These are some scripts I've used to build a minimal illumos image capable of running a single application.
The scripts, particularly the paths embedded in them, are specific to Tribblix and my own build environment.
The master scripts are mvi.sh and mvix.sh, which take opposing approaches to the minimization problem. With mvi.sh, everything is installed, and then unnecessary files removed; with mvix.sh you have to explicitly list the userland files that should be present.
Arguments to the scripts are: -f install from file system -r install from repo (not yet implemented) -s install using system zap -p name use name.pkgs as the list of packages, default mvi -v ver use packages from Tribblix version given
The scripts take option arguments, some examples are:
- node will install node packages and run a simple node.js server
- vboxnet will set up networking appropriate for VirtualBox
- bhyvenet will set up networking appropriate for bhyve
- virtio will add virtio packages
For any argument foo, there may be some files:
- foo.rc will be run as part of the boot sequence
- foo.pkgs will add packages to the image
- foo.dirs will create directories in the image (for mvix.sh)
- foo.files will copy files into the image (for mvix.sh)
- foo-fix.sh will be run
The intention here is that the system will often be booted under a hypervisor, allowing most of the drivers and support files to be eliminated by default. I have tested qemu and VirtualBox.
As an example:
./mvix.sh node vboxnet
will create a minimal (25M) iso suitable for booting under VirtualBox, running a simple node webserver on http://192.168.56.56:8000
(For this to work you'll need to set up the VM network to be a Host-only Adapter and make sure it's on the appropriate subnet.)
Similarly, to run the same thing under bhyve
./mvix.sh node virtio bhyvenet
will create a minimal iso that can be booted under bhyve. You can create the bhyve zone on Tribblix like so:
zap create-zone -t bhyve
-z mvi1 -x 192.168.0.233
-m 512M
-I /var/tmp/mvi.iso
-V 1G
and the node webserver will be running on http://192.168.0.233:8000
Another example:
./mvix.sh wipe
will create a 15M iso suitable for wiping disk drives (it's using format/analyze/purge underneath, nothing complicated). This includes most of the common storage drivers, so will boot on real hardware.
There's also a variant that can create a tarball suitable for unpacking as the filesystem for a zone. In this case we don't need any drivers. For example
./zmvix.sh nonet node
will create a compressed tarball containing enough to run the same simple node webserver above in a zone (this assumes a shared-ip network stack). If you wish to get into the zone then you'll need to use zlogin with the -S flag. A full zlogin can be enabled with
./zmvix.sh node zlogin
To use these zone images under tribblix, create an alien zone with the tarball the script creates as the image, for example:
zap create-zone -z node-zone -t alien -i 192.168.0.219 -I /var/tmp/zmvi.tar.gz