Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
If you really don't trust the RPMs you're about to compose, then run the compose on a throw away host - just re-kickstart it after execution.
Forgot to reply to this piece, which is quite relevant.
What I'm doing is precisely that- but much less, and 100% automated. Instead of using a throwaway kickstarted host, I'm using a throwaway initramfs that has the minimal files needed to losetup/loadpolicy/mkfs/chroot. (and seperately boot rescue iso and do an http install from an http server running as the same user running qemu)
And by doing it in qemu, I can do all of this with a command-line, run as non-root, perhaps on a headless remote server running centos/rhel, that if it had a soul, would feel slightly dirty having had hundreds of fedora rpms installed as root under a chroot.
No doubt xen can be coaxed to do the same thing, but again, I love the simplicity and flexibility of qemu.
-dmc