Imager

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Contents

Todo

  • Fix the way the initrd looks for the device containing the image. Currently, we search for fat formated volumes containing a certain file. This limits us to usb sticks that are fat formated.
  • Get a working version of the imager on a CDROM and via PXE
  • Clean up the imager scripts. Make sure the text is easy to understand, and that all failure scenarios are considered.
  • Finish the image config utility
  • Finish the post imaging installation process. It has just barely been started.

How To

These instructions will show you how to check out the latest code from SVN, and create a USB stick suitable for creating and deploying images.

Warning

These instructions are not for those who are not familiar with the command line. You can HOSE your USB drive (and possibly your hard drive) with these commands if you are not careful. This is a development branch and it should be noted that the final imager will not be packaged in this manner.

First let's insert your USB drive into your computer (these instructions assume you are using a Linux computer...preferably a Debian based distribution such as Ubuntu). Next, let's find the device name of your USB drive. Type:

sudo blkid

This will give us some output similar to this:

/dev/sda1: UUID="891dcb7b-9d00-4ad7-940a-495547b61ddd" TYPE="ext3" 
/dev/sda5: TYPE="swap" UUID="0e76305f-4c4d-4f2d-b05f-cd5bcd649b7d" 
/dev/sdb: UUID="6ED9-9CFF" TYPE="vfat" 

Note the last line...my USB drive shows up as /dev/sdb One clue is that the TYPE is vfat which means it is formatted as FAT...this is common with most USB thumbdrives.

Now...we need to unmount the USB drive so we can erase it and install the imager. Type:

umount /dev/DEVICE NAME

or in my case

umount /dev/sdb

Next...


These instructions have been tested in Ubuntu 8.04, and 9.04. However, they will probably work in any Debian based distribution.

apt-get install fakeroot cramfsprogs mkisofs syslinux subversion
svn co http://open1to1.org/svn/trunk open1to1
cd open1to1/imager/
sudo ./setup
make
./makestick /dev/DEVICE NAME


One note on the ./makestick command. You will need to specify the device without the partition number. For instance use /dev/sdb instead of /dev/sdb1.

SVN access

The path to the Open 1-to-1 SVN is http://open1to1.org/svn/. A check out command would look like this "svn co http://open1to1.org/svn/trunk open1to1". The repository has read only access for anonymous users. To commit to the repository you will need an SVN account. To request an account send an email to Brendan Powers

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