Revision as of 13:24, 18 March 2013

Creating a Test Day Live Image

The following steps outline how to create a Fedora live image based on current Fedora Branched packages for use during Test Days. This is mainly intended for Fedora QA team and teams that host a Test Day. Of course these teams can also use a nightly compose image, but special Test Day images bring additional benefits - easy access to test day channels (web, chat), smaller size and customizability.

The following procedure should always be performed on the same Fedora release that you want to build the Live image for. For example if you want to build a Live image for Fedora 40, you should build it on Fedora 40. You can try to build it on Fedora 39, but it might not work.

How to build a Test Day Live image:

Install required packages:
```
yum install livecd-tools git
```
Download the kickstart script used by Fedora 40 by using the f40 git branch:
```
git clone 'git://git.fedorahosted.org/spin-kickstarts.git' -b f40
```
or if you have done it in the past, just update it:
```
cd spin-kickstarts; git checkout f40; git pull; cd ..
```

OPTIONAL: Create your custom kickstart file my-test-day.ks, if you need some changes from the default configuration:

%include spin-kickstarts/custom/qa-test-day.ks

# Redefine repos as you need (e.g. point it to local mirror with --baseurl, etc)
#repo --name=fedora --baseurl=file:/mnt/globalsync/fedora/linux/development/$releasever/$basearch/os/
#repo --name=updates --baseurl=file:/mnt/globalsync/fedora/linux/updates/$releasever/$basearch/
# You can also enable updates-testing if you need. Use --baseurl to point to a particular mirror, see above.
#repo --name=updates-testing --mirrorlist=http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=updates-testing-f$releasever&arch=$basearch


%packages
# Provide list of packages to be added or removed - dependencies are handled
#packageYouWant
#wildcardedPackagesYouWant*
#@GroupYouWant
#-packageYouDontWant
%end

%post
# Put any shell commands here, they will be executed in a chrooted environment
%end

More kickstart documentation is available at Anaconda/Kickstart.

Create the live image:
```
livecd-creator -c spin-kickstarts/custom/qa-test-day.ks --releasever 40 --cache /var/cache/live -f testday-YYYY-MM-DD
```
(of course replace spin-kickstarts/custom/qa-test-day.ks with my-test-day.ks if you have created your custom kickstart file)

Different architecture
You can use setarch command to create a x86 Live CD/DVD on a x86_64 system. Example: setarch i686 livecd-creator <...>

Solving problems

Anaconda dependencies broken

Sometimes the image can't be built because of broken package dependencies. You may solve the problem by removing anaconda package. Anaconda requires a lot of dependencies and it may very often be the culprit. To remove anaconda you just put -anaconda line in the %packages section.

SELinux complaints

For building Test Days LiveCD you must have SELinux installed and enabled. Ideally it should be in the enforcing mode and everything should run fine. In case you have problems with that, you may switch the mode temporarily into permissive mode with this command run as root:

setenforce 0

If that doesn't help, you may also modify your my-test-day.ks kickstart file and after %include line add a directive

selinux --permissive

(Note: Due to RHBZ #547152 you may also need to add /usr/sbin/lokkit inside %packages.)

Now the build should run fine.

Further references

@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 <li>OPTIONAL: Create your custom kickstart file ''my-test-day.ks'', if you need some changes from the default configuration:
-<!-- don't ask why this works, just read http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/mediawiki/118688#118688 -->
+<pre>
-<pre&lt;noinclude&gt;&lt;/noinclude&gt;>
 %include spin-kickstarts/custom/qa-test-day.ks
-#redefine repos as you need (e.g. point it to local mirror with --baseurl, etc)
+# Redefine repos as you need (e.g. point it to local mirror with --baseurl, etc)
-#repo --name=fedora --baseurl=file:/mnt/globalsync/fedora/linux/development/{{FedoraVersion|number|next}}/$basearch/os/
+#repo --name=fedora --baseurl=file:/mnt/globalsync/fedora/linux/development/$releasever/$basearch/os/
-#repo --name=updates --baseurl=file:/mnt/globalsync/fedora/linux/updates/{{FedoraVersion|number|next}}/$basearch/
+#repo --name=updates --baseurl=file:/mnt/globalsync/fedora/linux/updates/$releasever/$basearch/
+# You can also enable updates-testing if you need. Use --baseurl to point to a particular mirror, see above.
+#repo --name=updates-testing --mirrorlist=http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=updates-testing-f$releasever&arch=$basearch
 %packages
-#provide list of packages to be added or removed - dependencies are handled
+# Provide list of packages to be added or removed - dependencies are handled
 #packageYouWant
 #wildcardedPackagesYouWant*
@@ Line 39: / Line 41: @@
 %post
-#put any shell commands here
+# Put any shell commands here, they will be executed in a chrooted environment
 %end
-</pre&lt;noinclude&gt;&lt;/noinclude&gt;>
+</pre>
+More kickstart documentation is available at [[Anaconda/Kickstart]].
 </li>
@@ Line 48: / Line 51: @@
 (of course replace ''spin-kickstarts/custom/qa-test-day.ks'' with ''my-test-day.ks'' if you have created your custom kickstart file)
-{{Admon/tip|Different architecture|You can use <code>setarch</code> command to create a x86 Live CD/DVD on a x86_64 system. Example: <code>setarch i686 livecd-creator <...></code>. (Or you can hardcode the architecture inside the kickstart by replacing <code>$basearch</code> variable.)}}
+{{Admon/tip|Different architecture|You can use <code>setarch</code> command to create a x86 Live CD/DVD on a x86_64 system. Example: <code>setarch i686 livecd-creator <...></code>}}
 </li>
 </ol>

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