lorax

Lorax is a set of tools used to create bootable images.

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Will Woods d0960bba14 Add 'squashfs' compression type This adds the 'squashfs' compression type, which builds runtime images that stay compressed in RAM. It accomplishes this by building the images almost exactly like the Live images are built: 1) Create an empty ext4 filesystem on a large sparse file 2) Copy the runtime files into the ext4 filesystem 3) Place the ext4 image at "LiveOS/rootfs.img" 4) Create a squashfs.img which contains LiveOS/rootfs.img To make this bootable, we need dracut's startup scripts. So before creating the runtime image, we make a dracut initramfs.img by chrooting into the runtime and running dracut. Finally, we add squashfs.img to initramfs.img, along with an extra file (/etc/cmdline) which directs dracut to use /squashfs.img as its root device. And there we go! Easy, right?!		2011-06-15 17:37:57 -04:00
etc	Remove empty config files	2010-12-08 12:40:46 +01:00
share	Add 'squashfs' compression type	2011-06-15 17:37:57 -04:00
src	Add 'squashfs' compression type	2011-06-15 17:37:57 -04:00
utils	Don't append yum output to the diff file	2010-12-03 09:53:21 +01:00
.gitignore	Ignore *.pyc files.	2008-09-12 12:10:33 -10:00
ANNOUNCE	Added draft on initial announce email as I keep adding to it.	2008-10-06 09:51:01 -10:00
AUTHORS	New version	2010-02-23 14:20:05 +01:00
COPYING	Initial project description files imported.	2008-09-11 14:16:39 -10:00
lorax.spec	New release - added changelog	2011-05-03 11:15:36 +02:00
Makefile	Makefile updates	2010-12-08 14:16:13 +01:00
POLICY	Update the POLICY file.	2008-10-03 15:45:33 -10:00
README	Initial project description files imported.	2008-09-11 14:16:39 -10:00
setup.py	Setup and spec file changes	2010-12-17 17:04:04 +01:00
TODO	Update TODO list.	2009-04-06 09:54:22 -10:00

README

I am the Lorax.  I speak for the trees [and images].

Tree building tools such as pungi and revisor rely on 'buildinstall' in
anaconda/scripts/ to produce the boot images and other such control files
in the final tree.  The existing buildinstall scripts written in a mix of
bash and Python are unmaintainable.  Lorax is an attempt to replace them
with something more flexible.


EXISTING WORKFLOW:

pungi and other tools call scripts/buildinstall, which in turn call other
scripts to do the image building and data generation.  Here's how it
currently looks:

   -> buildinstall
       * process command line options
       * write temporary yum.conf to point to correct repo
       * find anaconda release RPM
       * unpack RPM, pull in those versions of upd-instroot, mk-images,
         maketreeinfo.py, makestamp.py, and buildinstall

       -> call upd-instroot

       -> call maketreeinfo.py

       -> call mk-images (which figures out which mk-images.ARCH to call)

       -> call makestamp.py

       * clean up


PROBLEMS:

The existing workflow presents some problems with maintaining the scripts.
First, almost all knowledge of what goes in to the stage 1 and stage 2
images lives in upd-instroot.  The mk-images* scripts copy things from the
root created by upd-instroot in order to build the stage 1 image, though
it's not completely clear from reading the scripts.


NEW IDEAS:

Create a new central driver with all information living in Python modules.
Configuration files will provide the knowledge previously contained in the
upd-instroot and mk-images* scripts.


-- 
David Cantrell <dcantrell@redhat.com>