526988651d
This adds the --make-tar option which will produce a xz compressed tar
of the root filesystem. This works with either virt-install or no-virt
modes. Use --image-name to set the output filename.
--compression is used to set the compression type to use, which defaults
to xz. Supported types are xz, lzma, gzip and bzip2.
--compress-arg is used to pass arguments to the compression utility.
(cherry picked from commit d04a99e8f4)
Resolves: rhbz#1144140
273 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
273 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
INTRO
|
|
-----
|
|
livemedia-creator uses Anaconda, kickstart and Lorax to create bootable media
|
|
that use the same install path as a normal system install. It can be used to
|
|
make live isos, bootable (partitioned) disk images and filesystem images for
|
|
use with virtualization.
|
|
|
|
The general idea is to use virt-install 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
|
|
--iso to specify the Anaconda install media to use with virt-install
|
|
--ks is the kickstart to use to install the system
|
|
|
|
To use livemedia-creator with virt-install you will need to install the
|
|
following packages, as well as have libvirtd setup correctly.
|
|
virt-install
|
|
libvirt-python
|
|
|
|
If you are going to be using Anaconda directly, with --no-virt mode, make sure
|
|
you have the anaconda package installed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
QUICKSTART
|
|
----------
|
|
sudo livemedia-creator --make-iso \
|
|
--iso=/extra/iso/Fedora-18-x86_64-netinst.iso --ks=./docs/fedora-livemedia.ks
|
|
|
|
If you are using the lorax git repo you can run it like so:
|
|
|
|
sudo PATH=./src/sbin/:$PATH PYTHONPATH=./src/ ./src/sbin/livemedia-creator \
|
|
--make-iso --iso=/extra/iso/Fedora-18-x86_64-netinst.iso \
|
|
--ks=./docs/fedora-livemedia.ks --lorax-templates=./share/
|
|
|
|
If you want to watch the install you can pass '--vnc vnc' and use a vnc
|
|
client to connect to localhost:0
|
|
|
|
This is usually a good idea when testing changes to the kickstart. It tries
|
|
to monitor the logs for fatal errors, but may not catch everything.
|
|
|
|
|
|
HOW IT 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 have it run both stages, but it is possible
|
|
to have it stop after the install stage, using --image-only, or to have it
|
|
skip the install stage and use a previously created disk image by passing
|
|
--disk-image or --fs-image
|
|
|
|
When creating an iso virt-install 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 passing --vnc vnc and 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
|
|
disk 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/
|
|
or the directory specified by --lorax-templates
|
|
|
|
Currently the standard lorax templates are used to make a bootable iso, but
|
|
it should be possible to modify them to output other results. They are
|
|
written using the Mako template system which is very flexible.
|
|
|
|
|
|
KICKSTARTS
|
|
----------
|
|
The docs/ directory includes two example kickstarts, one to create a live desktop
|
|
iso using GNOME, and the other 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. Have grub2-efi, shim, memtest86+, isomd5sum and syslinux in the package list
|
|
13. Omit dracut-config-rescue from the package list "-dracut-config-rescue"
|
|
|
|
One drawback to using virt-install 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 so:
|
|
|
|
--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/17/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
|
|
----------------------
|
|
You can create images without using virt-install 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
|
|
|
|
|
|
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 we 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 <template path>
|
|
|
|
Documentation on the Mako template system can be found here:
|
|
http://docs.makotemplates.org/en/latest/index.html
|
|
|
|
The name of the final output XML is appliance.xml, this can be changed with
|
|
--app-file <file path>
|
|
|
|
The following variables are passed to the template:
|
|
disks A list of disk_info about each disk.
|
|
Each entry has the following attributes:
|
|
name base name of the disk image file
|
|
format "raw"
|
|
checksum_type "sha256"
|
|
checksum sha256 checksum of the disk image
|
|
name Name of appliance, from --app-name argument
|
|
arch Architecture
|
|
memory Memory in KB (from --ram)
|
|
vcpus from --vcpus
|
|
networks list of networks from the kickstart or []
|
|
title from --title
|
|
project from --project
|
|
releasever from --releasever
|
|
|
|
The created image can be imported into libvirt using:
|
|
|
|
virt-image appliance.xml
|
|
|
|
|
|
TAR FILE CREATION
|
|
-----------------
|
|
The --make-tar command can be used to create a tar of the root filesystem. By
|
|
default it is compressed using xz, but this can be changed using the
|
|
--compression and --compress-arg options. This option works with both virt and
|
|
--no-virt install methods.
|
|
|
|
As with --make-fsimage the kickstart should be limited to a single / partition.
|
|
|
|
eg.
|
|
|
|
livemedia-creator --make-tar --iso=/path/to/boot.iso --ks=./docs/fedora-minimal.ks \
|
|
--image-name=fedora-root.tar.xz
|
|
|
|
|
|
DEBUGGING PROBLEMS
|
|
------------------
|
|
Cleaning up an aborted (ctrl-c) virt-install run (as root):
|
|
virsh list to show the name of the virt
|
|
virsh destroy <name>
|
|
virsh undefine <name>
|
|
umount /tmp/tmpXXXX
|
|
rm -rf /tmp/tmpXXXX
|
|
rm /tmp/diskXXXXX
|
|
|
|
The logs from the virt-install run are stored in virt-install.log,
|
|
logs from livemedia-creator are in livemedia.log and program.log
|
|
|
|
You can add --image-only to skip the .iso creation and examine the resulting
|
|
disk image. Or you can pass --keep-image to keep it around after lorax is
|
|
run.
|
|
|
|
Cleaning up aborted --no-virt installs can sometimes be accomplished by running
|
|
the anaconda-cleanup script. As of f18 anaconda is multi-threaded and it can
|
|
sometimes become stuck and refuse to exit. When this happens you can usually
|
|
clean up by first killing the anaconda process then running anaconda-cleanup.
|
|
|
|
|
|
HACKING
|
|
-------
|
|
Development on this will take place as part of the lorax project, and on the
|
|
anaconda-devel-list mailing list.
|
|
|
|
Feedback, enhancements and bugs are welcome.
|
|
You can use http://bugzilla.redhat.com to report bugs.
|
|
|