# Custom install disc too big!



## MMacD (Mar 10, 2016)

Because release engineering didn't think to include a *copies=2* option in their 10.2 install-to-ZFS choice, and I didn't want to commit 2 drives for a hardware mirror but did want some anti-bitrot redundancy, I decided to edit the installer's procedure file. 

But after editing --only a dozen lines in 1 file; a 1 KB difference in filesize-- the ISO I tried to build using ImgBurn would have taken, regardless of format (9660, +Joliet, UDF) 900+ MB!  That really puzzles me since the original ISO fits on a CD, and I can't imagine where the bloat could have come from.

Any ideas?


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## tobik@ (Mar 15, 2016)

Try to use the release(7) framework if you want to create an install disc with a modified installer.


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## sidetone (Jun 3, 2016)

How would I copy custom /etc/ configuration files to a custom disc, using the release(7) procedure? In /usr/src/release/, there is release.sh and release.conf.sample, but I don't see where custom configuration files can go. Custom files can be added in later using compression of configuration files extracted into /etc/ and other directories. There is another way to build a custom disc, by copying contents on an install cd, with care to not change file permissions, then using mkisofs(8) to put the contents back on a cd.

So to do this, would I first create the custom iso with release(7) to have my custom world and kernel build, then extract this .iso to edit /etc/ configuration files with care not to change the file and directory permissions, then use mkisofs(8) to turn it back into an .iso file? Editing /etc/ configuration files on the iso, is on the premise that this directory of the cd is copied into the harddisk during cd installation.


There was also a completely separate way to make snapshot backups with mksnap_ffs(8) and dump(8), which could copy the installed directories and files of the running operating system. I supposed, to do this would require backing up all files and directories of a newly installed system, then creating the partitions and filesystems on a harddisk, if they weren't already there, then dumping the contents of the medium to the newly created filesystem, to have a working operating system?


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