debootstrapping multidistributions

[Rob Lemley]

On 10/29/2010 03:31 AM, Michael Tautschnig wrote:
>>> What is the best way to make the basefile.tar.gz?  Should we
>>> do a debootstrap and tar up the files before booting the
>>> bootstrapped system?
>>>       
>> And, reading http://fai-project.org/fai-guide/ar01s07.html, I'm also
>> wondering where
>> I can put a hook in FAI to create the basefiles.tar.gz on a newly
>> bootstrapped
>> system which is being built by fai.
>>
>> It seems the hook would go right before the "configure" task.  Correct?
>>     
>
> I don't really get why you would want to create the .tar.gz file *on* a
> bootstrapped system; as you said, you'd use debootstrap and tar up the files,
> which you could do on any system with debootstrap installed. Copy the .tar.gz
> into your config space (the basefiles/ directory) and be happy.
>   

Sorry, that did seem a little redundant.  I was wondering if there was 
anything done by FAI in addition to the debootstrap that might give us a 
"better" basefile, especially if the target is a specific hardware 
config on which many machines will be installed by FAI.

Also I'm thinking of adding a switch (such as variable or class) which 
would cause the basefile.tgz to be created (and possibly transmitted 
back to the server via the logfile saving mechanism).

Then we could easily flip the switch to generate an updated basefile.tgz 
without the manual steps of running debootstrap/tar outside of FAI.  My 
experience has been that the basefile.tgz speeds up the FAI install, but 
after a time, the basefile.tgz gets "stale" and must be refreshed 
periodically as the packages become out of date.

I'm also thinking that possibly the basefiles.tgz could be built later, 
after more packages are installed, which would make an even faster FAI 
bootstrap install.  Maybe this will work only if the hardware is identical?

Thanks,
Rob