livemedia-creator ================= :Authors: Brian C. Lane livemedia-creator uses `Anaconda `_, `kickstart `_ and `Lorax `_ to create bootable media that use the same install path as a normal system installation. It can be used to make live isos, bootable (partitioned) disk images, tarfiles, and filesystem images for use with virtualization and container solutions like libvirt, docker, and OpenStack. The general idea is to use qemu with kickstart and an Anaconda boot.iso to install into a disk image and then use the disk image to create the bootable media. livemedia-creator --help will describe all of the options available. At the minimum you need: ``--make-iso`` to create a final bootable .iso or one of the other ``--make-*`` options. ``--iso`` to specify the Anaconda install media to use with qemu. ``--ks`` to select the kickstart file describing what to install. To use livemedia-creator with virtualization you will need to have qemu-kvm installed. If you are going to be using Anaconda directly, with ``--no-virt`` mode, make sure you have the anaconda-tui package installed. Conventions used in this document: ``lmc`` is an abbreviation for livemedia-creator. ``builder`` is the system where livemedia-creator is being run ``image`` is the disk image being created by running livemedia-creator livemedia-creator cmdline arguments ----------------------------------- .. argparse:: :ref: pylorax.cmdline.lmc_parser :prog: livemedia-creator Quickstart ---------- Run this to create a bootable live iso:: sudo livemedia-creator --make-iso \ --iso=/extra/iso/boot.iso --ks=./docs/fedora-livemedia.ks You can run it directly from the lorax git repo like this:: sudo PATH=./src/sbin/:$PATH PYTHONPATH=./src/ ./src/sbin/livemedia-creator \ --make-iso --iso=/extra/iso/boot.iso \ --ks=./docs/fedora-livemedia.ks --lorax-templates=./share/ You can observe the installation using vnc. The logs will show what port was chosen, or you can use a specific port by passing it. eg. ``--vnc vnc:127.0.0.1:5`` This is usually a good idea when testing changes to the kickstart. lmc tries to monitor the logs for fatal errors, but may not catch everything. How ISO creation works ---------------------- There are 2 stages, the install stage which produces a disk or filesystem image as its output, and the boot media creation which uses the image as its input. Normally you would run both stages, but it is possible to stop after the install stage, by using ``--image-only``, or to skip the install stage and use a previously created disk image by passing ``--disk-image`` or ``--fs-image`` When creating an iso qemu boots using the passed Anaconda installer iso and installs the system based on the kickstart. The ``%post`` section of the kickstart is used to customize the installed system in the same way that current spin-kickstarts do. livemedia-creator monitors the install process for problems by watching the install logs. They are written to the current directory or to the base directory specified by the --logfile command. You can also monitor the install by using a vnc client. This is recommended when first modifying a kickstart, since there are still places where Anaconda may get stuck without the log monitor catching it. The output from this process is a partitioned disk image. kpartx can be used to mount and examine it when there is a problem with the install. It can also be booted using kvm. When creating an iso the disk image's / partition is copied into a formatted filesystem image which is then used as the input to lorax for creation of the final media. The final image is created by lorax, using the templates in /usr/share/lorax/live/ or the live directory below the directory specified by ``--lorax-templates``. The templates are written using the Mako template system with some extra commands added by lorax. .. note:: The output from --make-iso includes the artifacts used to create the boot.iso; the kernel, initrd, the squashfs filesystem, etc. If you only want the boot.iso you can pass ``--iso-only`` and the other files will be removed. You can also name the iso by using ``--iso-name my-live.iso``. Kickstarts ---------- The docs/ directory includes several example kickstarts, one to create a live desktop iso using GNOME, and another to create a minimal disk image. When creating your own kickstarts you should start with the minimal example, it includes several needed packages that are not always included by dependencies. Or you can use existing spin kickstarts to create live media with a few changes. Here are the steps I used to convert the Fedora XFCE spin. 1. Flatten the xfce kickstart using ksflatten 2. Add zerombr so you don't get the disk init dialog 3. Add clearpart --all 4. Add swap partition 5. bootloader target 6. Add shutdown to the kickstart 7. Add network --bootproto=dhcp --activate to activate the network This works for F16 builds but for F15 and before you need to pass something on the cmdline that activate the network, like sshd: ``livemedia-creator --kernel-args="sshd"`` 8. Add a root password:: rootpw rootme network --bootproto=dhcp --activate zerombr clearpart --all bootloader --location=mbr part swap --size=512 shutdown 9. In the livesys script section of the %post remove the root password. This really depends on how the spin wants to work. You could add the live user that you create to the %wheel group so that sudo works if you wanted to. ``passwd -d root > /dev/null`` 10. Remove /etc/fstab in %post, dracut handles mounting the rootfs ``cat /dev/null > /dev/fstab`` Do this only for live iso's, the filesystem will be mounted read only if there is no /etc/fstab 11. Don't delete initramfs files from /boot in %post 12. When creating live iso's you need to have, at least, these packages in the %package section:: dracut-config-generic dracut-live -dracut-config-rescue grub-efi memtest86+ syslinux One drawback to using qemu is that it pulls the packages from the repo each time you run it. To speed things up you either need a local mirror of the packages, or you can use a caching proxy. When using a proxy you pass it to livemedia-creator like this: ``--proxy=http://proxy.yourdomain.com:3128`` You also need to use a specific mirror instead of mirrormanager so that the packages will get cached, so your kickstart url would look like: ``url --url="http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/rawhide/x86_64/os/"`` You can also add an update repo, but don't name it updates. Add --proxy to it as well. Anaconda image install (no-virt) -------------------------------- You can create images without using qemu by passing ``--no-virt`` on the cmdline. This will use Anaconda's directory install feature to handle the install. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when doing this: 1. It will be most reliable when building images for the same release that the host is running. Because Anaconda has expectations about the system it is running under you may encounter strange bugs if you try to build newer or older releases. 2. Make sure selinux is set to permissive or disabled. It won't install correctly with selinux set to enforcing yet. 3. It may totally trash your host. So far I haven't had this happen, but the possibility exists that a bug in Anaconda could result in it operating on real devices. I recommend running it in a virt or on a system that you can afford to lose all data from. The logs from anaconda will be placed in an ./anaconda/ directory in either the current directory or in the directory used for --logfile Example cmdline: ``sudo livemedia-creator --make-iso --no-virt --ks=./fedora-livemedia.ks`` .. note:: Using no-virt to create a partitioned disk image (eg. --make-disk or --make-vagrant) will only create disks usable on the host platform (BIOS or UEFI). You can create BIOS partitioned disk images on UEFI by using virt. AMI Images ---------- Amazon EC2 images can be created by using the --make-ami switch and an appropriate kickstart file. All of the work to customize the image is handled by the kickstart. The example currently included was modified from the cloud-kickstarts version so that it would work with livemedia-creator. Example cmdline: ``sudo livemedia-creator --make-ami --iso=/path/to/boot.iso --ks=./docs/fedora-livemedia-ec2.ks`` This will produce an ami-root.img file in the working directory. At this time I have not tested the image with EC2. Feedback would be welcome. Appliance Creation ------------------ livemedia-creator can now replace appliance-tools by using the --make-appliance switch. This will create the partitioned disk image and an XML file that can be used with virt-image to setup a virtual system. The XML is generated using the Mako template from /usr/share/lorax/appliance/libvirt.xml You can use a different template by passing ``--app-template