[Thincrust-devel] Re: [virt-devel] oVirt Node image build process

[David Huff]

Perry Myers wrote:
> Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 04, 2008 at 02:31:51PM -0500, Mike Bonnet wrote:
>>> We're once again revisiting the oVirt Node image build process.  Given
>>> then current constraints on time and resources, it appears that building
>>> the image in a disposable VM is the best solution.
>>>
>>> http://et.devel.redhat.com/wiki/index.php/OVirt_Node_Build_and_Packaging#Appliances_Built_in_Disposable_Virtual_Machines_as_Images.2FISOs 
>>>
>>>
>>> RCM has a Xen host available to run VMs on.  We'll install a new
>>> RHEL-5.2 guest there for use as the pristine build environment.  Once it
>>> is installed we'll create an LVM r/w snapshot of the guest image and
>>> reconfigure the guest to run from the snapshot.  Builds will then be run
>>> as root in the snapshot-based guest (by RCM or an oVirt developer),
>>> including installing whatever packages are necessary from dist-5E-ovirt.
>>> After the images are created they will be uploaded to the DistCVS
>>> lookaside cache and referenced in the specfile as Source.  When the
>>> build is complete and the images uploaded, the LVM snapshot will be
>>> discarded.
>>>
>>> To ensure reproduceability of the image build, imformation about the
>>> build environment will be uploaded to DistCVS along with the image.
>>> These will include the output of "rpm -qa" on the builder, and the
>>> complete image build logs.
>>
>> The rpm -qa output of the guest OS is good, but while I remember, we must
>> also make sure we save the list of RPMs used by the livecd-creator itself
>> when building the images. We'll need this info in order to determine
>> whether a RPM security update requires us to re-generate a new image.
>>
>> This probably needs the live-creator to output an explicit report of
>> what it installed.
> 
> Agreed.  cc'ing thincrust-devel so that David Huff can add this to his 
> list of things todo for the November code freeze.
> 
> What we want is an option for livecd-creator to output a list of RPMs 
> installed in the livecd.  appliance-creator should also expose this 
> functionality.

This will should not be to hard to add, however my initial thought is 
that is information is already included in the kickstart file.  The 
kickstart file includes all info about the created appliance ans as long 
as the same tools and ks file is used the appliance should be 
reproducible.

> 
> Also... You've been working on functionality to build a tarball 
> containing the SRPMS used in an appliance for appliance-creator, but we 
> need this functionality for livecd-tools as well since we can't use the 
> appliance-creator to build the oVirt Node.  (Because the oVirt Node is a 
> livecd ISO and not a disk image).
> 

agreed the goal will be to get this functionality in Livecd-toools

-D