Creating a Custom CentOS-derived Distribution

Alteeve Wiki :: How To :: Creating a Custom CentOS-derived Distribution

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NOTE: This is not complete. Please don't follow any instructions here until this warning has been removed. - May 19, 2010

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This covers how to create your own CentOS derivative distribution DVD. Specifically, it is how the AN!Cluster DVD was created based on the CentOS 5.5 x86_64 DVDs.

Building a Custom Repository

From here:

mkdir -pv /var/www/html/centos/5/{os,updates}/x86_64
mkdir -pv /var/www/html/centos/5/os/x86_64/CentOS/RPMS/
mkdir -pv /var/www/html/centos/base
cp /dvd/CentOS/

Directory Setup

Start with a copy of the CentOS DVD disk 1 (we won't be using disk 2).

# Create the directory were we will mount the ISOs on and then mount the DVD
# image from the '/os/' directory.
mkdir -p /mnt/loop
mount -o loop /os/CentOS-5.5-x86_64-bin-DVD-1of2.iso /mnt/loop/

# This will be the directory we'll create our derivative in.
mkdir -p /os/an_cluster/x86_64

# Copy the files from the DVD. Don't miss the ".x" files.
cp -Rvp /mnt/loop/.discinfo /os/an_cluster/x86_64/
cp -Rvp /mnt/loop/.treeinfo /os/an_cluster/x86_64/
cp -Rvp /mnt/loop/*         /os/an_cluster/x86_64/

We're going to re-name our distro to AN!Cluster, but because the ! causes problems, we'll use the directory names AN_Cluster and an_cluster depending on what we are doing with it.

To start, rename the CentOS to AN_Cluster.

cd /os/an_cluster/x86_64
mv CentOS AN_Cluster

Revisor

Install git (from here):

Madi: Make this an RPM.

Note: Check the current latest git version and update the link and directory names below before running.

yum -y install gettext-devel expat-devel curl-devel zlib-devel openssl-devel
wget -c http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.7.1.tar.gz
tar -xvzf git-1.7.1.tar.gz
cd git-1.7.1
make prefix=/usr/local all
make prefix=/usr/local install

From here:

yum -y install git automake autoconf gettext intltool glib glib2-devel rpmdevtools rpm-build
yum -y install pygtk2 pygtk2-libglade yum comps-extras rhpl system-config-kickstart gnome-python2-gconf notify-python pungi livecd-tools usermode pam db4
yum -y install cobbler koan deltarpm python-virtinst jigdo
# Git isn't available for CentOS
yum -y install git
git clone http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/revisor/
cd revisor
ln -s $PWD/conf /etc/revisor
mkdir -p /usr/share/revisor
ln -s $PWD/glade /usr/share/revisor/ui
ln -s $PWD/glade/pixmaps /usr/share/revisor/pixmaps
ln -s $PWD/conf /usr/share/revisor/comps

Packages Added

Well, "to add" at this point...

• DRBD
• Git

 

Any questions, feedback, advice, complaints or meanderings are welcome.
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