This repo contains the kiwi-ng configuration used to create Rockstor 4 'Built on openSUSE' installers. Please see the excellent kiwi ng docs for configuration options.
Pull requests most welcome; especially new target system profiles. Please test your modifications on all affected profiles prior to submission and provide details of how you tested the resulting installer.
Profiles are named after their upstream distribution base, i.e. openSUSE Leap/Jump version, and then the intended target system; the two elements separated by a ".".
The "target system" element is either generic, i.e. x86_64 or AArch64, or target system specific, i.e. RaspberryPi4 or Ten64.
Our current intention is to distribute pre-built installers, pending any trademark prerequisites, from the following profiles:
- Leap15.2.x86_64
- Leap15.2.RaspberryPi4
- Leap15.2.Ten64
These will be linked to from our Downloads page.
If you would like to add a specific target system installer profile, please take a look at the examples referenced in the second link above. The rockstor.kiwi file itself also contains comments with links to example configs used during it's development. We can make no promises for the 'supported' status of any additional profiles but 'The Rockstor Project' will endeavour to make available the more popular resulting installers, in binary form, pending Trademark prerequisites etc.
- Leap15.1.x86_64
- Leap15.2.x86_64 (recommended) - proposed for our Rockstor 4 're-launch')
- Leap15.2.RaspberryPi4
As we are attempting to stick as closely as possible to upstream, and have limited resources, this installer requires the recent Raspberry OS initiated firmware updates and associated /boot files copied over to enable USB boot. See later "AArch64 host ..." section for more details. However, regular microSD card boot should work out-of-the-box.
Prior to Tumbleweed dropped some Python 2 libraries this profile was functional. We used this target to inform our developmental direction and as a more leading-edge installer option. We are preserving this profile for when our in-process Python 2 to 3 move is complete.
- Leap15.2.Ten64
We are very exited to welcome contributions pending for the innovative Traverse Ten64 AArch64 platform. Traverse technologies are a recent contributor to the rockstor-core code base and have been instrumental in achieving our AArch64 aims.
Please see the overview section of the kiwi-ng docs for the canonical System Requirements: e.g. 15 GB free space, Python 3.5+ etc.
Given our image target OS is exclusively openSUSE, a Leap 15.1 or 15.2 install is recommended as the host operating system.
In order to build the installer you need a local copy of the rockstor-installer GitHub repository. This README.md file is part of that repository. To get this copy you simply need to 'git clone' that repository to your local openSUSE instance:
zypper in git
git clone https://github.com/rockstor/rockstor-installer.git
cd rockstor-installer/The above commands installs the 'git' program, uses it to 'clone' (read copy locally) the GitHub repo, and sets your working directory to be inside the local copy. Now you just need the kiwi-ng program this config requires to make the final installer.
For a Leap 15.2 host OS from kiwi-ng's doc Installation section we have:
Any x86_64 machine, although keep in mind that building the ISO installer is computationally expensive so Haswell or better is recommended.
sudo zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Virtualization:/Appliances:/Builder/openSUSE_Leap_15.2/ appliance-builder
sudo zypper install python3-kiwiSee HCL:Raspberry Pi4. Install, for example, an appliance JeOS Leap 15.2 image as the host OS. Enabling USB boot on the Pi4 will allow for the use of, for example, an SSD as the system drive which will massively speed up installer building. This will likely require a bootloader update via a fully updated Raspberry OS and copying the resulting /boot/start4* and /boot/fixup4* files from that OS over the ones found in the JeOS Leap 15.2 /EFI dir. The same procedure may also be required for USB booting the resulting Rockstor installer. Depending on upstream updates, and the existing version of your Pi4 bootloader, neither step may be necessary.
Pi4 EEPROM/bootloader version "Jun 15 2020" or later will be required for USB boot regardless of any installer /EFI file changes.
sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Virtualization:/Appliances:/Builder/openSUSE_Leap_15.2_ARM/ appliance-builder
sudo zypper install python3-kiwiEdit all lines directly preceeded by <!-- Change to ... to reflect your chosen profile any rockstor rpm version changes you make. These edits are done automatically by our release infrastructure but are required when exucuting by hand, as in this HowTo.
It is recommended that a discrete OS install is used to build the Rockstor installer due to the root user requirement and the scope of operations performed. We hope later to transition to a newer mechanism within kiwi-ng where by KVM is employed to create the required build environment. Any assistance with this endeavour would be much appreciated. See: kiwi-ng's new boxbuild capability.
Executed, as the root user, in the directory containing this repositories rockstor.kiwi file.
kiwi-ng --profile=Leap15.2.x86_64 --type oem system build --description ./ --target-dir /home/kiwi-images/Executed, as the root user, in the directory containing this repositories rockstor.kiwi file.
kiwi-ng --profile=Leap15.2.RaspberryPi4 --type oem system build --description ./ --target-dir /home/kiwi-images/With the above suggested kiwi-ng commands the resulting installers will be found in /home/kiwi-images/ on the host systems.
- For the x86_64 profiles the resulting installer is an ISO image intended for image transfer to an installer only device. Use the file ending in ".iso".
- For the RaspberryPi4 profile the resulting installer is an uncompressed raw disk image intended for image transfer to the target system disk directly. Use the file ending in ".raw".
The resulting installs will grow, on first boot, to the size of their host devices. All partitioning is fully automatic. Please see Rockstor’s “Built on openSUSE” installer HowTo for a user guide.
Our friendly forum is a good place to ask question regarding this HowTo. Please be patient however as our support is predominantly community based and the above newly released procedure is not yet well known or tested by our community members. If you find an issue with this procedure and it's associated kiwi-ng config, please consider submitting a pull request with any fixes or improvements you consequently discover or invent.
'The Rockstor Project' is a community endeavour and depends on update channel subscriptions and contributions for it's continued open source development.