pi-customizer

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pi_customizer

The pi_customizer allows you to adapt Raspbian images to your needs. To this end, an image is built from scratch with all customizations baked into the image.

The image is built in an isolated build environment, e.g., a vagrant box, which is orchestrated by the pi_customizer. The customization is performed behind the scenes by Ruby scripts in the build environment by adapting the pi-gen build scripts.

Additionally, pi_customizer also allows you to write the image to an SD card.

Install

Prerequisites

To customize the build process the following prerequisites are expected:

• The pi_customizer gem is installed (see the Install Gem section for details)
• One of the supported build environments is accessible (see the Environments section):
  • Vagrant
  • Docker (feature is still in development)

Install Gem

To customize your Raspbian image the pi_customizer gem must be installed on the machine that coordinates the build process. This is typically your local machine.

1. Install the latest (pre) release. For all prerequisites see the corresponding section.

   gem install pi_customizer --pre

2. Verify the installation

   pi_customizer version

Environments

You may choose to build your pi image in a Vagrant box. In the future Docker containers will also be supported.

Vagrant

1. Install Vagrant. For instance, on Fedora:

   sudo dnf install vagrant

2. Verify that vagrant is installed

   vagrant -v
   

3. Install the vagrant-disksize plugin

   vagrant plugin install vagrant-disksize
   

Docker

Note: feature still in development

Docker uses a temporary folder as volume to build the image. The folder location can be changed with the build option tmp-folder, which is set to "${PWD}/tmp" by default.

Note: the type of the workspace directory needs to be changed on SELinux

chcon -Rt svirt_sandbox_file_t "${PWD}/tmp"

After the image is built, undo the changes.

restorecon -v "${PWD}/tmp"

Usage

To build a default image in a Vagrant box, simply execute on the command line

pi_customizer build VAGRANT -c <your-config-file>

To customize your build:

1. All customizations have to be specified in a json configuration file (see the Config File section for details).
2. The build process itself is then configured with command line options (see pi_customizer help build or the CLI section for details)

Config File

An example of the json config file with all current configuration options

{
  "system": {
    "name" : "custompi",
    "type" : "lite",
    "username" : "pi", 
    "password" : "raspberry"
  },
  "ssh" : {
    "enabled" : true
  },
  "locale": {
    "gen" : ["en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8", "de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8"],
    "sys" : "en_GB.UTF-8"
  },
  "cgroups": {
    "memory": true
  },
  "packages" : ['ca-cacert', 'nano'],
  "wifi": {
    "networks": [
      {
        "ssid": "your_ssid",            
        "passphrase": "your_secret_psk" // Alternative: "wpa_passphrase": "your_wpa_passpharse"
      }
    ],
    "wpa_country": "DE"
  }
}

The system section

• To choose a custom name for your pi image, specify the name value. The default is custompi.

• To build a lite version of the pi image, specify the type as lite, otherwise specify it as full. The default is full.

• Select the username for the first user, by default this is pi.

• To change the default raspberry password, specify a password.

The ssh section

• To disable ssh by default, set enabled to false.

The locale section

• Select one or more locales to be generated: e.g., "en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8", "de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8", ...
• Select the default locale, typically en_GB.UTF-8, which is the default.

The cgroups section

• To enable the cgroup memory, enable memory, otherwise leave it out.

The packages section

Installs all custom packages defined in this section.

The wifi section

• The wifi section allows you to specify networks and passphrase OR wpa_passpharse as well as the wpa_country.

Command Line Options

Change the location of the configuration file with --config, -c.

pi_customizer -c myconfig.conf 

Change the git location of the pi-gen build sources with --build_sources_git_url -g or the used branch/tag --build_sources_git_tag, -t. NOTE: Only works with tags from 2019 or later.

pi_customizer -g https://github.com/ottenwbe/pi-gen.git -t 2019-06-20-raspbian-buster

Change the workspace directory on the local machine with --local_workspace_dir, -l. Environment configuration and built images are stored in the workspace.

pi_customizer -l ./workspace

Development

Why Ruby?

Well, the author wanted to learn Ruby.

Structure

For now, the sources of both gems (pi_customizer and pi_build_modifier) are versioned in one repository. This might change if their versions run out of sync.

Prerequisites

• Make sure Ruby is installed (and dependencies to build native extensions). See, https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv and https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.

  • On Fedora with zsh, this means sth. along the lines of:

    sudo dnf group install "C Development Tools and Libraries"
    sudo dnf install redhat-rpm-config git openssl-devel readline-devel
    
    git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv
    echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
    echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/shim:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
    ~/.rbenv/bin/rbenv init
    exec $SHELL
    
    git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build
    echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
    exec $SHELL
    
    rbenv install 2.5.5
    rbenv global 2.5.5
    

• Install build dependencies

  gem install bundler rake rspec rdoc
  

• Install dependencies

  bundle install 
  

Test

RSpec tests can be executed for all modules by calling the following rake command in the project root.

rake spec

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/ottenwbe/pi-gen-environment. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

License

The gems are available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.