Compact, up to date, LiveCD supporting LUKS and ZfsOnLinux

I'm looking for a nice compact LivecD to support a new installation. The Gentoo minimal install CD is about the perfect thing, except it does not support ZFS. The Gentoo LiveDVD does Support both cryptsetup/LUKS and ZFS, but does not have the newest builds (cannot mount an updated ZFS pool from ZfsOnLinux 0.6.2).

Ideally I would be able to use this to install Gentoo onto a machine with bare disks, and also to boot and mount those disks later should the need arise.

arantius

Posted 2013-12-09T22:28:22.770

Reputation: 285

Of course not. I told you you have to install zfs, It is very easy, see the instructions here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ZFS_Installation

– MariusMatutiae – 2013-12-11T14:49:56.397

Sorry, I forgot: the package manager in Arch Linux is pacman. The command to install is sudo pacman -S package_name, the list of packages to install is in the reference above. – MariusMatutiae – 2013-12-11T15:23:11.383

If you are interested, I can later help you modify the install image to include these packages, so that when you burn the image to USB stick you will already have them. – MariusMatutiae – 2013-12-11T15:24:41.360

You said building a custom ISO "may [be] helpful" not, "you must build a custom ISO to add ZFS support". P.S. these comments are threaded in the wrong place. – arantius – 2013-12-12T15:27:46.173

In fact, you do not have to. You may install those commands every time you need them. Or, if you use them very often, you may build a custom ISO. What do you mean by threaded in the wrong place? – MariusMatutiae – 2013-12-12T16:15:21.627

Answers

I ended up figuring out how to build a Gentoo install CD with ZFS support added: http://linux.arantius.com/building-a-gentoo-minimal-livecd-with-zfs-support

This meant finding the Gentoo "releng" project, and updating it to add the ZFS tools and modules into the build: https://github.com/arantius/gentoo-releng/compare/master...zfs

arantius

Posted 2013-12-09T22:28:22.770

Reputation: 285

Why not try Arch Linux? It definitely has support for zfs and LUKS. You can find relevant installation information in the Installation Guide Wiki, which has links to (among many other things) disk encryption and file systems, where you find confirmation of support for both LUKS and zfs. Also, this being Arch Linux, it is usually the first distro to get the new builds. Lastly, it has clear instructions on how to build a custom iso, which you may find helpful, given your rather specific demands.

MariusMatutiae

Posted 2013-12-09T22:28:22.770

Reputation: 41 321

I've downloaded and booted archlinux-2013.12.01-dual.iso in a virtual machine, and neither the zpool nor zfs commands exist. – arantius – 2013-12-11T01:01:01.797