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How to Customize the ISO
Hey I have finally finished desiging my companies site on our development server. now I would like to copy the apache files and the MySQL database files over to the tkl joomla ISO that I can mail the final copy to my server room on the other side of the US. how do I add replace the files in the install with my server files so that I can mail them a streamlined install that all they have to do is boot from the disk install and our site is installed?
Replies (6)
Not sure, planned TKL backup and migration should do it
Reply 1You could also use tkl-patch
Reply 2You could also use tkl-patch just like you were building an appliance.
where can I get the TKL
Reply 3where can I get the TKL patch?
Read the docs
Reply 4Read the docs here /docs/tklpatch
I guess I just have TKLPatch
Reply 5I guess I just have TKLPatch on my brain! But I do like your idea of just converting it to a virtual image and distributing it that way, especially if it was already set up in a virtual environment.
TKL Patch did cross my mind
Reply 6But I was thinking it may be pretty painful trying to work out what data needs to be included and what doesn't. That is unless of course you know exactly what needs to go in, but in that case wouldn't a simple rsync or archive (tar.gz) be as easy as anything else?
I guess you could include pretty much everything as an overlay although you'll still need to dump the database and load it in the new instance (I guess you could script that into the TKLPatch conf file easily enough though). If you did a diff of the system against a clean install of the same TKL appliance (with the same updates etc) then you could work out what was missing and/or changed. I'm sure it'd work but unless I'm missing something, wouldn't you need to pretty much redo your setup from scratch (which unless you took detailed build notes as you were making it may require basically starting again?) My original suggestions were aimed at not needing to disect your current install. I guess it all depends on how much you have customised it.
OTOH if you know what you need to include then TKLPatch to produce your ISO is probably a good way to go! Especially for the end users on the other end. Not much easier than an ISO with everything setup ready to go!
A further possibility (although again a little convoluted - but probably better than my other suggestions) is to convert your machine to a VM image using VMware convertor then use Liraz' instructions here to convert to ISO (unless they're happy with VM image).
But obviously that's not available yet.
If you can't wait, then you could try RemasterSys and assuming the total HDD used is less than 4GB it should work using the 'backup' mode. I've only used in in 'distro' mode on desktop systems (which works really well) but it should do what you want. I'd test the ISO in a VM first though to make sure the database works. I'd imagine it'd work but not 100% sure, you may need to dump the database and then load it on your new system after install.
Another option may be to create an image using Clonzilla. This solution is probably a bit messier but should work fine. I have found though the images won't always load nicely onto a new HDD unless the HDD have very similar partitions. If you plan this route then try shrinking your original partition prior to taking the image (I use a Live Ubuntu desktop on USB with GParted installed for this job). On the new PC, a partition which is as large as you want (min size = shrunk partition that was imaged) will need to be pre-created (again live Ubuntu desktop USB is nice). Then once 'recovered' to the new machine you will need to repair the partition table (otherwise the new install will think that it's the same size as the original shrunk partition and will not use all space available). Again I use GParted from my Ubuntu desktop USB.