[CentOS] How to simulate minimal ISO install using stage2 image file?

Sun Sep 19 21:01:09 UTC 2010
Chad Woolley <thewoolleyman at gmail.com>

Hello,

I'm working on a project which automates creation of EC2 AMI images.
To do this, you must use a running EC2 instance to mount an image file
in a chroot jail.

My problem is that I want to create an AMI that looks exactly like a
minimal (nothing selected) install from the CentOS ISO image, but the
"stage2" image [1] file is much more "minimal" than that.  e.g., it
doesn't have yum, groups, devices, networking, etc set up as you would
if you had run the ISO minimal install on a real or virtual box.  I
can't mount the ISO directly in the chroot (as far as I know, but I
could be wrong).

My question is, how can I make the mounted stage2.img chroot jail look
just like a minimal ISO install?  I could manually create everything
(which I have started), but this is a lot of work, and I'm likely to
miss something that an ISO build would have (e.g. some group).

Is there some other standard CentOS script I can run after mounting
the stage2.img which will do everything the installer does?  Can I run
the installer manually with some kickstart script?  Pointers to
references and documentation are welcome...

Thanks,
-- Chad

[1] http://mirrors.usc.edu/pub/linux/distributions/centos/5.5/os/x86_64/images/