Creating a Bootable SLES Installation DVD (Containing a Service Pack)

Novell Cool Solutions: Feature
By Kirk Coombs

Posted: 3 Nov 2005

Applies To

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Overview

Installing SLES, especially when using a service pack, requires many CDs and a lot of CD swapping. A common question from system administrators is how to generate an installation DVD that contains the latest service pack so installs can be done from a single disk. This article answers this question.

The process is simple: Generate a network installation repository, either manually or with the help of a YaST module, fix some symbolic link issues, and generate a bootable DVD image with the mkisofs command.

Creating the Repository

Creating a network installation repository is quite simple. Follow the instructions in one of the following articles to build the repository:

• Creating a SLES Installation Repository with the YaST Installation Server Module

• Manually Create A Network Installation Source For SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SP1
  

The example in this article will use the repository generated with YaST. Whichever method is used, the DVD building process is the same.

Note: Remember is that a single-layer DVD is limited to 4.3 GB. There is not enough room on the disk if the SLES sources (CDs 5 & 6) are included.

After generating a repository with SP2 integrated you should have a directory structure similar to the following, with a size of about 3.7GB:

/home/user/installation/sles:

lrwxrwxrwx boot -> SUSE-SLES-Version-9/CD1/boot
lrwxrwxrwx content -> SUSE-SLES-Version-9/CD1/content
lrwxrwxrwx control.xml -> SUSE-SLES-Version-9/CD1/control.xml
lrwxrwxrwx driverupdate -> SUSE-SLES-9-Service-Pack-Version-2/CD1/driverupdate
lrwxrwxrwx linux -> SUSE-SLES-9-Service-Pack-Version-2/CD1/linux
lrwxrwxrwx media.1 -> SUSE-SLES-Version-9/CD1/media.1
drwxr-xr-x SUSE-CORE-Version-9
drwxr-xr-x SUSE-SLES-9-Service-Pack-Version-2
drwxr-xr-x SUSE-SLES-Version-9
drwxr-xr-x yast

You are now ready to begin generating the DVD.

Generating the DVD

Generate the DVD with the following steps:

1. Fix the boot symbolic link. SLES uses a system called ISOLINUX to boot from a CD/DVD and pass control on to a regular kernel. All components of this system reside in boot/loader which is actually SUSE-SLES-Version-9/CD1/boot/loader, when the symbolic link is followed. The ISOLINUX system is not able to follow this link and will fail if the link is not removed:
   

   # cd /home/user/installation/sles
   
   # rm boot
   
   # cp -r SUSE-SLES-Version-9/CD1/boot .
   

   Note: It is important to leave all the other links intact. If the links are removed, either directly or with a mkisofs flag, the DVD will not be functional.

2. Generate the DVD file system. The DVD file system is simply generated with the mkisofs command:

   # mkisofs -V SLES9_SP2 -r -J -l -L -iso-level 4 -P "SUSE Linux AG" \
   -b boot/loader/isolinux.bin -c boot/loader/boot.cat -no-emul-boot \
   -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -graft-points -o /home/user/SLES9_SP2_DVD.iso \
   /home/user/installation/sles
   
   mkisofs: The option '-L' is reserved by POSIX.1-2001.
   mkisofs: The option '-L' means 'follow all symbolic links'.
   mkisofs: Mkisofs-2.02 will introduce POSIX semantics for '-L'.
   mkisofs: Use -allow-leading-dots in future to get old mkisofs behavior.
   mkisofs: The option '-P' is reserved by POSIX.1-2001.
   mkisofs: The option '-P' means 'do not follow symbolic links'.
   mkisofs: Mkisofs-2.02 will introduce POSIX semantics for '-P'.
   mkisofs: Use -publisher in future to get old mkisofs behavior.
   Warning: creating filesystem that does not conform to ISO-9660.
   Warning: Creating ISO-9660:1999 (version 2) filesystem.
   Warning: ISO-9660 filenames longer than 31 may cause buffer overflows in the OS.
   Size of boot image is 4 sectors -> No emulation
    0.25% done, estimate finish Fri Oct 28 14:04:03 2005
    0.50% done, estimate finish Fri Oct 28 14:04:03 2005
   <--snip-->
    99.68% done, estimate finish Fri Oct 28 14:09:33 2005
    99.93% done, estimate finish Fri Oct 28 14:09:34 2005
   Total translation table size: 2048
   Total rockridge attributes bytes: 528877
   Total directory bytes: 1124352
   Path table size(bytes): 2610
   Max brk space used 3d6000
   1991331 extents written (3889 MB)
   

   An explanation of the flags:
   

   Flag	Explanation
   -V	Sets the volume name for the disk.
   -r	Generates Rock-Ridge extensions, preserving UNIX file attributes.
   -J	Generates Joliet extensions, ensuring Windows compatibility.
   -l	Allow full 31-character file names.
   -L	Allows leading dots in file names
   -iso-level 4	If the repository was generated with the YaST module then some file names will exceed 31 characters. This flag creates a non-standard ISO-9660 file system that allows more than 31 characters. This may be a problem on some systems but generally works. If there are problems with using this option either generate the repository manually or rename the root directories (SUSE-SLES-Version-9, SUSE-SLES-9-Service-Pack-Version-2, SUSE-CORE-Version-9) to something shorter and modify the yast/order and yast/instorder files to match.
   -P	Specify the disk publisher.
   -b, -c, -no-emul-boot, -boot-load-size, -boot-info-table	Flags needed by the ISOLINUX boot system.
   -graft-points	Allow the use of graft points for file names.
   -o	Output file.

3. Burn the image to a DVD. The DVD ISO image can easily be burned to a DVD with the growisofs command:

   # cd /home/user
   
   # growisofs -Z /dev/dvdrecorder=SLES9_SP2_DVD.iso
   

   The -Z flag specifies that a new session should be started.