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squashible

Cross-Platform Linux Live Image Builder

What is this?

Squashible is a tool created to generate a bootable LiveOS rapidly and consistently across multiple operating systems. It primarily relies on dracut to boot the LiveOS.

It utilizes docker to create enough operating system for Ansible to function and apply all configuration changes from that point. It then packages up the build into a vmlinuz, an initrd.img, and a rootfs.img.

This is a work in progress. Things will probably blow up. Pull requests and issues welcome!

Getting Started

Requirements

Recommended Build Server Versions:

Fedora 23
Ubuntu 15.10

Required Packages:

Ansible >= 2.0.1.0
Docker

Building an image

Edit the group_vars/all file and set the appropriate settings. Recommended settings to change are:

variable description
live_os set to one of the listed supported_live_os
user_ssh_keys set the public ssh keys you'd like to inject

To run squashible:

ansible-playbook -i hosts_generator.py <playbook.yml>

Available playbooks to run:

type description
squashible.yml minimal install
squashible_kvm.yml minimal install + kvm + nova compute
squashible_xen.yml minimal install + xen + nova compute

Output of the build will be put into {{ outputpath }} which by default is ./live_output directory.

Booting the images

Here are some examples for booting the image once you've generated one:

iPXE

kernel http://$deployment_server/images/images/fedora-23-kvm/vmlinuz
module http://$deployment_server/images/images/fedora-23-kvm/initrd.img
imgargs vmlinuz root=live:http://$deployment_server/images/fedora-23-kvm/rootfs.img ip=dhcp nameserver=8.8.8.8 nomodeset rd.writable.fsimg rd.info rd.shell

kexec

kexec -l vmlinuz —initrd=initrd.img \
—command-line=“root=live:http://$deployment_server/images/fedora-23-kvm/rootfs.img \
ip=dhcp nameserver=8.8.8.8 rd.writable.fsimg rd.info rd.shell”
kexec -e

Logging into the image

You can use the user live and the password live from the console. The user is disabled from remote ssh access. If you want to log in remotely, be sure to set a public ssh key in group_vars/all.

Known Issues

OpenSUSE currently has issues booting due to the DHCP daemon it uses.

Test using iPXE Squashible Boot Images

These iPXE disks will automatically load into boot.squashible.com. These contain live images that have been generated for demonstration puposes. Make sure you assign 4GB to 8GB of RAM for the images to load properly. If you run into any errors or kernel panics, usually the cause is not enough memory being available.

Type Bootloader Description
ISO boot.squashible.com.iso Used for CD/DVD, Virtual CDs like DRAC/iLO, VMware, Virtual Box
USB boot.squashible.com.usb Used for creation of USB Keys
Kernel boot.squashible.com.lkrn Used for booting from GRUB/EXTLINUX
DHCP boot.squashible.com.kpxe DHCP boot image file, uses built-in iPXE NIC drivers
DHCP-undionly boot.squashible.com-undionly.kpxe DHCP boot image file, use if you have NIC issues

You can also chainload into boot.squashible.com if you already have netboot.xyz:

chain --autofree http://boot.squashible.com