Adding a Package to the Setup File

The following instructions illustrate how to add the vim package file to the myImage-1.1.1 setup file:

Adding a Package to a Custom File

The following instructions illustrate how to add the vim package to a file with the same syntax as the setup file:

Extending Images with Non-Standard Packages

The following instructions illustrate how to add an alternate vim package (that is, a vim package not included with Novell Linux Point of Service CD set) to myImage-1.1.1:

Extending an Image with Unpackaged Software

The following instructions illustrate how to add software not packaged into an RPM package to myImage-1.1.1:

Setting the Time Zone

Time zones are set in the config file.

timezone:relative_path_to_time_zone

All time zone definitions are located in the /usr/share/zoneinfo directory. To specify which time zone you want to use in the image, enter the relative path to a specific time zone definition. For example, timezone:US/Mountain. The ImageBuilder uses this information to extract the corresponding time zone from the timezone package. The time zone value is then stored as /etc/localtime in the image.

For more information on the config file, see Section 8.2.1, Image Description Tree.

Including Fixed Configuration Files

A fixed configuration is a configuration file that provides information for a service that is hardware independent. Fixed configuration files are stored in the Image Description Tree under the files-user subdirectory.

The following instructions illustrate how to add the fixed configuration file, /etc/sysconfig/hotplug, to the Image Description Tree, /opt/SLES/POS/system/myImage-1.1.1/:

The file tree within files-user is completely copied to the image when it is generated. For more information on the files-user directory, see Section 8.2.1, Image Description Tree

Using Data Images to Manage External Configuration Files

A data-only image is an ext2 image file that contains only a copy of the Image Description Tree starting at the given directory. This kind of image cannot be used as operating system or boot image. However, it can be used to add external configuration files to a Point of Service terminal.

If a disk-based system is booting and the IMAGE parameter in the config.MAC_address file includes an additional data image that will be downloaded to a /dev/ramx device, the data contents are automatically included into the system. If a data image is downloaded into a partition on the disk, the data is available at the mount point referring to the contents of the PART variable.

The advantage of using data images to add external configuration files to a Point of Service terminal is that the data image is controlled in the same way as the client image. This means you can manage the configuration files independent of the client image.

The following instructions illustrate how to manage external configuration files with a data image:

With the data image listed as an IMAGE entry in the config.MAC_address file, the data image contents are copied to the Point of Service terminal after the data image has been downloaded to /dev/ram2.

To update the data image on the Point of Service terminal, you must perform the following:

Enabling DMA on Point of Service Terminal CD Drives

Setting up a Direct Memory Access (DMA) channel for the CD drive on your Point of Service terminals speeds up the process of booting and loading an image from CD. The CDBoot image template provided with Novell Linux Point of Service includes the RPM package (hdparm) required to enable DMA so that the DMA channel is configured when the terminal boots from CD. However, if you would like DMA to be enabled beyond the initial install, you must add the DMA feature to the client image.

To add DMA functionality to a client image:

Activating and Deactivating System Services

System services are activated or deactivated in the config.system file by using the insserv command to set or remove links.

To activate a service, add the following call to the config.system file:

sbin/insserv /etc/init.d/service

To deactivate a service, add the following call to the config.system file:

sbin/insserv -r /etc/init.d/service

For more information on the config.system file, see Section 8.2.1, Image Description Tree.

Writing Post-Install Scripts

A Post-install script is always bound to a package from the setup file and is usually used to remove items from the package that are not needed for the image. This type of script must have the same name as the corresponding package and is stored in the script directory of the Image Description Tree (opt/SLES/POS/system/image_name-version/script/). The script itself is called within the image environment, which means it is not possible to damage the host system with your script even if you are using absolute paths.

A Post-install script uses the following format:

#!/bin/sh
echo -n "Image [image_name_version]..."
test -f /.profile \&\& . /.profile

... script code

echo done

image_name-version is the name of the image to which this script belongs.

For more information on the script directory, see Section 8.2.1, Image Description Tree.