Paranoid Penguin - Customizing Linux Live CDs, Part I
You've now got the basic technique for customizing an Ubuntu live CD. Although I didn't go into much depth showing actual customizations beyond removing and adding packages, I'll continue this series next time with detailed guidance on bundling and preconfiguring specific security tools into your live CD.
Until then, have fun experimenting with live CDs, and of course, be safe!
Appendix
Here's the complete procedure, in the form of a raw list of all commands described in this article. The $ prompt indicates commands executed as an unprivileged user, and the # prompt shows commands that are executed by root.
00-$ dd if=/dev/cdrom of=./ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso
01-$ mkdir -p ./isomount ./isonew/squashfs ./isonew/cd
↪./isonew/custom
02-$ sudo mount -o loop ./ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso ./isomount/
03-$ rsync --exclude=/casper/filesystem.squashfs -a ./isomount/
↪./isonew/cd
04-$ sudo modprobe squashfs
05-$ sudo mount -t squashfs -o loop
↪./isomount/casper/filesystem.squashfs ./isonew/squashfs/
06-$ sudo rsync -a ./isonew/squashfs/ ./isonew/custom
07-$ sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf /etc/hosts ./isonew/custom/etc/
08-$ sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list ./isonew/custom/etc/apt/
09-$ sudo chroot ./isonew/custom
10-# mount -t proc none /proc/
11-# mount -t sysfs none /sys/
12-# export HOME=/root
13-# apt-get remove --purge `dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Package}\n'
↪|grep openoffice`
14-# apt-get remove --purge `dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Package}\n'
↪|grep gimp`
15-# apt-get update
16-# apt-get install tor privoxy
17-# apt-get dist-upgrade
18-# apt-get clean
19-# rm -rf /tmp/*
20-# umount /proc/
21-# umount /sys/
22-# exit
23-$ chmod +w ./isonew/cd/casper/filesystem.manifest
24-$ sudo chroot ./isonew/custom dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Package}
↪${Version}\n' > ./isonew/cd/casper/filesystem.manifest
25-$ sudo cp ./isonew/cd/casper/filesystem.manifest
↪./isonew/cd/casper/filesystem.manifest-desktop
26-$ sudo mksquashfs ./isonew/custom
↪./isonew/cd/casper/filesystem.squashfs
27-$ sudo rm ./isonew/cd/md5sum.txt
28-$ sudo -s
29-# cd ./isonew/cd
30-# find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 md5sum > md5sum.txt
31-# exit
32-$ cd ./isonew/cd
33-$ sudo mkisofs -r -V "Ubuntu-Live-PrivateSurf" -b
↪isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -cache-inodes -J -l
↪-no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o
↪~/Ubuntu-Live-7.10-PrivateSurf.iso .
Resources
Debuntu.org's “Customize Your Ubuntu Live CD” Tutorial: www.debuntu.org/how-to-customize-your-ubuntu-live-cd
Jeffery Douglas Waddel's “Secure Boot CDs for VPN HOWTO”: www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Secure-BootCD-VPN-HOWTO.html
Daniel Barlow's “Building Your Own Live CD”: www.linuxjournal.com/article/7246
Mick Bauer (darth.elmo@wiremonkeys.org) is Network Security Architect for one of the US's largest banks. He is the author of the O'Reilly book Linux Server Security, 2nd edition (formerly called Building Secure Servers With Linux), an occasional presenter at information security conferences and composer of the “Network Engineering Polka”.
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Comments
From CD ISO to DVD ISO?
If adding too much software to fit on a CD ISO image, is this approach suitable to simply burning the resulting image on a DVD instead?