Create your own SL6, SL7 LiveCD


IMPORTANT: This description is valid for SL6 and SL7 only. For SL4 and SL5 LiveCD please see Create your own SL4, SL5 LiveCD



Creating a LiveCD image with livecd-tools

For SL6 use the livecd-tools provided in the sl-addons repo. To install livecd-tools run as root

yum --enablerepo=sl-addons install livecd-tools

For SL7 download the livecd-tools from http://www.livecd.ethz.ch/download/RPMS/7x/x86_64

# for SL 7.2 and later
wget http://www.livecd.ethz.ch/download/RPMS/7x/x86_64/livecd-tools-21.4-5.el7.x86_64.rpm
wget http://www.livecd.ethz.ch/download/RPMS/7x/x86_64/python-imgcreate-21.4-5.el7.x86_64.rpm
yum install livecd-tools-21.4-5.el7.x86_64.rpm python-imgcreate-21.4-5.el7.x86_64.rpm

# for SL 7.0, 7.1
wget http://www.livecd.ethz.ch/download/RPMS/7x/x86_64/livecd-tools-20.5-4.el7.x86_64.rpm
wget http://www.livecd.ethz.ch/download/RPMS/7x/x86_64/python-imgcreate-20.5-4.el7.x86_64.rpm
yum install livecd-tools-20.5-4.el7.x86_64.rpm python-imgcreate-20.5-4.el7.x86_64.rpm

The LiveCD creation is based on kickstart configuration files. You can find the files which were used to create SL6 LiveCDs under /usr/share/livecd-tools or you can download the latest files with svn. The following command will download the kickstart configuration from trunk into a folder called livecd-config-SLx

svn co https://svn.iac.ethz.ch/pub/livecd/trunk/SL6/livecd-config livecd-config-SL6    # SL6 ks files
svn co https://svn.iac.ethz.ch/pub/livecd/trunk/SL7/livecd-config livecd-config-SL7    # SL7 ks files

The following main kickstart files are available for SL6

sl67-livecd-gnome.ks         kickstart file used for 32-bit SL67 LiveCD with gnome desktop
sl67-livecd64-gnome.ks       kickstart file used for 64-bit SL67 LiveCD with gnome desktop
sl67-livedvd.ks              kickstart file used for 32-bit SL67 LiveDVD
sl67-livedvd64.ks            kickstart file used for 64-bit SL67 LiveDVD
sl67-mini_livecd-icewm.ks    kickstart file used for 32-bit SL67 LiveMiniCD with icewm desktop
sl67-mini_livecd64-icewm.ks  kickstart file used for 64-bit SL67 LiveMiniCD with icewm desktop
sl67-livecd-gnome-NONPAE.ks  kickstart file used for 32-bit SL67 LiveCD with gnome desktop running on non-pae capable hardware

The above kickstart files can include the following files

sl67-live-base.ks           The base for all kickstart files
sl67-extra-software.ks      Install extra software which is not part of standard SL6
sl67-config-icewm.ks        Customize icewm
sl67-doc.ks                 Creates a short documentation in /usr/share/HTML/index.html
sl67-live-NONPAE.ks         Include to build LiveCD running on non-pae capable hardware

The following main kickstart files are available for SL7

sl-71-livecd.ks              kickstart file used for 64-bit SL71 LiveCD
sl-71-livedvd-gnome.ks       kickstart file used for 64-bit SL71 LiveDVD with gnome desktop
sl-71-livedvd-kde.ks         kickstart file used for 64-bit SL71 LiveDVD with kde desktop
sl-71-livedvd-extra.ks       kickstart file used for 64-bit SL71 LiveDVD with gnome desktop and extra packages from EPEL

Modify the kickstart files to fit your needs. For more information about kickstart configuration files see for example http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Kickstart.

To rebuild the SL67 LiveCD, SL67 LiveDVD, and SL67 LiveMiniCD run as root

LANG=C livecd-creator --config=/usr/share/livecd-tools/sl67-livecd-gnome.ks   --fslabel=SL67-LiveCD-i386
LANG=C livecd-creator --config=/usr/share/livecd-tools/sl67-livecd64-gnome.ks --fslabel=SL67-LiveCD-x86_64
LANG=C livecd-creator --config=/usr/share/livecd-tools/sl67-livedvd.ks   --fslabel=SL67-LiveDVD-i386
LANG=C livecd-creator --config=/usr/share/livecd-tools/sl67-livedvd64.ks --fslabel=SL67-LiveDVD-x86_64
LANG=C livecd-creator --config=/usr/share/livecd-tools/sl67-mini_livecd-icewm.ks   --fslabel=SL67-LiveMiniCD-i386
LANG=C livecd-creator --config=/usr/share/livecd-tools/sl67-mini_livecd64-icewm.ks --fslabel=SL67-LiveMiniCD-x86_64

Or just use your own kickstart file

LANG=C livecd-creator --config=sl6-myconfig.ks --fslabel=My-LiveCD

livecd-creator as some more options. See livecd-creator help:

livecd-creator -h

For more information see also


Test the ISO image

You can burn your ISO image to a CD or DVD ROM to test it. However, it is much easier to test it with qemu or vmplayer

Get qemu from rpmforge (http://rpmrepo.org/).

How to run qemu (see man qemu):

qemu -m 1024 -cdrom SL6-LiveCD.iso
qemu -m 1024 -full-screen -cdrom SL6-LiveCD.iso

Escape full screen in qemu with ALT+CTRL+f

Or alternatively you can use VMware Player.




Last modified: Monday, 11-Jan-2016 08:16:32 CET by Urs Beyerle