[Fedora-livecd-list] RFC- mayflower flexibility enhancements

[ashok shankar das]

Douglas McClendon wrote:

> Tim Wood wrote:
>
>> The one comment I'd have is would it be possible to feed some (or 
>> all) of these options in as a config file? 
>
>
> Most of my RFC was basically about extending the functionality of the 
> mayflower.conf config file.  But currently, as far as livecd-creator 
> (and presumably revisor) is concerned, a mayflower.conf is hard-coded.
>
> The question is whether or not there is any reason to expose the 
> livecd-creator or revisor user to these sorts of options.
>
> For the selinux enabled on an selinux disabled system, I think this 
> should all happen inside livecd creator, and cause things to 'just 
> work' (versus now, where it detects the situation, and says 'too bad, 
> you can't do this').
>
> For the anaconda rpm build as non-root user, this really has nothing 
> to do with livecd-creator or revisor.
>
> And for the vastly trickier idea of livecd-creator as non-root, again, 
> there is no aspect that the livecd-creator or revisor user should care 
> about, other than having it just work.
>
>
>  Then (I believe) someone could
>
>> have a kickstart and a config file to handle everything.  Then 
>> Revisor would need one additional field to select the path to this 
>> config file.   A couple of advantages:
>> * A sample kickstart and a sample config with lots of comments and 
>> all the options plus a basic tutorial would be all the documentation 
>> many people would need
>> * It would make it much simpler to return to a project months later 
>> and tweak/tune/use it (find 2 files you left in /etc/revisor/... vs. 
>> files there, notes somewhere else and maybe some custom bash code 
>> somewhere else)
>
>
>
> What you are getting at here, is really the crux of the debate I had 
> with jeremy over the addsdir/addidir patch, and the ideal of 
> reproducability from a _single_ config file.
>
> The basic problem, which I think you solved with your outline above, 
> is that kickstart is simply not appropriate to be the one _single_ 
> config file for a livecd project.  The two examples that immediately 
> spring to mind are

I agree, Kickstart should not be the_ only_ file for configuration.

>
> 1) files added to the iso filesystem.  E.g. like ubuntu's inclusion of 
> the windows firefox installer.  Or a generic web page to be viewed 
> under windows when the livecd is inserted in a windows system.


Why only LiveCD, think beyond the liveCD. Eg. Small systems can be fit 
on to a USBstick, Rescue systems, small network servers, small streamers 
etc...

>
> 2) the persistence feature.

It is a must have feature. But again this should be configurable. 
Currently Which I developed is doing a persistence at the time of 
instalation(again a bit hard coded).

>
> OTOH, here is how I guess I could imagine cramming everything into the 
> kickstart-
>
> 1) have some truly magic livecd kickstart command to add files to the 
> isodir.  This command would be silently ignored in the non-livecd case 
> (or perhaps files copied to /iso or some arbitrary directory in a 
> non-livecd kickstart invocation).
>
> 2) and this is rather key- put the mayflower invocation in the %post 
> of the kickstart.  Perhaps even enclose it in a conditional, based on 
> some variable that only gets defined in the livecd case.  Then perhaps 
> even merge the livecd-creator code back into anaconda, ala the old 
> kadischi anaconda rootpath livecd creation facility.  (yes Jeremy, I'm 
> trying to give you nightmares ;)
>
> 2 as described (with or without remerge with anaconda) also gives you 
> the ability to customize the initramfs (e.g. add persistence and 
> similar mayflower optional features) in the %post of the kickstart.
>
> But I want to emphasize to anyone reading this far, that none of this 
> really has anything to do with the simple modifications and simple 
> functionality enhancements that I was aiming for in the parent RFC. 
> This has been a tangent going down rearchitecting the kickstart/config 
> file and invocation of livecd-creator.
>
> And actually, given what I described, I kind of like the uglier and 
> uglier, but single kickstart solution.  (the other aspects which I've 
> complained about in the past, I think I can see workarounds for as well)
>
>
> -dmc
>
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-- 
Thanks
Ashok Shankar Das
RedHat, Pune
+91-9373695832