netboot

Build netboot/webboot files using live-build tooling. My goal in this project is just to have a reference on how to build a minimalist netboot image (near 100MB if possible. Currently a tiny bit over but that little extra does had functionality in the image and a maintained build tools). I kept running into issues with ubuntu's live-build so I've switched to using Debian's. This is why packer is configured to use debian:bookwork as its container. This caused the image to increase in size some (20-30MB) but I'll deal with it later.

What gets built?

• ubuntu 22.04 netboot
  • netplan
    • renderer set to networkd
    • enable any onboard interface (ie en*)
  • systemd
    • systemd-sysv
  • dbus
    • required for systemd to work
  • iproute2
  • less

You can change what you want / need.

Tools needed to build this

• packer
  • docker
• vagrant
• libvirt

Build

• run make

Testing

• run vagrant up
  • attach to the console (hint use virt-manager or configure serial output)

TODO

List of things you might still need to address/fix/add/etc...

• locale error. missing /etc/default/locale
• set ntp client and/or servers
• config management
• sshd
• firmware package
  • will 3x size of generated squashfs image
• linux-modules
  • will 4x size of generated squashfs image
• Custom network drives
• Update netplan config
• Modify Vagrantfile to suit your build/test environment
• dmidecode
• ipmi tooling
  • look at freeipmi