Building a live ISO

How to build a live ISO for running diskless clients

Building a live ISO:

You can create a live ISO using two FAI commands. First, you need to build your own live environment, containing all software including configuration that you like to use. Using the command "fai dirinstall" you do an installation using the FAI config space into a directory which will become your live system. After that you create a bootable ISO which includes this directory tree using fai-cd.

  Define the FAI classes:

  cl="DEBIAN,BOOKWORM64,AMD64,FAIBASE,XFCE,XORG,DHCPC,DEMO,LIVEISO,LAST"

  Build the live environment directory tree:

    # LC_ALL=C fai -v dirinstall -u xfce33 -c $cl -s file:///srv/fai/config /srv/xfce

  Then create the live ISO:

    # fai-cd -s500 -MH -d none -g /etc/fai/grub.cfg.live -n /srv/xfce live.iso

That's it. Now, boot your client.

Hint: The FAI nfsroot is not needed when building a live ISO.

Tip for beginners: Using the FAIme web service https://fai-project.org/FAIme/live/ you can create your own customized live ISO without setting up an FAI server.

You can download an ISO image, for and example of this Live CD https://fai-project.org/fai-cd/debian12-live-xfce.iso