[CentOS] using centos for linux appliance

[Phil Schaffner]

On Mon, 2007-08-27 at 17:18 -0700, Venkat Subbiah wrote:
> Thinking of using CentOS as a host for a Linux Appliance.  

Please also think about starting a thread with a new message, not by
replying to an existing one an hijacking the original thread ("CentOS/RH
5 Samba as PDC+NIS w/o LDAP?" in this case).  Plays havoc with threaded
mail-readers.

May want to check out the VMware CentOS appliances as examples:
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/820
http://www.thoughtpolice.co.uk/vmware/

> I am used to building Embedded Linux Systems and there the approach is
> to create the a directory on the development machine and "get files
> "that are to be on the target machine into that directory. This usually
> being termed as building the root file system. Also in the embedded
> systems approach we build from source and usually during the configure
> steps of package we can specify where the end binaries/libraries need to
> be copies. 
> 
> So for Cent OS thinking of using a similar approach with the difference
> that I don't want to build all packages from source.
> 
> 1)Use the binrary rpms and install to a directory on a development
> machine  using the rpm --prefix option.   Not sure yet how to specify to
> create and use an rpm database on the development machine as opposed to
> a database on the development machine.
> 
> Is this really a sensible approach or just using something like
> Kickstart?

I'd consider building images in a VMware environment, possibly with
kickstart as a good proving ground for the concept.

> 2) There might be some packages that I want to build from source. Then I
> am thinking I would need the exact compiler used to compile the binary
> rpms. How would I obtain the compiler and environment used to build the
> CentOS binary rpms?


CentOS is self-hosting and has all the tools required to build RPMS.

See:

http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/YumAndRPM
"Get set up for rebuilding packages while not being root"

http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/CreateLocalRepos

Phil