HowTo Build NST 2.13.0

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General

This document describes the steps involved in building the NST distribution from the source. This document is written against the state of the NST v2.12.0 source code repository as of 2009-12-09. Things will undoubtedly change in the future - but the basic principles should still hold.

Building a NST system from the source is not a trivial process (expect to invest time and resources). However, building your own NST system from the ground allows you to produce a customized build.

Requirements

In order to build the NST v2.12.0 release, you will need:

  • A Fedora 12 based OS installation matching the NST target build. For example, to build a 64 bit version of the NST, you will need to start with a 64 bit Fedora based OS installation.
  • Access to the root account on the build system.
  • At least 10GB of available free disk space.
  • The understanding that the process of building the NST will modify the software and configuration of your build system.
  • Broadband Internet access as the initial build process will pull several gigabytes of information down from the Internet.

Recommendations

The general recommendations for a NST build system are as follows:

  • Dedicate a machine or virtual machine for the single purpose of building the NST ISO. Since the NST build runs as root and modifies the OS installation, you should NOT use a production machine as your NST build machine.
  • We recommend allocating 40GB of storage and 1GB of RAM when creating a NST build machine.
  • We have used both VMware and VirtualBox to create NST build machines. Using the virtual machine approach increases the build time, but makes life much more convenient in the long run (you can use one physical machine to build both a 32

Starting From A Fedora 12 Live Boot

The following outlines the steps for bringing up a NST development system starting from a Fedora 12 Live ISO image.

Install and Update Fedora 12

Download ISO

Download the Fedora 12 ISO image from Fedora's web site (http://fedoraproject.org/). Important: Make sure you download either the 32 bit (i686) or 64 bit (x86_64) version of the Fedora Desktop Live Media (match the version of the NST you plan to build).

Install OS

  • Boot the Fedora 12 ISO image.
  • If you simply wait, you should eventually see a desktop with a Install To Hard Drive icon.
  • Double click on the Install To Hard Drive icon.
  • Install the system making sure you have at least 12GB of free space remaining for the NST build (at a minimum allocate at least 20GB of disk for the system).
  • After the installation completes, Shutdown the system and remove the DVD (in a virtual environment, you will disconnect the ISO image).
  • Boot the system and follow the instructions to complete the installation.

NOTE: You will not be able to log into the GNOME desktop as the root user. If you would like to be able to do this (you will need to be root when building the NST), you will need to edit the file: /etc/pam.d/gdm.conf'.

Find the line: 

auth        required    pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet

Comment out the line by inserting a '#' character: 

#auth        required    pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet

You will need to restart the gdm process (or reboot your system) for the change to take affect.


Update OS

When building the active (trunk) version of the NST (2.12.0 is the active version at the time of this writing), you will want to keep your system up to date with the latest packages. This can be done with the following command: 

yum update all

You will need to reboot after this initial update as it is more than likely that your kernel was updated.

Install Virtual Machine Guest Additions

If your NST is running under a virtual environment such as VMware or VirtualBox, you will want to install the appropriate guest additions for your virtual environment.

VirtualBox

If you are using VirtualBox, follow these steps:

  • Install the following packages that are necessary to build the kernel modules:
yum install gcc kernel-devel
  • From the Devices menu of VirtualBox, click on the Install Guest Additions options. If things go well, a virtual CD will appear on your GNOME desktop.
  • Open a terminal window and login as root.
  • Copy the contents of the CD to a temporary directory, run the installation script, and then remove the temporary directory:

VMware

It is recommended to hold off installing the VMware tools at this point in time (unless you have easy access to them).

Once you complete the building of the NST, you will be able to install the open-vm-tools package from your build to install the guest additions.


Add Base Packages

To check out the NST source code, you will need the subversion package installed on your system: 

yum install subversion

Checkout NST Source Code

Configure/Install Additional NST Source Code

Configure

Build ISO

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