Build an Expandable Disk Image¶
An expandable disk represents the system disk with the capability to auto expand the disk and its filesystem to a custom disk geometry. This allows deploying the same disk image on target systems with different hardware setup.
The following example shows how to build and deploy such a disk image based on openSUSE Leap using a QEMU virtual machine as the target system:
Make sure you have checked out the example image descriptions, see Example Appliance Descriptions.
Build the image with KIWI NG:
$ sudo kiwi-ng --type oem system build \ --description kiwi/build-tests/x86/leap/test-image-disk \ --set-repo obs://openSUSE:Leap:15.3/standard \ --target-dir /tmp/myimage
Find the following result images below
/tmp/myimage
.The disk image with the suffix
.raw
is an expandable virtual disk. It can expand itself to a custom disk geometry.The installation image with the suffix
install.iso
is a hybrid installation system which contains the disk image and is capable to install this image on any target disk.
Deployment Methods¶
The basic idea behind an expandable disk image is to provide the virtual disk data for OEM vendors to support easy deployment of the system to physical storage media.
There are the following basic deployment strategies:
-
Manually deploy the disk image onto the target disk.
-
Boot the installation image and let KIWI NG’s installer deploy the disk image from CD/DVD or USB stick onto the target disk.
-
PXE boot the target system and let KIWI NG’s installer deploy the disk image from the network onto the target disk.
Manual Deployment¶
The manual deployment method can be tested using virtualization software such as QEMU, and an additional virtual target disk of a larger size. The following steps shows how to do it:
Create a target disk
$ qemu-img create target_disk 20g
Note
Retaining the Disk Geometry
If the target disk geometry is less or equal to the geometry of the disk image itself, the disk expansion performed for a physical disk install during the boot workflow will be skipped and the original disk geometry stays untouched.
Dump disk image on target disk.
$ dd if=kiwi-test-image-disk.x86_64-1.15.3.raw of=target_disk conv=notrunc
Boot the target disk
$ sudo qemu -hda target_disk -m 4096 -serial stdio
At first boot of the target_disk the system is expanded to the configured storage layout. By default the system root partition and filesystem is resized to the maximum free space available.
CD/DVD Deployment¶
The deployment from CD/DVD via the installation image can also be tested using virtualization software such as QEMU. The following steps shows how to do it:
Create a target disk
Follow the steps above to create a virtual target disk
Boot the installation image as CD/DVD with the target disk attached.
$ sudo qemu -cdrom \ kiwi-test-image-disk.x86_64-1.15.3.install.iso -hda target_disk \ -boot d -m 4096 -serial stdio
Note
USB Stick Deployment
Like any other ISO image built with KIWI NG, also the installation image is a hybrid image. Thus it can also be used on USB stick and serve as installation stick image like it is explained in Build an ISO Hybrid Live Image
Network Deployment¶
The deployment from the network downloads the disk image from a PXE boot server. This requires a PXE network boot server to be setup as explained in Setting Up a Network Boot Server
If the PXE server is running the following steps shows how to test the deployment process over the network using a QEMU virtual machine as target system:
Make sure to create an installation PXE TAR archive along with your disk image by replacing the following setup in kiwi/build-tests/x86/leap/test-image-disk/appliance.kiwi
Instead of
<type image="oem" installiso="true"/>
setup
<type image="oem" installpxe="true"/>
Rebuild the image, unpack the resulting
kiwi-test-image-disk.x86_64-1.15.3.install.tar.xz
file to a temporary directory and copy the initrd and kernel images to the PXE server:Unpack installation tarball
mkdir /tmp/pxe && cd /tmp/pxe tar -xf kiwi-test-image-disk.x86_64-1.15.3.install.tar.xz
Copy kernel and initrd used for pxe boot
scp pxeboot.kiwi-test-image-disk.x86_64-1.15.3.initrd PXE_SERVER_IP:/srv/tftpboot/boot/initrd scp pxeboot.kiwi-test-image-disk.x86_64-1.15.3.kernel PXE_SERVER_IP:/srv/tftpboot/boot/linux
Copy the disk image, MD5 file, system kernel, initrd and bootoptions to the PXE boot server:
Activation of the deployed system is done via
kexec
of the kernel and initrd provided here.Copy system image and MD5 checksum
scp kiwi-test-image-disk.x86_64-1.15.3.xz PXE_SERVER_IP:/srv/tftpboot/image/ scp kiwi-test-image-disk.x86_64-1.15.3.md5 PXE_SERVER_IP:/srv/tftpboot/image/
Copy kernel, initrd and bootoptions used for booting the system via kexec
scp kiwi-test-image-disk.x86_64-1.15.3.initrd PXE_SERVER_IP:/srv/tftpboot/image/ scp kiwi-test-image-disk.x86_64-1.15.3.kernel PXE_SERVER_IP:/srv/tftpboot/image/ scp kiwi-test-image-disk.x86_64-1.15.3.config.bootoptions PXE_SERVER_IP:/srv/tftpboot/image/
Note
The config.bootoptions file is used together with kexec to boot the previously dumped image. The information in that file references the root of the dumped image and can also include any other type of boot options. The file provided with the KIWI NG built image is by default connected to the image present in the PXE TAR archive. If other images got deployed the contents of this file must be adapted to match the correct root reference.
Add/Update the kernel command line parameters
Edit your PXE configuration (for example
pxelinux.cfg/default
) on the PXE server and add these parameters to the append line, typically looking like this:append initrd=boot/initrd rd.kiwi.install.pxe rd.kiwi.install.image=tftp://192.168.100.16/image/kiwi-test-image-disk.x86_64-1.15.3.xz
The location of the image is specified as a source URI which can point to any location supported by the
curl
command. KIWI NG callscurl
to fetch the data from this URI. This also means your image, MD5 file, system kernel and initrd could be fetched from any server and doesn’t have to be stored on thePXE_SERVER
.By default KIWI NG does not use specific
curl
options or flags. However it is possible to add custom ones by adding therd.kiwi.install.pxe.curl_options
flag into the kernel command line.curl
options are passed as comma separated values. Consider the following example:rd.kiwi.install.pxe.curl_options=--retry,3,--retry-delay,3,--speed-limit,2048
The above tells KIWI NG to call
curl
with:curl --retry 3 --retry-delay 3 --speed-limit 2048 -f <url>
This is specially handy when the deployment infraestructure requires some fine tuned download behavior. For example, setting retries to be more robust over flaky network connections.
Note
KIWI NG just replaces commas with spaces and appends it to the
curl
call. This is relevant since command line options including commas will always fail.Note
The initrd and Linux Kernel for pxe boot are always loaded via tftp from the
PXE_SERVER
.
Create a target disk
Follow the steps above to create a virtual target disk
Connect the client to the network and boot QEMU with the target disk attached to the virtual machine.
$ sudo qemu -boot n -hda target_disk -m 4096
Note
QEMU bridged networking
In order to let qemu connect to the network we recommend to setup a network bridge on the host system and let qemu connect to it via a custom /etc/qemu-ifup. For details see https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/QEMU/Networking
OEM Customization¶
The deployment process of an oem image can be customized through
the oemconfig
element which is a child section of the type
element like the following example shows:
<oemconfig>
<oem-swapsize>512</oem-swapsize>
</oemconfig>
The following list of optional oem
element settings exists:
- oemconfig.oem-resize Element
Specify if the disk has the capability to expand itself to a new disk geometry or not. By default, this feature is activated. The implementation of the resize capability is done in a dracut module packaged as
dracut-kiwi-oem-repart
. Ifoem-resize
is set to false, the installation of the corresponding dracut package can be skipped as well.- oemconfig.oem-boot-title Element
By default, the string OEM will be used as the boot manager menu entry when KIWI creates the GRUB configuration during deployment. The
oem-boot-title
element allows you to set a custom name for the grub menu entry. This value is represented by thekiwi_oemtitle
variable in the initrd- oemconfig.oem-bootwait Element
Specify if the system should wait for user interaction prior to continuing the boot process after the disk image has been dumped to the designated storage device (default value is false). This value is represented by the
kiwi_oembootwait
variable in the initrd- oemconfig.oem-reboot Element
Specify if the system is to be rebooted after the disk image has been deployed to the designated storage device (default value is false). This value is represented by the
kiwi_oemreboot
variable in the initrd- oemconfig.oem-reboot-interactive Element
Specify if the system is to be rebooted after the disk image has been deployed to the designated storage device (default value is false). Prior to reboot a message is posted and must be acknowledged by the user in order for the system to reboot. This value is represented by the
kiwi_oemrebootinteractive
variable in the initrd- oemconfig.oem-silent-boot Element
Specify if the system should boot in silent mode after the disk image has been deployed to the designated storage device (default value is false). This value is represented by the
kiwi_oemsilentboot
variable in the initrd- oemconfig.oem-shutdown Element
Specify if the system is to be powered down after the disk image has been deployed to the designated storage device (default value is false). This value is represented by the
kiwi_oemshutdown
variable in the initrd- oemconfig.oem-shutdown-interactive Element
Specify if the system is to be powered down after the disk image has been deployed to the designated storage device (default value is false). Prior to shutdown a message is posted and must be acknowledged by the user in order for the system to power off. This value is represented by the
kiwi_oemshutdowninteractive
variable in the initrd- oemconfig.oem-swap Element
Specify if a swap partition should be created. By default no swap partition will be created. This value is represented by the
kiwi_oemswap
variable in the initrd- oemconfig.oem-swapname Element
Specify the name of the swap space. By default the name is set to
LVSwap
. The default already indicates that this setting is only useful in combination with the LVM volume manager. In this case the swapspace is setup as a volume in the volume group and any volume needs a name. The name set here is used to give the swap volume a name.- oemconfig.oem-swapsize Element
Set the size of the swap partition. If a swap partition is to be created and the size of the swap partition is not specified with this optional element, KIWI will calculate the size of the swap partition and create a swap partition equal to two times the RAM installed on the system at initial boot time. This value is represented by the
kiwi_oemswapMB
variable in the initrd- oemconfig.oem-systemsize Element
Set the size the operating system is allowed to consume on the target disk. The size limit does not include any consideration for swap space or a recovery partition. In a setup without a systemdisk element this value specifies the size of the root partition. In a setup including a systemdisk element this value specifies the size of the LVM partition which contains all specified volumes. Thus, the sum of all specified volume sizes plus the sum of the specified freespace for each volume must be smaller or equal to the size specified with the
oem-systemsize
element. This value is represented by the variablekiwi_oemrootMB
in the initrd- oemconfig.oem-unattended Element
The installation of the image to the target system occurs automatically without requiring user interaction. If multiple possible target devices are discovered the image is deployed to the first device.
kiwi_oemunattended
in the initrd- oemconfig.oem-skip-verify Element
Do not perform the checksum verification process after install of the image to the target disk. The verification process computes the checksum of the image byte size installed to the target and compares this value with the initrd embedded checksum information at build time of the image. Depending on the size of the image and machine power the computation can take some time.
Installation Media Customization¶
The installation media created for OEM network or CD/DVD deployments can
be customized with the installmedia
section which is a child section of the type
element as it appears in the following example:
<installmedia>
<initrd action="omit">
<dracut module="network-legacy"/>
</initrd>
</installmedia>
The installmedia
is only available for OEM image types that includes the
request to create an installation media.
The initrd
child element of installmedia
lists dracut modules, they
can be omitted, added or staticaly set the list of included ones. This is
specified with the action
attribute and can take action="omit"
,
action="add"
or action="set"
values.