On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 12:36 -0400, Kartik Subbarao wrote: > I've come up with the following kickstart config (see below) for > deploying a minimal CentOS 6 VM. It takes about 460MB. I'm assuming that > all of the -firmware RPMs aren't needed for a VM installation, so I > removed them. Also removed as many selinux packages as possible since I > don't need that. > > I was wondering whether anyone could offer any further suggestions on > minimizing the disk usage of the VM image. > ... > > ======== > > ... > rootpw admin123 I use the --iscrypted option so people can't easily see my default root password. An easy method of viewing the command is looking at /root/anaconda-ks.cfg (at least it was in 5) after install. For setting unique initial root passwords, there is a method for creating it on the command line. > ... > # Repositories > url --url="http://mirrors.kernel.org/centos/6.0/os/x86_64/"; > Shouldn't we encourage the creation of a local mirror? Installs are much faster. Also, with local mirrors, you can snapshot the repo. This allows for testing updates before pushing them to your live servers. > ... I create ks files for many of my CentOS and CentOS derived (Elastix) boxes. Backups take less space when you only save data. Routers are great for this as they rarely change (except possibly for firewall rules). With PXE boot, I can rebuild a router in 10 minutes. Also handy if the router hardware fails (I'm using old PCs). An on-site user without any Linux knowledge can install a replacement router (or re-install an existing router if it is suspected to be compromised) in little time. As long as the ks file is used as the master configuration where changes are made and the router re-installed to make them active, you don't get into a position where a change is lost if the hardware fails. _______________________________________________ CentOS-virt mailing list CentOS-virt@xxxxxxxxxx http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-virt
