Catalyst/Stage Creation

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This article is a stub. Please help out by expanding it - how to get started.

This is a guide describing how to create to deployable images for different machines using Catalyst. This can be useful for getting Gentoo running on weaker systems, or for creating specialized flavors of Gentoo.

Build Environment Setup

Install dev-util/catalyst, making sure the iso useflag is set:

root #emerge --ask dev-util/catalyst

Create working directories:

root #mkdir -p /var/tmp/catalyst/builds/default
root #mkdir -p /var/tmp/catalyst/config/stages/

/var/tmp/catalyst/build/default is where the stage3 seed tarball will placed to build a custom stage4.

/var/tmp/catalyst/config/stages is used like /etc/portage to configure Catalyst to use items like package.use and package.accept_keywords.

Note
In this example an x86 Pentium 3 stage4 creation will be used, but this can be easily edited to match the target system.

Preparation

CFLAGS

Edit /usr/share/catalyst/arch/x86.toml to change the default cflags that works best with the target system:

FILE /usr/share/catalyst/x86.tomlx86.toml
[x86.pentium3]
COMMON_FLAGS = "-Os -march=pentium3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CPU_FLAGS_X86 = [ "mmx", "mmxext", "sse",]

This example shows how to set the CPU instructions that the target supports and the use of CFLAGS to lower RAM usage at the cost of some CPU time.

Note
The word after .x86 is the subarch name which will be used later on.

~Arch Packages

To pull in packages from ~x86, it is possible to use the /var/tmp/catalyst/config/stages directory created earlier.

root #mkdir -p /var/tmp/catalyst/config/stages/package.accept_keywords
root #nano /var/tmp/catalyst/config/stages/package.accept_keywords/stage4
FILE /var/tmp/catalyst/config/stages/package.keywords/stage4
sys-kernel/gentoo-sources ~x86

As shown, this works very similarly to adding testing packages in Portage. See /etc/portage/package.accept keywords for further information.

Build Stage1

Prepare Seed

A seed stage3 is needed to build the new stage4 for the target machine. This done by doing the following:

root #cd /var/tmp/catalyst/builds/default

Select the best stage3 for the needs of the target system (in this example stage3-i686-openrc-tar.xz is used.) Stage3 tarballs can be found at https://www.gentoo.org/downloads/mirrors/.

root #wget <URL of file>

Portage Snapshot

Portage snapshots are now handled in git and can be created and updated using:

root #catalyst -s stable

You will see output that states the Gentoo Portage snapshot name and it will look similar to:

FILE catalyst.logOutput example
NOTICE:catalyst:Creating gentoo tree snapshot 0c5fd9cca1edc63e36234b3dc91c46db24647309 from /var/tmp/catalyst/repos/gentoo.git

In this example take note of 0c5fd9cca1edc63e36234b3dc91c46db24647309 as it will be needed for the spec file.

Stage1 Spec File

Many examples of specs files can be found on RELENG Github and it's highly recommended to have at look at them: https://github.com/gentoo/releng/tree/master/releases/specs.

root #cd /var/tmp/catalyst
root #nano stage1-Pentium3-openrc.spec
FILE /var/tmp/catalyst/stage1-Pentium3-openrc.specstage1-Pentium3-openrc.spec
subarch: Pentium3
target: stage1
version_stamp: openrc-@Timestamp@
rel_type: default
profile: default/linux/x86/17.0
snapshot_treeish: 0c5fd9cca1edc63e36234b3dc91c46db24647309
source_subpath: default/stage3-i686-openrc
compression_mode: pixz
update_seed: yes
update_seed_command: --update --deep --newuse @world
portage_confdir: /var/tmp/catalyst/config/stages
portage_prefix: releng

The value of snapshot_treeish is what you noted above when you ran catalyst -s latest. You also see how to set the sub arch.

Now, build the stage1:

root #catalyst -f stage1-Pentium3-openrc.spec
Note
It may be useful to be in the habit of running catalyst -af. The "a" flag tells catalyst to not use the auto-resume point for that stage. This makes sure any changes you've made get picked up. This is especially useful for when you're experimenting and making changes to configuration files. This is different from setting options in /etc/catalyst/catalyst.conf.

Build Stage3

Note
It is not necessary to build stage2 in order to build stage3. Gentoo release engineering does not build stage2, and you should not need to unless you're intentionally building a stage2 as your goal.
root #nano stage3-Pentium3-openrc.spec
FILE /var/tmp/catalyst/stage3-Pentium3-openrc.specstage1-Pentium3-openrc.spec
subarch: pentium3
target: stage3
version_stamp: openrc-@TIMESTAMP@
rel_type: default
profile: default/linux/x86/17.0
snapshot_treeish: 0c5fd9cca1edc63e36234b3dc91c46db24647309
source_subpath: default/stage1-i686-openrc-@TIMESTAMP@
compression_mode: pixz
portage_confdir: /var/tmp/catalyst/stages
portage_prefix: releng

In this stage Catalyst will use the stage1 built earlier to build a full stage3 for the target system.

root #catalyst -f stage3-Pentium3-openrc.spec

Build Stage4

This is the stage where packages and other settings can be applied to the stage tarball. The example of the options available in this stage can be found here .

root #nano stage4-Pentium3-openrc.spec
FILE /var/tmp/catalyst/stage4-Pentium3-openrc.specstage4-Pentium3-openrc.spec
subarch: pentium3
version_stamp: openrc-@TIMESTAMP@
target: stage4
rel_type: default 0c5fd9cca1edc63e36234b3dc91c46db24647309
profile: default/linux/x86/17.0
snapshot_treeish:
source_subpath: default/stage3-pentium3-openrc-@TIMESTAMP@
portage_confdir: /var/tmp/catalyst/config/portage/stages
repos: /var/db/repos/some_overlay

stage4/use:
-qt5
-ipv6
gtk
gtk3

stage4/packages:
        net-misc/dhcpcd
        sys-kernel/gentoo-sources
        sys-devel/llvm
        dev-util/cmake
        app-misc/neofetch
        app-misc/screen
        sys-boot/grub

stage4/rcadd: dbus|default display-manager|default

stage4/empty: /var/cache/distfiles /usr/src/linux

stage4/rm: /root/.bash_history

stage4/fsscript: /path/to/file/fsscript.sh

stage4/root_overlay: /root/stage4-overlay

repos

Allows additional overlays to be added to the stage4 build, this is useful when using ebuilds not part of the default ::gentoo repository. Multiple repositories can be added when separated by spaces.

stage4/packages

This section allows the user to select which extra packages should be added to the tarball to be immediately available post-install. This can greatly speed up deployment time as there is no need to wait for large packages such as LLVM, rust or qtwebengine to compile on the slower systems.

stage4/use

This section allows the setting of global USEFLAGS that are important for the intended purpose of this tarball.

stage4/rcadd

This section puts services into the specified runlevels to be automatically enabled at boot. These are formatted as service|runlevel.

Note
This only works for OpenRC systems. For systemd, you need to use fsscript (see below) to run systemctl enable for the desired services.

stage4/empty

This section lists directories to empty after the build is complete. For example, it can be used to clear /usr/src/linux to save space.

stage4/rm

This section lists files to remove after the build is complete. For example, /root/.bash_history can be cleared.

stage4/fsscript

This is a call to an optional bash script that allows a user to make any changes or tweaks on a system installed using the stage4 tarball. For example:

FILE fsscript.sh
#!/bin/bash

cat > /etc/sysctl.conf <<EOF
vm.swappiness = 10
dev.rtc.max-user-freq=3072
dev.hpet.max-user-freq=3072
EOF

cat > /etc/conf.d/display-manager <<EOF
CHECKVT=7
DISPLAYMANAGER="lightdm"
EOF

cat >> /etc/portage/make.conf <<EOF
ALSA_CARDS="*"
EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--quiet"
CONFIG_PROTECT="protect-owned"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
EOF

# Enable systemd services
systemctl enable lightdm
Systemctl enable NetworkManager

Anything a bash script can do can be made to run on the Gentoo system.

stage4/root_overlay

The root_overlay is a filesystem overlay which is inserted at the end of build (before fsscript runs). This can be used to insert arbitrary files and directories to the build.

First, create the directory specified in stage4/root_overlay:

root #mkdir /root/stage4-overlay

Now any files can be inserted to the build. For example, to edit /etc/fstab, first create the etc directory in the overlay:

root #mkdir /root/stage4-overlay/etc

And create the file:

FILE /root/stage4-overlay/etc/fstab
LABEL=EFI		/boot/efi	vfat		noauto,noatime		0 2
Note
Files in the root_overlay will overwrite any existing files with the same name.

Build

root #catalyst -f stage4-Pentium3-openrc.spec

Once this is finished then the stage4 can be found in /var/tmp/catalyst/builds/default to transfer to the target to be unpacked.


Stub: Instructions on how to unpack/install stage4 tarballs. Probably useful as helpful tips for stage4 builders to pass along to users.

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