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How to edit a Fedora Live image file

metaylor
metaylor Posts: 17
in Fedora

I am looking for instructions on how to edit an ISO 9660 CD-ROM filesystem image file.

I have created in fedora 12 image. Now I want to modify some files in the /etc directory. Because of some other issues related to creating a new image, I decided to investigate how to change the image I have been using.

I have tried the manual approach using the following command

mount -o loop F12-R02-ipdt1.20.1.0-live.iso /editiso/

Then I executed the ll command looking for the /etc directory. Here is the output of the command

dr-xr-xr-x. 3 root root 2048 2010-03-18 13:42 EFI

-r-xr-xr-x. 1 root root 679 2010-03-18 13:42 etc

-r--r--r--. 1 root root 18363 2010-03-18 13:42 GPL

dr-xr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 2010-03-18 13:42 ipdt - (this folder contains my customized utility)

dr-xr-xr-x. 2 root root 2048 2010-03-18 13:42 isolinux

-r-xr-xr-x. 1 root root 1351056 2010-03-18 13:42 lib

dr-xr-xr-x. 2 root root 2048 2010-03-18 13:43 LiveOS

So my question is which of these contains the /etc directory? I see there is a etc file but I was expecting to see the /etc directory. :unsure:

This is an urgent need so any assistance is greatly appreciated,

Comments

  • Goineasy9
    Goineasy9 Posts: 1,114
    I have never had to open up a Live CD image before, but I have two links that you might find helpful. The IBM link is a bit old but it has within it many other links where you might find the information your looking for.

    http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-fedora-livecd/?S_TACT=105AGX03&S_CMP=LP

    http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD
  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    Here are a few items that make your task overly painful.
    1. An ISO image is a read only image.
    2. the contents of the resulting /etc/ directory are actually the contents of multiple packages
    3. to modify the files you want, you would need to modify the packages themselves then re-package them before rebuilding the ISO image.

    The simplest method in my opinion would be to build a script to be downloaded and run after a a base install that would modify or replace the chosen files.
  • metaylor
    metaylor Posts: 17
    Yes, I have been using fedora livecd for about a year and I used it to create this image. However, the image I created with the modified files in the /etc directory worked on 5 of the 6 computers where I use livecd. On one computer, there was an issue in which the Gnome Desktop did not launch at boot up. I could not resolve this issue so I decided to investigate whether there is a method to change the working image.

    I did see that the ISO image is a read only image. I also found the etc directory located in the LiveOS/squashfs.img file.

    I mounted this file and copied the etc directory to another one which has read/write access. But as mfillpot stated, this is painful as now I have to figure out how to get the updated/modified etc back into the image.

    thanks for the replies

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