Installation into a local chroot?

[Henning Glawe]

On Thu, Aug 11, 2005 at 11:39:33AM +0200, Christopher Huhn wrote:
> I'd like to use FAI to install debian systems into local chroots on the
> FAI server (i.e. for Xen/UML virtualization).
> 
> While quite familiar with FAI by now, I did not investigate much in this
> subject yet.
> Has anybody on the list attempted something like that yet?
> What would be the best approach then?
> Can it be done by calling /usr/sbin/fai at all?

There are two options you have here:

I. use XEN to install the chroot
================================
1) install and configure XEN on the host
2) do a 'normal' fai installation using XEN+nfsroot 


II. a real chroot install
=========================
chroot-installs should work in principle, but are not carefully checked. we
chose to disable them for the moment.
If you are really adventurous and want to try something risky:

0) do a backup of all your data on the machine chosen to host the chroots
   (or choose a machine where data-loss doesn't matter)
1) edit /usr/share/fai/subroutines, comment out the "return" in the safety
   check in line 253
2) set FAI_ROOT in /etc/fai/fai.conf to the intended destination directory
3) disable task_partition under all circumstances (otherwise it will destroy
   your running system)
4) pray it will work=
5) pray it will work
6) run '/usr/sbin/fai install'

NOTE: I have succeeded in this once in the last year with my fai fork pfai,
which has been merged into fai now, but as much development has happened in
fai during that time, I don't know if this will work now.

-- 
c u
henning