RFE: Anaconda ISO configured for network install

[lzap]

I find useful to be able to generate ISO that does not actually carry the container repository payload, just the kickstart with the upstream URL where Anaconda can install from. I actually made a simple shell script that converts an official "netboot" Fedora or RHEL installation ISO into such artifact the other day:

https://github.com/lzap/bootc-mkiso

But this is dirty, I am wondering if there could be a bib switch to disable container payload embeding. When disabled, the upstream URL would be used instead.

[achilleas-k]

I don't know if this is a useful feature to have in BIB. This is quite simple to accomplish with mkksiso from Lorax. All you need is an Anaconda ISO and a kickstart file.

Meanwhile, doing it in BIB would require:

• Pulling the container to inspect it, so that BIB can determine what kind of ISO to make (distro version, repository URLs).
• Downloading RPMs from the repositories defined in the container.
• Throwing away the container because it wont be included in the ISO anyway.
• Building the ISO with the necessary kickstart file.

That first step is where things get weird and wasteful. I'd much rather we supported this in osbuild-composer, where we could have a "net-install" ISO for different types of payloads, including bootc containers.

[lzap]

Understood, I did not know about mkksiso thanks. However, I believe this new kind of ISO would be pretty useful on the console.redhat.com image-builder. And ISO download/extract/wrap operation is something we do not want to do in openshift pods.

Definitely not a priority right know, I just want to discuss this feature with PMs and UX, so I am researching how much work this actually is for BIB. Not sure if this repo is the right place, I want this to be in the hosted image-builder service so it can be leveraged on ConsoleDot. You mention osbuild-composer, so I guess I just asked at the wrong place. Can you move the RFE into that project for me?

Thanks again for your info.

[achilleas-k]

I want this to be in the hosted image-builder service so it can be leveraged on ConsoleDot. You mention osbuild-composer, so I guess I just asked at the wrong place. Can you move the RFE into that project for me?

Yeah, getting this as a feature in osbuild-composer would be the way to go to bring it into the IB service in console-dot. Building pre-configured PXE ISOs is a nice idea for IB and osbuild-composer, I agree.

[ondrejbudai]

I'm not against it, tbh. Yes, we would have to pull the container image and inspect it. But I can imagine a scenario where a user wants both an online and offline ISO, so building both with the same tool sounds quite sane.