How to make a live CD/DVD from your harddisk installation

[niccholaspage]

I got an errors at the end of following your guide.

[chris4585]

They are required for both the host and the target (only in gutsy and hardy). They are required in the host to be able to create a squahsfs image. And they are required in the target to be able to mount the squashfs and the unionfs.




linux-headers-(uname -r) is not really required. You can put it if you want it as part of your system though.



Intersting idea. I thought about making a script for the whole procedure, but I decided against it because I thought chrooting and installing packages would be better done interactively to react to any problems that might arise. Also there is a script that does a similar thing to this guide called remastersys. You can check the link for the script in the first post in this thread.

Thanks for the clarification

With the scripts I tried to emphasize how easy it is to edit the system once after the first iso is made.

[capink]

I got an errors at the end of following your guide.

Can you post the error messages and clarify which steps triggerd them.

[niccholaspage]

I will after school.

[Spitphire]

Minor problem.. I must admit i'm in a bit unfamiliar territory with chroot & debootstrap.

Anyway - I created a working live CD using the debootstrap method. I added another user, while still in chroot. When I boot the cd i would like it to ask me for a login prompt and not log in directly as 'ubuntu'

Anyone know how to fix this? This is a text-only boot, there is no GUI..

The reason I would like to do this is because I would like certain files to be available upon login.. for example my ssh keys which i put in the home directory of the new user i created.

What I'm trying to accomplish is a bootable disc that that I can insert into my media center pc and execute dd over a ssh connection to the server, to clone the drive for backup purposes. But I only allow ssh sessions with key.. So i need the keys available on the live cd..

Long story short - i just need to know how to make it go to a login prompt on boot up and not auto login as 'ubuntu'.

Thanks,
-spit

[chris4585]

Minor problem.. I must admit i'm in a bit unfamiliar territory with chroot & debootstrap.

Anyway - I created a working live CD using the debootstrap method. I added another user, while still in chroot. When I boot the cd i would like it to ask me for a login prompt and not log in directly as 'ubuntu'

Anyone know how to fix this? This is a text-only boot, there is no GUI..

The reason I would like to do this is because I would like certain files to be available upon login.. for example my ssh keys which i put in the home directory of the new user i created.

What I'm trying to accomplish is a bootable disc that that I can insert into my media center pc and execute dd over a ssh connection to the server, to clone the drive for backup purposes. But I only allow ssh sessions with key.. So i need the keys available on the live cd..

Long story short - i just need to know how to make it go to a login prompt on boot up and not auto login as 'ubuntu'.

Thanks,
-spit

It would be easier to do the following (in my opinion)

first you'd have to change the user name to your user name on the livecd

set the variables you set before

export WORK=~/work
export CD=~/cd
export FORMAT=squashfs
export FS_DIR=casper

sudo mount -t proc proc ${WORK}/rootfs/proc
sudo mount -t sysfs sysfs ${WORK}/rootfs/sys
sudo mount --bind /dev ${WORK}/rootfs/dev
sudo chroot ${WORK}/rootfs /bin/bash

nano /etc/casper.conf

change the USERNAME= to fit the username you want to ssh with in nano

then within chroot run these commands

export kversion=`cd /boot && ls vmlinuz-* | sed 's@vmlinuz-@@'`
depmod -a ${kversion}
update-initramfs -u -k ${kversion}

then exit out of chroot

set your variables you set before

export WORK=~/work
export CD=~/cd
export FORMAT=squashfs
export FS_DIR=casper

sudo rm ${CD}/boot/initrd.gz
find ${WORK}/rootfs/boot -iname 'initrd.img*' -exec sudo cp -vp {} ${CD}/boot/initrd.gz \;

this should work


then copy your ssh key into ${WORK}/rootfs/etc/skel

then remove the old user you created

I think using userdel

then of course make a new iso

what you should get with this, is a autologin with your username, from what I read this should be what you want

[capink]

Long story short - i just need to know how to make it go to a login prompt on boot up and not auto login as 'ubuntu'.

Thanks,
-spit

For this to be done you will have to use live-initramfs instead of casper. After this it is just a matter of adding to following option to your grub boot entry.

noautologin

Note: Another solution is to stick to casper and use ALT + F(2) to switch to another getty and log in as whatever user you wish.

Beware though that if you opt to use live-initramfs, you will not be able to install ubiquity (The Ubuntu installer) as it depends on casper. Also, you need to do some modifications to the guide. They are as follows:

1. In step A.1 replace:

export FS_DIR=casper

with:

export FS_DIR=live

2. Replace the command in Step C.2 with:

apt-get install live-initramfs unionfs-modules-$(uname -r) discover1 xresprobe

Note that in order to install live-initramfs you have to enable the universe repository in your chroot ennviroment. Here are guides to enable universe ,CLI).

3. Skip step C.3 and D.2 as you will not be using ubiquity.

4. In Step D.5 Replace every occurence of BOOT=casper and boot=casper in menu.lst with BOOT=live and boot=live respectively.

5. To disable automatic login in a text only system, add the following line to your main boot entry in menu.lst (In step D.5):

noautologin

[Spitphire]

 This file should go in /etc/casper.conf
# Supported variables are:
# USERNAME, USERFULLNAME, HOST, BUILD_SYSTEM

export USERNAME="am"
export USERFULLNAME="am"
export HOST="lp"
export BUILD_SYSTEM="Ubuntu"

I decided to put the files I need in /etc/skel . Great idea btw, don't know why I didn't think about doing that. Thank you!

I changed /etc/casper.conf (as seen above)

When I boot the live CD though it still logs me in as ubuntu@ubuntu.

Am I missing something?

[capink]

 This file should go in /etc/casper.conf
# Supported variables are:
# USERNAME, USERFULLNAME, HOST, BUILD_SYSTEM

export USERNAME="am"
export USERFULLNAME="am"
export HOST="lp"
export BUILD_SYSTEM="Ubuntu"

I decided to put the files I need in /etc/skel . Great idea btw, don't know why I didn't think about doing that. Thank you!

I changed /etc/casper.conf (as seen above)

When I boot the live CD though it still logs me in as ubuntu@ubuntu.

Am I missing something?

If I remember correctly, chris4585 had a the same problem. Changing the username in casper.conf does not have the intended effect. Maybe it is a bug in casper. Maybe if you try to create the user with an id less than 999 the settings in casper.conf will be honoured.

[Spitphire]

If I remember correctly, chris4585 had a the same problem. Changing the username in casper.conf does not have the intended effect. Maybe it is a bug in casper. Maybe if you try to create the user with an id less than 999 the settings in casper.conf will be honoured.

Ok, I didn't add the user 'am', i put the files i wanted access to in /etc/skel . for casper.conf to work correctly does the user need to be added to the system? or does is it suppose to add the user specified in casper.conf to the system upon boot up?

If casper creates the user, to achieve the desired results of a id less than 999 do you think changing /etc/adduser.conf to reflect so that the first user added would have an id less than 999?

I could change the following in /etc/adduser.conf:

FIRST_SYSTEM_GID=100
LAST_SYSTEM_GID=997

FIRST_GID=998
LAST_GID=29999

I haven't tried it yet, I'm just not exactly sure how casper creates the user ubuntu..