Re: loader/stage2 interaction

[Elliot Peele <elliot rpath com>]

On Fri, May 02, 2008 at 07:59:43AM -0400, James Laska wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-05-01 at 22:24 -0400, Elliot Peele wrote:
> > On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 09:43:22PM -0400, Jeremy Katz wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2008-05-01 at 21:29 -0400, Elliot Peele wrote:
> > > > On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 05:12:42PM -0700, Kay Williams wrote:
> > > > > > > > product.img:  What prohibits us from doing the same as with the
> > > > > > > > updates.img?  The two are arguably really about the same thing -
> > > > > making
> > > > > > > > modifications to the stage2 image.  The product.img just modifies the
> > > > > > > > available installclasses.  That's still modifying anaconda's source
> > > > > > > > files if you think about it.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > Yes, but logically, a product.img is more related to your packages than
> > > > > > > to your installer.  Maybe this is just the sign that we need to blow up
> > > > > > > install classes like I've been threatening to do for years. 
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Well I can certainly just remove the code to download them and then
> > > > > > you'll have no choices besides fixing product.img or hoping no one ever
> > > > > > asks for it back.
> > > > > 
> > > > > product.img's are quite useful for creating custom spins w/o needing to run
> > > > > a full buildinstall.  In our case, we automatically generate them to provide
> > > > > custom .buildstamp, installclass, and pixmap files.
> > > > 
> > > > We do something similar by generating a product.img from a package,
> > > > anaconda-custom, which allows customers to customize most any part of
> > > > anaconda that they would like. By default we use this to generate a
> > > > custom set of pixmaps and a .buildstamp.
> > > 
> > > The big question (in my mind) is if product.img continues to be the best
> > > mechanism for doing things like this.  The sorts of things that get set
> > > with a product.img are things that are largely tied to the set of
> > > packages being installed.  As we move the repo selection to be _after_
> > > all of those things taking effect, I'm not as sure that product.img
> > > still makes sense.
> > 
> > Most of the customizations that I have seen are more than just changing
> > package selection. They tend to be things like adding extra install
> > steps for configuring customer applications. In fact most of our
> > customers don't use package selection at all since they control what
> > gets installed through conary groups.
> 
> Greetings Elliot, 
> 
> This might not work for your particular use case, but thought it worth
> tossing out there.  Would firstboot plugins make sense for some of the
> local customizations you're looking for?
> 
> NOTE: I'm coming at this from a reducing test paths perspective

firstboot doesn't really work for us for a few reasons.

* We don't include firstboot due to its dependency on selinux
* This is intended for software appliances where we want minimal user
  interaction post install.
* We do have our own sort of configuration wizard[1] for customers to
  write plugins for, but now all of them choose to go down that path for
  appliance customizations.

Elliot

[1] http://wiki.rpath.com/wiki/rPath_Appliance_Platform_Agent

-- 
Elliot Peele
rPath, Inc.
elliot rpath com