Using KIWI NG in a Python Project

Note

Abstract

KIWI NG is provided as python module under the kiwi namespace. It is available for the python 3 version. The following description applies for KIWI NG version 9.25.13.

KIWI NG can also function as a module for other Python projects. The following example demonstrates how to read an existing image description, add a new repository definition and export the modified description on stdout.

import sys
import logging

from kiwi.xml_description import XMLDescription
from kiwi.xml_state import XMLState

description = XMLDescription('path/to/kiwi/XML/config.xml')

xml_data = description.load()

xml_state = XMLState(
    xml_data=xml_data, profiles=[], build_type='iso'
)

xml_state.add_repository(
    repo_source='http://repo',
    repo_type='rpm-md',
    repo_alias='myrepo',
    repo_prio=99
)

xml_data.export(
    outfile=sys.stdout, level=0
)

All classes are written in a way to care for a single responsibility in order to allow for re-use on other use cases. Therefore it is possible to use KIWI NG outside of the main image building scope to manage e.g the setup of loop devices, filesystems, partitions, etc…

This means KIWI NG provides you a way to describe a system but you are free to make use of the kiwi description format or not. The following example shows how to use kiwi to create a simple filesystem image which contains your host tmp directory.

import logging

from kiwi.storage.loop_device import LoopDevice
from kiwi.filesystem import FileSystem

loop_provider = LoopDevice(
    filename='my_tmp.ext4', filesize_mbytes=100
)
loop_provider.create()

filesystem = FileSystem.new(
    'ext4', loop_provider, '/tmp/'
)
filesystem.create_on_device(
    label='TMP'
)
filesystem.sync_data()