The dracut package contains tools to create bootable initramfses for the
Linux kernel. Historically, neither the Container/Dockerfile nor the
Kickstart equivalents of the fedora-toolbox OCI images contained dracut.
The KIWI description of the image was including dracut because it's
listed as a Requires(pre) of the grub2-tools package [1].
Unless someone comes forward and says that they are using Toolbx to hack
on the boot stack, it's better to retain the status quo for the sake of
a smaller image.
Since an RPM's %pre scriptlet is run before a package is installed [2],
it should be safe to remove dracut after the grub2-tools package has
been installed.
[1] https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/grub2
[2] https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/packaging-guidelines/Scriptlets/https://pagure.io/fedora-kiwi-descriptions/pull-request/40
They are currently being pulled in as dependencies of dracut and
grub2-tools respectively. However, since they are explicitly mentioned
in the list of default RPMs on Fedora Silverblue and Workstation [1],
they should be mentioned here too, especially since packages like dracut
and grub2-tools are related to booting the host operating system and
might not be useful in a container.
[1] https://pagure.io/fedora-comps/https://pagure.io/fedora-kiwi-descriptions/pull-request/40
Fedora Silverblue and Workstation, and so the Kickstart equivalent of
the fedora-toolbox OCI image, contain langpacks-en by default. It's
absence leads to a significant difference in the list of RPMs, which is
better to avoid so close to the Fedora 40 final release:
-abattis-cantarell-vf-fonts-0.301-12.fc40.noarch
-default-fonts-core-sans-4.0-12.fc40.noarch
-fonts-filesystem-2.0.5-14.fc40.noarch
-google-noto-fonts-common-20240301-3.fc41.noarch
-google-noto-sans-mono-vf-fonts-20240301-3.fc41.noarch
-google-noto-sans-vf-fonts-20240301-3.fc41.noarch
-google-noto-serif-vf-fonts-20240301-3.fc41.noarch
-hunspell-1.7.2-7.fc40.x86_64
-hunspell-en-0.20201207-9.fc40.noarch
-hunspell-en-GB-0.20201207-9.fc40.noarch
-hunspell-en-US-0.20201207-9.fc40.noarch
-hunspell-filesystem-1.7.2-7.fc40.x86_64
-langpacks-core-en-4.0-12.fc40.noarch
-langpacks-fonts-en-4.0-12.fc40.noarch
-liberation-fonts-common-2.1.5-9.fc40.noarch
-liberation-mono-fonts-2.1.5-9.fc40.noarch
-liberation-sans-fonts-2.1.5-9.fc40.noarch
-liberation-serif-fonts-2.1.5-9.fc40.noarch
-sil-mingzat-fonts-1.100-5.fc40.noarch
The plan is to investigate if Toolbx containers can use some of these
packages from the host. However, that needs to be co-ordinated with the
toolbox(1) binary, and has to be a done in a way that works across a
wide variety of container and host combinations.
Until then, it's safer to retain the status quo.
https://pagure.io/fedora-kiwi-descriptions/pull-request/37
The same change was made to the Kickstart equivalent of the
fedora-toolbox:41 OCI image recently [1].
This is meant to distinguish OCI containers and images that are designed
specifically for Toolbx from others. Toolbx containers are long-lasting
pet containers for interactive command line use, which makes them
substantially different from short-lived containers running services.
Therefore, it can be useful to be able to identify Toolbx containers and
images when generating statistics about Fedora usage.
[1] fedora-kickstarts commit 0d99c64eb2721c5b
https://pagure.io/fedora-kickstarts/c/0d99c64eb2721c5bhttps://pagure.io/fedora-kickstarts/pull-request/1015https://pagure.io/Fedora-Council/tickets/issue/449
The Container/Dockerfile and Kickstart equivalents of the fedora-toolbox
OCI images installed all locale definitions, translations, and weak
dependencies (barring exceptions) [1,2]. In fact, the Containerfile
tried very hard to restore any content that was stripped out by the
fedora base image. Hence, the KIWI descriptions should do the same.
Sometimes, like in the case of the gawk and gawk-all-langpacks RPMs,
skipping weak dependencies also strips out translations.
The Kickstart files did this by decoupling fedora-container-common.ks
from fedora-container-common.ks [3], and this is the KIWI equivalent of
the same change.
The separate 'packages' elements of types 'bootstrap' and 'image' [4]
are no longer needed and have been fused into one. This avoids the need
to specify the 'ignore' child elements separately.
This change has two workarounds that deserve mention.
First, enabling weak dependencies for the packages that used to come
from the ContainerCore profile pulls in systemd, and config.xml
specifies a keytable for all the KIWI descriptions. These two combined
makes KIWI try to set the keymap/keytable using systemd-firstboot(1),
and it fails the build with:
[ INFO ]: Setting up keytable:
[ DEBUG ]: EXEC: [chroot /path/to/image-root systemd-firstboot --help]
[ DEBUG ]: EXEC: [chroot /path/to/image-root systemd-firstboot --keymap=us]
[ DEBUG ]: EXEC: Failed with stderr: Keymap us is not installed.
, stdout: (no output on stdout)
[ ERROR ]: KiwiCommandError: chroot: stderr: Keymap us is not installed.
, stdout: (no output on stdout)
This has been worked around by making the keymaps available during the
image build through the kbd-misc RPM, which is later uninstalled.
Second, KIWI isn't passing the 'ignore' child elements to DNF [5], and
hence they currently have no effect. This has been worked around by
uninstalling the RPMs later.
Some noteworthy changes in the list of RPMs in the fedora-toolbox image
after this change:
...
+gawk-all-langpacks-5.3.0-3.fc40.x86_64
...
-glibc-2.39.9000-5.fc41.i686
-glibc-gconv-extra-2.39.9000-5.fc41.i686
-glibc-minimal-langpack-2.39.9000-5.fc41.x86_64
...
-libgcc-14.0.1-0.8.fc41.i686
...
+python-unversioned-command-3.12.2-2.fc41.noarch
They are all in line with the latest Kickstart equivalent of the image.
[1] https://src.fedoraproject.org/container/fedora-toolboxhttps://github.com/containers/toolbox/tree/main/images/fedora
[2] https://pagure.io/fedora-kickstarts/blob/main/f/fedora-container-toolbox.ks
[3] fedora-kickstarts commit 30f76d387d9e7f5c
https://pagure.io/fedora-kickstarts/c/30f76d387d9e7f5chttps://pagure.io/fedora-kickstarts/pull-request/1002
[4] https://osinside.github.io/kiwi/concept_and_workflow/packages.html
[5] https://github.com/OSInside/kiwi/issues/2499https://pagure.io/fedora-kiwi-descriptions/pull-request/21
Debarshi Ray