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

[Douglas McClendon]

ashok shankar das wrote:
> 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.

Actually I sort of argued both sides of that coin.  And I ended up 
changing my mind.  What sorts of option and configuration do you think 
should not be in kickstart, but somewhere else?

> 
>>
>> 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...

usbstick (especially with livecd-iso-to-disk) is really just an 
alternate form of livecd.

But yes, the changes I proposed to mayflower can also be used to 
generate initramfss that are useful as rescue systems, and perhaps even 
as entire-system-in-initramfs for small servers/routers.  I never 
suggested it was useful for livecd only.



>>
>> 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).

I'm still curious where this implementation you speak of that you claim 
was posted to this list is.  Please repost or give a link to an archive 
post.

I'm curious whether your implementation has design aspects that are 
better than the implementation I posted a couple weeks ago, and 
discussed at length on this list in the couple weeks before that.

(as I've told Tim offlist, I'll be posting an updated version of that 
implementation within the next couple of days.  I'm just honing my git 
skills at the moment)

-dmc

> 
>>
>> 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
>>
>> -- 
>> Fedora-livecd-list mailing list
>> Fedora-livecd-list at redhat.com
>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-livecd-list
> 
> 
>