4 snf-image-creator is a simple command-line tool for creating OS images. The
5 original media from which the image is created, can be a block device or a
6 regular file that represents a hard disk. Given a media file, snf-image-creator
7 will create a snapshot for it and will run a number of system preparation
8 operations on the snapshot, before the image is created.
13 snf-image-creator works on snapshots of the original media. Any changes made by
14 the program do not affect the original media.
19 Some of the system preparation operations are OS specific. snf-image-creator
20 will use heuristics to detect the OS of the media and determine which
21 operations should perform on it. The main purpose of running them is to:
24 * Clear out sensitive user data (passwords, ssh keys, history files, etc.)
25 * Prepare the guest OS for being deployed on a virtual environment (change
26 device names, remove persistent net rules, etc.)
31 The program can either dump the image file locally or directly upload it to
32 pithos and register it with `okeanos <http://www.okeanos.grnet.gr>`_.
37 The images the program creates are in diskdump format. This is the recommended
38 format for `snf-image <https://code.grnet.gr/projects/snf-image>`_, the Ganeti
39 OS Definition used by `Synnefo <https://code.grnet.gr/projects/synnefo>`_.