live cd install to a LV

[Chris Murphy]

On Jul 11, 2014, at 1:36 PM, Mike Wright <mike.wright at mailinator.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Is it possible to install a live CD to a logical volume any more?

Yes.

>  I've tried repeatedly and just when I think I've got it the installer refuses to proceed.

What's the filename of the ISO you're using? What are the steps to reproduce the problem, and what's the error message you get?

> 
> At one time this was possible.  I needed lot of copies of f14 to use as virtual machines so I installed to hard disk and on completion was prompted to install to more hard disks.  From that point on it took 70 seconds per copy.

a. This worked differently before Fedora 18 and new anaconda. It used to dd copy an image of the ext4 file system to either a standard partition/LV, and then resized the file system to fit the partition/LV. That's why it was fast. But the filesystem choice was fixed.

b. Today you can do live installs to any layout and filesystem because it's rsync'd and there is no file system resize.

> Second question: is there anywhere to get zipped copies of o/s images? I'd like to be able to create installs without having to shut down and run a live CD.

I don't understand this question. It sounds like you should do one install configuring things the way you want in the GUI, and then look at the exported kickstart file, and then figure out how to do kickstart installs for all of your other installs. 

Another way is to use cloud images to bypass the installer entirely. Download a qcow2 image, do a yum update to bring it up to date, then make snapshots of that for each VM, point each VM to a different snapshot, and within each VM regenerate machine-id and set a new hostname. Raw images are available also.


Chris Murphy