[CentOS] Creating an alternitive install CD for CentOS 5.2 (w/ patched mkinitrd)

Sat Mar 7 19:34:43 UTC 2009
Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com>

At Sat, 7 Mar 2009 10:48:29 -0500 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:

> 
> On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 10:08 AM, Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote
> >
> > This seems overly complex for my needs.  I don't want (or need) to
> > rebuild all 6 of the install CDs.  I just want to *replace* one RPM on
> > the first CD.  I have copied the CD's directory tree to a writable file
> > system and replaced the rpm in question.  I now need to just make a new
> > ISO file and all I need is the proper command line arguments to mkisofs
> > to do this.  I am *NOT* creating a new distribution.  And I really don't
> > want to mess with a complex GUI program or edit many configuration
> > files.
> >
> > I would also rather do this on my CentOS 4.7 system (revisor does not
> > seem to be available for CentOS 4 / RHEL 4).  Running it on a diskless
> > workstation with a read-only root file system is a total pain.  And will
> > become even more painful when I then have to mount a large file system
> > with NFS.
> >
> 
> First of all, if you replace an RPM, you'll need to do createrepro.
> 
>         disc_info=`head -1 $BASE/$ARCH/.discinfo`
>         createrepo -v --baseurl="$disc_info" -g repodata/comps.xml $ARCH
> 

OK, it looks like I need to do this (see below).

> If the RPM is a "system RPM", then you probably want to do a
> buildinstall first to get it into the anaconda system (and get a new
> disc_info),
> a la:
> 
>        $BASE/buildinstall --debug \
> 	--version 5 --product 'CentOS' --release "CentOS 5" \
> 	--prodpath CentOS $BASE/$ARCH 2>&1
> 
> If all you want is a mkisofs, what's wrong with the "man" command??
> 
> Maybe something like:
> 
>     mkisofs -q -r -R -J -T -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -pad       \
>         -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -boot-info-table \
>         -V "$VER ($date)"                                         \
>         -A "$REL - $VER - $firmware"                              \
>         -publisher "$PUB" -p "$PUB" -x lost+found                 \
>         -o "CentOS-$VER-$date.iso" $ARCH 	2>&1


I was unsure of the specific options above -- After installing revisor
and poked around in the source code and found what I needed, but my test
install failed -- it complained that there was a problem with mkinitrd --
could not open it or find it -- guessing I need to rebuild the repro
database. 


> 
> ... reboot, lather, rinse and repeat .... :-) :=)
> 
> You may find "re-generating" the CentOS CDs/DVD quite easy at
> times and very frustrating and complex at others ......

Yeah, it appears so.  I just hope I don't have to rebuild all 6 CDs,
since I don't have the DVD nor do I have a DVD-R drive either, so doing
things with a single DVD is not an option.

> 
> HTH
> 
>    -rak-
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>                                                                                        

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