Error: can't discern CPU for image", cow
+        exit
+    # was -nographic
+    # was -net=%net
+    #             ' -net nic,model=virtio'
+    #             ' -netdev tap,id=mininet0,ifname=%s,script=no ' % tap +
+    cmd = [ 'sudo', kvm,
+            '-machine', 'accel=kvm',
+            '-nographic',
+            '-m', '512',
+            '-k',  'en-us',
+            '-kernel', kernel,
+            '-drive',  'file=%s,if=virtio' % cow,
+            '-append',
+            ' "root=/dev/vda'
+            ' init=/sbin/init'
+#            ' init=/usr/lib/cloud-init/uncloud-init'
+#            ' ds=nocloud'
+#            ' --verbose'
+            ' console=ttyS0"'
+           ]
+
+    cmd = ' '.join( cmd )
+    print '* STARTING VM'
+    print cmd
+    vm = pexpect.spawn( cmd, timeout=TIMEOUT )
+    logfile = NamedTemporaryFile( prefix='mn-build-expect' )
+    print '* Logging results to', logfile.name
+    vm.logfile_read = logfile
+    return vm, logfile
+
+def interact( vm ):
+    "Interact with vm, which is a pexpect object"
+    prompt = '\$ '
+    print '* Waiting for login prompt'
+    vm.expect( 'login: ' )
+    print '* Logging in'
+    vm.sendline( 'mininet' )
+    print '* Waiting for password prompt'
+    vm.expect( 'Password: ' )
+    print '* Sending password'
+    vm.sendline( 'mininet' )
+    print '* Waiting for login...'
+    vm.expect( prompt )
+    print '* Sending hostname command'
+    vm.sendline( 'hostname' )
+    print '* Waiting for output'
+    vm.expect( prompt )
+    print '* Fetching Mininet VM install script'
+    vm.sendline( 'wget '
+                 'https://raw.github.com/mininet/mininet/master/util/vm/'
+                 'install-mininet-vm.sh' )
+    vm.expect( prompt )
+    print '* Running VM install script'
+    vm.sendline( 'bash install-mininet-vm.sh' )
+    print '* Waiting for script to complete... '
+    vm.expect( 'Done preparing Mininet' )
+    print '* Completed successfully'
+    vm.expect( prompt )
+    print '* Testing Mininet'
+    vm.sendline( 'sudo mn --test pingall' )
+    vm.expect( '0% dropped' )
+    print '* Basic test succeeded'
+    vm.expect( prompt )
+    print '* Running make test'
+    vm.sendline( 'cd ~/mininet; sudo make test' )
+    vm.expect( 'OK' )
+    print '* Basic test succeeded'
+    vm.expect( 'OK' )
+    print '* Hi-Fi test succeeded'
+    vm.expect( prompt )
+    print '* Shutting down'
+    vm.sendline( 'sync; sudo shutdown -h now' )
+    print '* Waiting for EOF/shutdown'
+    vm.read()
+    print '* Interaction complete'
+
+image = 'raring-server-amd64'
+
+start = time()
+cow, kernel = makeCOWDisk( image )
+print '* VM image for', image, 'created as', cow
+vm, logfile = boot( cow, kernel )
+interact( vm )
+logfile.close()
+end = time()
+elapsed = end - start
+print '* Results logged to', logfile.name
+print '* Completed in %.2f seconds' % elapsed
+print '* DONE!!!!! :D'
+
+