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https://git.launchpad.net/livecd-rootfs
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107 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
107 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
# Running livecd-rootfs builds locally
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`livecd-rootfs` is notoriously known to be... difficult?
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One question that often comes back is "how do I run that locally?".
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Brace yourself, here is a short guide to help you through this.
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## Where to run?
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While you could do that directly on your host machine, likely your development
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laptop, that would mean installing all the needed dependencies, and running
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livecd-rootfs as root (because of some `mount` steps, `chroot`, etc...).
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Not ideal.
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What you more likely want, and is documented here, is to run that in a LXD VM
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instead.
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## Prerequisites
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You need to have LXD installed and configured: https://canonical.com/lxd/install
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A clone of this repository, that will be used directly in the VM so that
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you can iterate and test changes easily before submitting them:
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```
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git clone https://git.launchpad.net/livecd-rootfs
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```
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## Build images
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All the magic is done by the `./live-build/build-livefs-lxd` script. It will
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basically perform the following actions for you:
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* Launch (or re-start) a LXD VM on the `series` you're targetting.
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* Install in there `livecd-rootfs` from the archive, to make sure all
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dependencies are here and ready to use.
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* Mount the `livecd-rootfs` sources in `/srv/livecd-rootfs`.
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* Run `./live-build/build-livefs` with all the additional arguments you give.
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That's what will build the ISO for you, take a lot of time, and bring your
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machine down.
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Depending on what you want to work on, the iteration time can be quite long.
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Fortunately `livecd-rootfs` provides many different projects to work with,
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providing various experiences in terms of load, space, bandwidth and running
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time.
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Very fast and lightweight "fake" ISO:
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```
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❯ ./live-build/build-livefs-lxd --suite resolute --arch amd64 --project ubuntu-test-iso
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```
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Ubuntu Desktop, the main flagship, and probably most complex ISO:
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```
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❯ ./live-build/build-livefs-lxd --suite resolute --arch amd64 --project ubuntu
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```
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Ubuntu Server Live, lighter ISO:
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```
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❯ ./live-build/build-livefs-lxd --suite resolute --arch amd64 --project ubuntu-server --subproject live
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```
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Xubuntu Minimal, lighter desktop ISO:
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```
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❯ ./live-build/build-livefs-lxd --suite resolute --arch amd64 --project xubuntu --subproject minimal
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```
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## Fetching the image
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Obviously, the image has been built inside the LXD VM, so you then need to extract it. Examples:
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```
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❯ lxc file pull livefs-builder-resolute/root/livecd.ubuntu-test-iso.iso my_ubuntu-test-iso.iso
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❯ lxc file pull livefs-builder-resolute/root/livecd.ubuntu.iso my_ubuntu.iso
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❯ lxc file pull livefs-builder-resolute/root/livecd.ubuntu-server.iso my_ubuntu-server.iso
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❯ lxc file pull livefs-builder-resolute/root/livecd.xubuntu.iso my_xubuntu.iso
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```
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The fetched ISO should normally boot and work just fine. For example with QEMU:
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```
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❯ kvm -m 3G -smp 2 -cdrom ./my_xubuntu.iso
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```
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## Clean up
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This will leave you with a running VM eating some precious 8GB from your host.
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You can stop and/or delete that VM with these:
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```
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❯ lxc stop livefs-builder-resolute
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❯ lxc delete livefs-builder-resolute
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```
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## Speeding things up with `apt-cacher-ng`
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All the previous steps work just fine, but when iterating, it's often very
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useful to cache all the package downloads, which can speed things up a lot,
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particularly if you don't live in one of Canonical's datacenters.
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Basically, on your host:
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```
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❯ sudo apt install apt-cacher-ng
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❯ cat ~/.config/livecd-rootfs/build-livefs.conf
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[defaults]
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mirror = http://192.168.0.42:3142/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
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```
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`~/.config/livecd-rootfs/build-livefs.conf` is indeed stored on your host, but
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will be copied automatically at the right place if it exists.
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There, `192.168.0.42` is your local network IP, reachable from the LXD VM, on
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which `apt-cacher-ng` is listening.
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Other `apt` caching solutions might be working, but are untested.
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