Consider upgrading to current live-build (#5691) · Issues · tails / tails

Consider upgrading to current live-build

Originally created by Tails on #5691 (Redmine)

We use a slightly modified live-build 2.x to build Tails: https://git.tails.boum.org/live-build.
That package is installed in the Vagrant build box, so that’s invisible to developers, and does not require them to take any special action.

Next thing to do is to decide if we go for upgrading live-build, on the longer term, or something else.

If we go with current live-build:

compare the resulting packages list with Tails images built with live-build 2.x (the tasks support was removed, so we could lack a few standard priority packages)
review all our lb config options, and make sure they are still valid and taking effect
fix the resulting images file naming
patch and/or overlay syslinux config to bring back our preferences that lb 3.x does not support directly anymore (see commit 3458797)
see what breaks, report bugs upstream and possibly fix them.

Benefits from recent live-build improvements:

new contributors can find the relevant live-build doc (sysadmin#12296)
inject variables through config/environment.chroot into the chroot environment (note: environment.binary is broken for us, and environemnt.chroot can’t be used for variables whose value contains spaces)
use --firmware-chroot true instead of manually listing all firmware packages (not usable for us, see commit 3dee0470)
save more disk space at build time (#5940 (closed))
the configuration tree is bind-mounted on /root/config in the chroot, and available for hooks
XXX: any other useful changes since the 3.x era?

Cons of upgrading to current live-build:

It requires lots of work.
basically all configuration files were renamed, which makes it a pain to migrate our many branches; same for a bunch of command-line switches; this will make the branch painful to review and more importantly, will make it much harder to look up stuff in the Git history of our code base

Feature Branch: feature/live-build-3.x

Related issues

Related to #5570 (closed)
Related to #12146 (closed)
Related to #15477 (closed)
Related to #15349
Related to sysadmin#12296
Copied to #7217 (closed)

_Originally created by Tails on [#5691 (Redmine)](https://public-redmine-archive.tails.boum.org/code/issues/5691)_

We use a slightly modified live-build 2.x to build Tails:
<https://git.tails.boum.org/live-build>.  
That package is installed in the Vagrant build box, so that’s invisible
to developers, and does not require them to take any special action.

Next thing to do is to decide if we go for upgrading live-build, on the
longer term, or something else.

If we go with current live-build:

1.  compare the resulting packages list with Tails images built with
    live-build 2.x (the tasks support was removed, so we could lack a
    few standard priority packages)
2.  review all our lb config options, and make sure they are still valid
    and taking effect
3.  fix the resulting images file naming
4.  patch and/or overlay syslinux config to bring back our preferences
    that lb 3.x does not support directly anymore (see commit 3458797)
5.  see what breaks, report bugs upstream and possibly fix them.

Benefits from recent live-build improvements:

- new contributors can find the relevant live-build doc (tails/sysadmin#12296)
  - inject variables through `config/environment.chroot` into the chroot
    environment (note: `environment.binary` is broken for us, and
    `environemnt.chroot` can’t be used for variables whose value
    contains spaces)
  - use `--firmware-chroot true` instead of manually listing all
    firmware packages (not usable for us, see commit 3dee0470)
  - save more disk space at build time (tails/tails#5940)
  - the configuration tree is bind-mounted on `/root/config` in the
    chroot, and available for hooks
  - XXX: any other useful changes since the 3.x era?

Cons of upgrading to current live-build:

- It requires lots of work.
  - basically all configuration files were renamed, which makes it a
    pain to migrate our many branches; same for a bunch of command-line
    switches; this will make the branch painful to review and more
    importantly, will make it much harder to look up stuff in the Git
    history of our code base

Feature Branch: feature/live-build-3.x

### Related issues

- **Related to** tails/tails#5570
  - **Related to** tails/tails#12146
  - **Related to** tails/tails#15477
  - **Related to** tails/tails#15349
  - **Related to** tails/sysadmin#12296
  - **Copied to** tails/tails#7217

Edited May 19, 2020 by import-from-Redmine

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