July 2007 - livecd - Fedora Mailing-Lists

RE: Fedora-livecd-list Digest, Vol 27, Issue 25

by Lehal Parminder (GS-FI/ENG3-NA)

Hello, How can we create a live CD containing files which are not in a RPM? More specifically, I need to create a live CD containing tomcat and a custom web application(jsp). The custom web application is in war format. Is it possible to do it without creating a rpm for the custom app? Regards, Parminder S. Lehal -----Original Message----- From: fedora-livecd-list-bounces(a)redhat.com [mailto:fedora-livecd-list-bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of fedora-livecd-list-request(a)redhat.com Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 12:00 PM To: fedora-livecd-list(a)redhat.com Subject: Fedora-livecd-list Digest, Vol 27, Issue 25 Send Fedora-livecd-list mailing list submissions to fedora-livecd-list(a)redhat.com To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-livecd-list or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to fedora-livecd-list-request(a)redhat.com You can reach the person managing the list at fedora-livecd-list-owner(a)redhat.com When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Fedora-livecd-list digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: [PATCH] alternate syslinux menus (fixed) (Jeremy Katz) 2. Re: [PATCH] alternate syslinux menus (fixed) (Jeremy Katz) 3. [PATCH] persistence - VERY ROUGH first pass (Douglas McClendon) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:32:50 -0400 From: Jeremy Katz <katzj(a)redhat.com> Subject: Re: [Fedora-livecd-list] [PATCH] alternate syslinux menus (fixed) To: fedora-livecd-list(a)redhat.com Message-ID: <1185215570.15644.11.camel(a)localhost.localdomain> Content-Type: text/plain On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 08:21 -0400, Patrice Guay wrote: > However, the timeout delay does not work. I had the same issue when I > was using syslinux-3.36-2 (includes vesamenu.c32) with the > livecd-creator script unpatched. The timeout countdown does not start. > Did you notice the same behavior? Some syslinux versions have this bug. I don't remember when it was introduced, but based on looking at the changelog, I fixed it in 3.36-3. The fix should be able to be applied to any earlier version with the problem as well IIRC Jeremy ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:32:53 -0400 From: Jeremy Katz <katzj(a)redhat.com> Subject: Re: [Fedora-livecd-list] [PATCH] alternate syslinux menus (fixed) To: fedora-livecd-list(a)redhat.com Message-ID: <1185215573.15644.13.camel(a)localhost.localdomain> Content-Type: text/plain On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 14:49 -0500, Matt Domsch wrote: > livecd-creator look for multiple syslinux menus > > livecd-creator doesn't work on CentOS5 because the copy of syslinux in > CentOS 5 doesn't include vesamenu.c32, but instead has menu.c32. > Patch below has it look for both in priority order. > > Fixed to copy the right list of files into isolinux/. Thanks Matt; applied. Jeremy ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:43:57 -0500 From: Douglas McClendon <dmc.fedora(a)filteredperception.org> Subject: [Fedora-livecd-list] [PATCH] persistence - VERY ROUGH first pass To: fedora-livecd-list(a)redhat.com Message-ID: <46A5BBCD.9000705(a)filteredperception.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Attached is a _first pass_ patch that enables LiveOS persistence for livecd-tools. Before you read this and get _too_ excited, note that I'm really only posting this because of the f8t1 devel freeze. If I get any encouragement, I am very willing to work my ass off in the next few days to get this cleaned up into respectable shape for a potential f8t1 feature. But I also realize it is probably just too late for that. (OTOH the code is already structured so that it is obvious that in the absence of a persistence bootarg, the code has no impact) The Principals Of OPeration are- - unless a boot argument of "persistence[=[devspec][:pathspec]]" is seen, nothing will behave differently, except for the existence of a new tool /usr/sbin/livetool - after booting normally (no persistence bootarg), if you invoke "/usr/sbin/livetool persistence initialize [devspec][:pathspec]" then a persistence file will be initialized. By tomorrow I should have an option that allows the existing in-ram-overlay to be live migrated to the new file (thus freeing the ram by the time the command completes). I have done this manually. Currently this tool is not implemented. Creating a sparse or zeros file of any size (say 512M) should work fine. e.g. dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/stick/LiveOS/Persistence-mylabel \ bs=1k count=1 seek=$(( 1024 * 512) - to use the persistence file on a subsequent boot, add the bootarg "persistence" which is equivalent to "persistence=auto" - devspec can be in the following forms (should be obvious what they mean), and defaults to auto, which means to search all mountable partitions. (the search process mounts readonly (with paranoid blockdev --setro as well) sda1 sdb /dev/sdc3 LABEL=MyLabel UUID=MyUUID - pathspec defaults to /LiveOS/Persistence-LIVEOS_LABEL (e.g. /LiveOS/Persistence-Fedora-7-Live-i386) if pathspec does not start with a /, it prepends the above default. (e.g. persistence=:dmc would mean to search all partitions for /LiveOS/Persistence-Fedora-7-Live-i386-dmc) if pathspec starts with a / then it is used as is. e.g. persistence=:/home/dmc/testpers would search all partitions(and whole devices) for /home/dmc/testpers ) To round out the examples, persistence=LABEL="my usb stick":/my/path/to/file Finally: Known bugs: 1) I had to comment out the mayflower generated init's trap and set -e 2) ext3's inability to mounted readonly is annoying (yeah, I know norecovery or ext2 will probably get it for me, still annoying) 3) choice handling is broken. Don't use auto when it will find more than one entry. Maybe just don't use auto at all. 4) livetool doesn't do anything. For now, just create a sparse file of any interesting length (512M is fine) as mentioned above. Well, that about covers it for now. As always, comments, suggestions, and criticisms will be greatly appreciated. (though feel free to wait 48 hours for plenty of obvious improvements, such as fixing those known bugs). "release early, release often"... -dmc

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[PATCH] persistence - VERY ROUGH first pass

by Douglas McClendon

Attached is a _first pass_ patch that enables LiveOS persistence for livecd-tools. Before you read this and get _too_ excited, note that I'm really only posting this because of the f8t1 devel freeze. If I get any encouragement, I am very willing to work my ass off in the next few days to get this cleaned up into respectable shape for a potential f8t1 feature. But I also realize it is probably just too late for that. (OTOH the code is already structured so that it is obvious that in the absence of a persistence bootarg, the code has no impact) The Principals Of OPeration are- - unless a boot argument of "persistence[=[devspec][:pathspec]]" is seen, nothing will behave differently, except for the existence of a new tool /usr/sbin/livetool - after booting normally (no persistence bootarg), if you invoke "/usr/sbin/livetool persistence initialize [devspec][:pathspec]" then a persistence file will be initialized. By tomorrow I should have an option that allows the existing in-ram-overlay to be live migrated to the new file (thus freeing the ram by the time the command completes). I have done this manually. Currently this tool is not implemented. Creating a sparse or zeros file of any size (say 512M) should work fine. e.g. dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/stick/LiveOS/Persistence-mylabel \ bs=1k count=1 seek=$(( 1024 * 512) - to use the persistence file on a subsequent boot, add the bootarg "persistence" which is equivalent to "persistence=auto" - devspec can be in the following forms (should be obvious what they mean), and defaults to auto, which means to search all mountable partitions. (the search process mounts readonly (with paranoid blockdev --setro as well) sda1 sdb /dev/sdc3 LABEL=MyLabel UUID=MyUUID - pathspec defaults to /LiveOS/Persistence-LIVEOS_LABEL (e.g. /LiveOS/Persistence-Fedora-7-Live-i386) if pathspec does not start with a /, it prepends the above default. (e.g. persistence=:dmc would mean to search all partitions for /LiveOS/Persistence-Fedora-7-Live-i386-dmc) if pathspec starts with a / then it is used as is. e.g. persistence=:/home/dmc/testpers would search all partitions(and whole devices) for /home/dmc/testpers ) To round out the examples, persistence=LABEL="my usb stick":/my/path/to/file Finally: Known bugs: 1) I had to comment out the mayflower generated init's trap and set -e 2) ext3's inability to mounted readonly is annoying (yeah, I know norecovery or ext2 will probably get it for me, still annoying) 3) choice handling is broken. Don't use auto when it will find more than one entry. Maybe just don't use auto at all. 4) livetool doesn't do anything. For now, just create a sparse file of any interesting length (512M is fine) as mentioned above. Well, that about covers it for now. As always, comments, suggestions, and criticisms will be greatly appreciated. (though feel free to wait 48 hours for plenty of obvious improvements, such as fixing those known bugs). "release early, release often"... -dmc

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Digest Mode for fedora-livecd-list

by Thomas Chung

All, I'd like to propose to turn off "digest mode" in the list. This means, users subscribing to this list with "digest mode", *will not* receive any mail from this list unless you turn off "digest mode" in your list preferences. Please let me know your opinion and "+1" if you agree. Regards, -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung

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Revised: [PATCH] cleanupDeleted

by Douglas McClendon

Changes from prior patch- - removed --container-size option, not really worthwhile - made cleanupDeleted default, revert to old behavior with --ignore-deleted - find minimal resize2fs size using a binary search accurate to the smallest possible blocksize - removed cp --sparse=always pass. not really worthwhile - added -y to e2fsck so that redirecting output didn't cause it to fail -dmc

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[PATCH] alternate syslinux menus (fixed)

by Matt Domsch

livecd-creator look for multiple syslinux menus livecd-creator doesn't work on CentOS5 because the copy of syslinux in CentOS 5 doesn't include vesamenu.c32, but instead has menu.c32. Patch below has it look for both in priority order. Fixed to copy the right list of files into isolinux/. Thanks, Matt -- Matt Domsch Linux Technology Strategist, Dell Office of the CTO linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux diff --git a/creator/livecd-creator b/creator/livecd-creator index e227612..10cabce 100755 --- a/creator/livecd-creator +++ b/creator/livecd-creator @@ -823,9 +823,21 @@ class InstallationTarget: os.unlink("%s/install_root/boot/livecd-initramfs.img" %(self.build_dir,)) - for p in ["isolinux.bin", "vesamenu.c32"]: - path = "%s/install_root/usr/lib/syslinux/%s" % (self.build_dir, p) + syslinuxfiles = ["isolinux.bin"] + menus = ["vesamenu.c32", "menu.c32"] + syslinuxMenu = None + + for m in menus: + path = "%s/install_root/usr/lib/syslinux/%s" % (self.build_dir, m) + if os.path.isfile(path): + syslinuxfiles.append(m) + syslinuxMenu=m + break + if syslinuxMenu is None: + raise InstallationError("syslinux not installed : no suitable *menu.c32 found") + for p in syslinuxfiles: + path = "%s/install_root/usr/lib/syslinux/%s" % (self.build_dir, p) if not os.path.isfile(path): raise InstallationError("syslinux not installed : %s not found" % path) @@ -839,7 +851,7 @@ class InstallationTarget: have_background = "" cfg = """ -default vesamenu.c32 +default %(menu)s timeout 600 %(background)s @@ -851,7 +863,7 @@ menu color tabmsg 0 #ffffffff #00000000 menu color unsel 0 #ffffffff #00000000 menu color hotsel 0 #ff000000 #ffffffff menu color hotkey 7 #ffffffff #ff000000 -""" %{"label": self.fs_label, "background" : have_background} +""" %{"menu" : syslinuxMenu, "label": self.fs_label, "background" : have_background} stanzas = [("linux", "Run from image", ""), ("runfromram", "Run from RAM - requires 1 GB+", "live_ram")]

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How to save to USB/Disk with FC6 LiveCd setup..

by Jon Steer

Hi, I am constrained to building liveCD's with the FC6 liveCD toolset right now. I have been searching through the archives for the scripts that will allow me to either save a FC6-based liveCD to disk or to USB. Did those ever exist? or did those tools only exist for F7? thanks, jon -- "Whereever you go, there you are"

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Re: [Fedora-livecd-list] RFC- 'persistance' is on LiveCD wishlist - what does it mean?

by don vogt

ate: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:25:40 -0500 From: Douglas McClendon <dmc.fedora(a)filteredperception.org> Subject: Re: [Fedora-livecd-list] RFC- 'persistance' is on LiveCD wishlist - what does it mean? To: fedora-livecd-list(a)redhat.com Message-ID: <469C52D4.5070607(a)filteredperception.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Jeremy Katz wrote: > > I somewhat suspect that the answer is to get together the quick path for > each of these (explicit specification of where the persistence is, > require manual set up) and just see how things work. >I agree, and was planning on going ahead and trying >out some ideas myself. I >just want to make sure I take into consideration any >particular use-cases that >people may already have in mind. And in particular, >I'm hoping that if a good >end-user implementation already exists somewhere that >I'm oblivious to, that >someone mentions it. >Knoppix, at least from what I see, still uses unionfs, >so thats not interesting >for us. >ubuntu also uses unionfs, and their persistence >support looks like a mess right > now- >https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDPersistence >googling for "[gentoo/suse/mandriava] livecd >persistence" didn't yield anything >immediately obvious (look I managed to spell it >correctly there :) >Anyway, I'll see what I can do in the next week or >two. -dmc I have been using centos livecd a little bit. I use their Perrsistence feature although I don't think it does all you have proposed here. The way I use it is: Boot the CD Configure it the way I like it, passwords, resolution Cookies and stuff in the browser,etc. When finished I click on a feature called "save local resources" The popup then asks me where to save it. In my case I specify /dev/hda ( I guess it could be a USB stick) The program then creates a directory called CENTOS_LIVECD (or something similar) on dev/hda and tars several files, /home, .etc/ password and so forth. When I boot later the boot process finds that directory and untars the files onto my system. I haven't played with it enough to know all that it does. For example if I installed a program outside of my home directory, I don't know if it would retrieve that. Also I have seen no documentation of this feature. I asked on the cent_os list and didn't get any answer. It seems like a worthy feature for a livecd if one wishes to use it a lot.

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Fwd: [Fedora-livecd-list] RFC- 'persistance' is on LiveCD wishlist - what does it mean?

by Jon Steer

I have used a livecd distro called devil-linux for some time. They have a "save-config-to-disk" that saves much of /etc and /var to disk. When the distro boots up, it looks for a tar file to unwrap all of /etc and /var from. If you add /home to the list of directories that are save, it works for me. jon On 7/19/07, Douglas McClendon <dmc.fedora(a)filteredperception.org> wrote: > Jeroen van Meeuwen wrote: > > Douglas McClendon wrote: > >> Your preferred use case is certainly as valid or even moreso than the > >> one I presented. But having both options seems ideal. Also, there may > >> be an issue with usbflash data, and that in some instances it might be > >> better to have it be mostly preburned as squashfs, rather than treated > >> as a normal ext3fs. I.e. the whole jffs2 thing. > >> > > > > Well, I'm not against anything here, I'm sorry if it looked that way. It > > just doesn't look like it's worth the effort to me personally. > > Which is why I'm the one implementing it ;) > > > > >> Personally I rather like the idea of having my personal core system on > >> read-only media, with just my homedir on flash. > >> > > > > Right, that makes sense. A home directory from flash would be nice, but > > it wouldn't be really 'system persistence' would it? yum install foo and > > yum remove bar will not have foo and will have bar after a reboot, right? > Actually, what I said was a bit confusing, and made it sound more like I was > going in the direction of what Don Vogt was saying that CentOS5-livecd did. In > truth I really just meant doing the rootfs snapshot overlay as persistence, for > as you say full 'system persistence', just that in practice, the majority of it > would be used for my homedir. > > OTOH, this is another situation of where I can see it possibly being useful > implementing both strategies, i.e. you can have the rootfs overlay on your > usbstick, and/or a specially named .tgz which will get automatically untarred to > / upon boot if it exists. > > I think I ought to be able to implement both by monday before the devel > freeze... (he says ambitiously :) I'm in the process of attempting to follow > the fedora8 feature proposal policy. Right now I'm stuck at figuring out how to > make my first fedoraforum wiki page with the account I created last night. > (whenever I click the link 'create new page' it throws up an error saying 'you > are not allowed to edit this page'. This is after logging on, on _my_ empty > user-homepage) > > -dmc > > > -- > Fedora-livecd-list mailing list > Fedora-livecd-list(a)redhat.com > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-livecd-list > -- "Whereever you go, there you are" -- "Whereever you go, there you are"

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[PATCH] alternate syslinux menus

by Matt Domsch

livecd-creator look for multiple syslinux menus livecd-creator doesn't work on CentOS5 because the copy of syslinux in CentOS 5 doesn't include vesamenu.c32, but instead has menu.c32. Patch below has it look for both in priority order. Thanks, Matt -- Matt Domsch Linux Technology Strategist, Dell Office of the CTO linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux diff --git a/creator/livecd-creator b/creator/livecd-creator index e227612..10cabce 100755 --- a/creator/livecd-creator +++ b/creator/livecd-creator @@ -823,9 +823,21 @@ class InstallationTarget: os.unlink("%s/install_root/boot/livecd-initramfs.img" %(self.build_dir,)) - for p in ["isolinux.bin", "vesamenu.c32"]: - path = "%s/install_root/usr/lib/syslinux/%s" % (self.build_dir, p) + syslinuxfiles = ["isolinux.bin"] + menus = ["vesamenu.c32", "menu.c32"] + syslinuxMenu = None + + for m in menus: + path = "%s/install_root/usr/lib/syslinux/%s" % (self.build_dir, m) + if os.path.isfile(path): + menus.append(m) + syslinuxMenu=m + break + if syslinuxMenu is None: + raise InstallationError("syslinux not installed : no suitable *menu.c32 found") + for p in syslinuxfiles: + path = "%s/install_root/usr/lib/syslinux/%s" % (self.build_dir, p) if not os.path.isfile(path): raise InstallationError("syslinux not installed : %s not found" % path) @@ -839,7 +851,7 @@ class InstallationTarget: have_background = "" cfg = """ -default vesamenu.c32 +default %(menu)s timeout 600 %(background)s @@ -851,7 +863,7 @@ menu color tabmsg 0 #ffffffff #00000000 menu color unsel 0 #ffffffff #00000000 menu color hotsel 0 #ff000000 #ffffffff menu color hotkey 7 #ffffffff #ff000000 -""" %{"label": self.fs_label, "background" : have_background} +""" %{"menu" : syslinuxMenu, "label": self.fs_label, "background" : have_background} stanzas = [("linux", "Run from image", ""), ("runfromram", "Run from RAM - requires 1 GB+", "live_ram")]

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LiveCD for Red Hat High

by Robin Norwood

Hi, I thought I'd share this with the list, since it is based on your fine work. Last week, we held the second annual Red Hat High here in Raleigh. I helped with the software side of things, and used the livecd tools to do it. If you haven't heard about RHH, here are some articles: http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/07/09/red-hat-high-2007-getting-started/ http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/07/13/red-hat-high-update/ http://www.blendernation.com/2007/07/16/red-hat-high-2007/ In a nutshell, it's a technology camp for incoming high school freshmen, using all open source software. For the classrooms, we used lab space donated by NCSU. However, a couple of the labs were being used for NCSU classes during the week of the camp, so we couldn't just format the drives and install Fedora. Our solution was to use a live cd. I based the live cd .ks file off of the example ones provided in livecd-tools. We added some packages, made some changes to the %post script, and ended up with a very workable Fedora 7 system. Here's the .iso and .ks file if you're curious: http://people.redhat.com/rnorwood/rhh-livecd/ We used USB keys for persistent storage. If I'd had more time, I would've liked to either: o Make a live USB key with persistent storage. Probably make it so that the fedora user's homedir would be mounted rw off of the USB stick, and thus persist between boots. o Figure out some sort of network storage mechanism. We looked at gmailfs, but couldn't get it to work in time. For some of the other labs, where we were allowed to format the drives, I modified the livecd .ks file (mostly removed parts of the %post and added partitioning options), and made a kickstart iso to use that file. This worked perfectly. With some %include magic, I could've minimized the duplication between the two .ks files. I did run into a few technical glitches - one lab had systems with a very incompatible ATI video chipset that system-config-display would not configure properly automatically. A bit of manual tweaking produced an xorg.conf file that would boot the machine into an acceptable resolution. I took that file and produced a livecd which replaced the default xorg.conf with the tweaked one in the %post section. Some of the machine's bioses were not configured to allow booting from cdrom, but the NCSU lab folks were helpful there. Anyway, many thanks to the livecd folks, and I hope you enjoyed the success story. -RN -- Robin Norwood Red Hat, Inc. "The Sage does nothing, yet nothing remains undone." -Lao Tzu, Te Tao Ching

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livecd July 2007