Thursday, December 11, 2008

Creating 90mb LiveCD using Distribution Constructor

Continuing a theme, it's possible to create a 90mb iso (minimal working LiveCD without Gnome and X) using the Distribution Constructor - command-line tool for building preconfigured, bootable OpenSolaris images. In the OpenSolaris 2008.11 release, this tool takes an XML manifest file as input, and builds an ISO image that is based on the parameters specified in the manifest file. I'm running Solaris Express and will use old-format configuration file.
I have added additional packages (SUNWgzip, SUNWgrub, SUNWslim-utils) in my short list (see post of December 08). Note: I need only "rtls" driver for this test so you should add packages for your network adapters. Besides, I use checkpoints as it will be necessary to change a script "/lib/svc/method/live-fs-root".
I have downloaded Distribution Constructor kit:
# hg clone ssh://anon@hg.opensolaris.org/hg/caiman/distro_constructor

I only have changed the list of packages and use my own checkpoint in "build_dist.bash":
# ./build_dist.bash small.conf

After installation of packages I have a pause (thanks to checkpoint). Now it's necessary to remove string "/usr/sbin/set_lang" in "/lib/svc/method/live-fs-root" and set "system/coreadm enabled=false" in generic_live.xml (otherwise there will be an errors after booting). It's only first test, you can change more. Then I finish creating the image. In DC output there will be some errors - the majority of them concerns Gnome which is not present.
I boot LiveCD in virtual machine - at first sight it works perfectly .
The test is fulfilled: for my list of packages the final iso has the size 90mb (but you can add any packages which are necessary for you).

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Can I know the manifest and finalizer script? where is I can download it?

alhazred said...

Alex, this recipe is already outdated, now you can use TextInstaller iso from http://genunix.org/dist/caiman/ or
create your own with Caiman DC.

How to determine PXE mac address when booting illumos via PXELinux/iPXE

In illumos, if you need to determine the interface which was used for booting via PXE then it's possible to use "boot-mac" pro...