Re: Redhat 8.0 on DVD

From: Vwakes (vwakeNOSPAM100_at_softhome.net)
Date: 07/24/03 

Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 04:08:12 GMT

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 AKPilot wrote:

>Anyone got some instructions that I can use to take the 5 ISO's and put
>them on a single DVD? [...]

Actually there was a link that described exactly how to do this, but it
seems to be dead now. So I am posting the text version of the link. I
checked they are all formatted correct, so in case you need the
original file let me know.

GL
V.

The link:

http://www.rickertweb.com/~justin/linux/Make_RedHat_DVD_From_CDROM.html

+------------------
Begin.

How to make your own RedHat 8.0 DVD from the CD ISO images?

Red Hat has finally created a DVD version of their distribution for US
consumers. (They've had one in Europe for a while, I understand.) For
8.0, though, it seems that you have to buy RedHat 8.0 Professional to
get the DVD, and RedHat is not presently offering an ISO image of the
DVD for download.

After reading some of the anaconda source code, I have figured out how
you can make your own DVD from the CD ISO images. I've done this,
written it to a DVD+RW disc, had it pass its Media check, and
successfully installed from it.

The idea is simple, which is a testament to the flexibility of Red Hat's
installation system. There's a file on the root of each CD called
.discinfo that contains information including which discs' contents are
represented. The CDs each contain only a single number here, but the
installation software will accept a comma-separated list of numbers.
The sequence of commands below will create an ISO image that consists of
the combined contents of the five discs + the documentation disc (in a
docs subdirectory) and is bootable and suitable for being installed
from. If you don't care about docs, omit the docs/=Psyche-docs
argument, and don't bother with the docs ISO. If you don't care about
sources, omit the SRPMS/= arguments and dispense with discs 4 and 5.

These instructions require you to have enough disk space for the
resulting ISO image, but if you have a DVD burner and don't care about
installing the media checksum so that you can test the media from
install (not really that important if you have verified the checksums of
the original images, unless you're concerned about errors resulting from
the actual DVD creation process itself), you can pipe the output of
mkisofs directly to your burning software and not worry about the
intermediate disk space.

So here are the steps. These steps create a DVD image that is usable
from a Unix system. Add the -J and -T flags to the mkisofs command if
you want something that you can read from Windows as well. Add -V
"Label" if you want to create a volume label.

1. Go to a place on your drive with about 3.5 GB free. This is needed
   for the final ISO image only. You'll need a 2.4 kernel to create a
   file > 2 GB. If you're running Red Hat, This works on a 7.1
   system or newer.

2. Create directories on which to mount the ISO images using loop
   device mounts:

    mkdir Psyche-i386-disc{1,2,3,4,5} Psyche-docs

3. Mount the ISO images using a loop device mount:

    mount -o ro,loop .../Psyche-i386-disc1.iso Psyche-i386-disc1
    mount -o ro,loop .../Psyche-i386-disc2.iso Psyche-i386-disc2
    # etc.
     -- repeat for the remaining discs that you want Replace ...
        with the path to your ISO images.

4. Copy the isolinux directory and the .discinfo from disc1 to the
   current directory:

    cp -a Psyche-i386-disc1/isolinux Psyche-i386-disc1/.discinfo .

5. Edit the .discinfo file, replacing the fourth line with 1,2,3,4,5 if
   you are creating an image with all five discs or with 1,2,3 if you
   are just using the three install discs.

6. Create the iso image. I'm separating this mkisofs command into
   multiple lines ending with \ for clarity. You can type it that
   way or as a long command. I explain this command at the end.

     mkisofs -o Psyche-i386-dvd.iso \
      -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat \
      -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
      -R -m TRANS.TBL \
      -x Psyche-i386-disc1/.discinfo -x Psyche-i386-disc1/isolinux \
      -graft-points Psyche-i386-disc1 .discinfo=.discinfo isolinux/=isolinux \
      RedHat/=Psyche-i386-disc2/RedHat RedHat/=Psyche-i386-disc3/RedHat \
      SRPMS/=Psyche-i386-disc3/SRPMS SRPMS/=Psyche-i386-disc4/SRPMS \
      SRPMS/=Psyche-i386-disc5/SRPMS docs/=Psyche-docs

7. (Optional) If you want to create a media checksum for the
   installation software to look at when you do a media test during
   install, then following these additional steps:

     a. Install the anaconda source rpm located on disc5 and cd /usr/src/redhat

     b. Comment out the BuildPreReq line in SPECS/anaconda.spec

     c. Run rpmbuild -bp SPECS/anaconda.spec

     d. Go to BUILD/anaconda-8.0/isomd5sum

     e. Run "make"

     f. Run ./implantisomd5 .../Psyche-i386-dvd.iso (where ... is
         replaced with the path to your new ISO image). This step
         will take several minutes and not provide any feedback while
         it runs.

Now burn the resulting ISO image to a DVD.

Here's the mkisofs command explained:

     # Write the output to Psyche-i386-dvd.iso
      mkisofs -o Psyche-i386-dvd.iso \

      # Set up the DVD to be bootable using an El Torito boot image.
      # This comes from the RELEASE_NOTES file on disc 1.
      -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat \
      -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \

      # Use Rock ridge extensions (to support long file names, etc.).
      # Exclude all TRANS.TBL files on the original disc. If you want
      # to access this disc from Windows, add -J to create Joliet
      # extensions and -T to create new TRANS.TBL files in place of
      # the ones you're omitting.
      -R -m TRANS.TBL \

      # Omit the .discinfo and isolinux files from disc1
      -x Psyche-i386-disc1/.discinfo -x Psyche-i386-disc1/isolinux \

      # Use Psyche-i386-disc1 (minus above exclusions) as the root.
      # Graft the .discinfo and isolinux directories from the current
      # directory to .discinfo and isolinux on the new disc. Also
      # graft in the RedHat and SRPMS directories from the remaining
      # discs. Include the entire contents of the docs disc in the
      # docs subdirectory.
      -graft-points Psyche-i386-disc1 .discinfo=.discinfo isolinux/=isolinux \
      RedHat/=Psyche-i386-disc2/RedHat RedHat/=Psyche-i386-disc3/RedHat \
      SRPMS/=Psyche-i386-disc3/SRPMS SRPMS/=Psyche-i386-disc4/SRPMS \
      SRPMS/=Psyche-i386-disc5/SRPMS docs/=Psyche-docs

+--------------------

End.

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