diff --git a/src/osbuild-manifests/platform.gcp.ipp.yaml b/src/osbuild-manifests/platform.gcp.ipp.yaml
index 65d2ab8ab1..9147073d34 100644
--- a/src/osbuild-manifests/platform.gcp.ipp.yaml
+++ b/src/osbuild-manifests/platform.gcp.ipp.yaml
@@ -68,6 +68,7 @@ pipelines:
           filename: disk.tar
           format: oldgnu
           root-node: omit
+          sparse: true
           # Set these to false so GCP image upload/create will succeed
           acls: false
           selinux: false
diff --git a/src/runvm-osbuild b/src/runvm-osbuild
index 03eecdb30f..a881f24e09 100755
--- a/src/runvm-osbuild
+++ b/src/runvm-osbuild
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #!/bin/bash
-set -eux -o pipefail
+set -euo pipefail
 
 usage() {
     cat <<EOC
@@ -32,6 +32,17 @@ getconfig_def() {
     jq -re .\""$k"\"//\""${default}"\" < "${config}"
 }
 
+log_disk_usage(){
+    # spawn off a subshell in the background to log disk usage every
+    # 10 seconds.
+    yellow="\033[33m"; default="\033[39m"
+    (while true; do
+        echo -e "$yellow"; df -kh ./cache; echo -e "$default";
+        sleep 10;
+        pgrep --exact osbuild >/dev/null || break;
+    done) &
+}
+
 while [ $# -gt 0 ];
 do
     flag="${1}"; shift;
@@ -95,7 +106,7 @@ podman images > /dev/null
 
 # Run through the preprocessor
 # Note: don't quote the size arguements since they are numbers, not strings
-osbuild-mpp                                               \
+set -x; osbuild-mpp                                       \
     -D arch=\""$(arch)"\"                                 \
     -D artifact_name_prefix=\""${artifact_name_prefix}"\" \
     -D ostree_ref=\""${ostree_ref}"\"                     \
@@ -110,8 +121,12 @@ osbuild-mpp                                               \
     -D cloud_image_size_mb="${cloud_image_size_mb}"       \
     -D rootfs_size_mb="${rootfs_size_mb}"                 \
     "${mppyaml}" "${processed_json}"
+set +x
+
+log_disk_usage
 
 # Build the image
+set -x
 # shellcheck disable=SC2068
 osbuild \
     --out "$outdir"              \
@@ -124,8 +139,7 @@ osbuild \
     --checkpoint metal4k         \
     ${platforms[@]/#/--export=}  \
     "${processed_json}"
-
-#   --break org.osbuild.coreos.live-artifacts.mono \
+set +x
 
 mv "${outdir}"/* "${orig_outdir}/"
 rm -f "${processed_json}"