API

In addition to livecd-creator itself, the livecd-creator package
provides a python API for building your own, other types of images.
This API could also be used to build on top of the live image
functionality.

== Image Creation Frontends ==

livecd-creator and image-creator are both frontends for creating
images.  But really, it's straight-forward to build your own which
deals with your own specific needs.  To do so, you'll want to do
the following:

* Create a pykickstart handler object.  All of the image creators are
driven by data stored in pykickstart handlers.
* Then, instantiate a creator
    creator = ImageCreator(ks, name)
  where ks is your pykickstart object and name is the label/name you
  want for the image.
* With the image, you can either do everything in one-shot with
    creator.create()
  or call the steps of creator.create() itself.  The latter lets you add
  an interactive shell step if you want as well as a few other
  options.  The order, though, is
    creator.mount()
    creator.install()
    creator.configure()
    creator.unmount()
    creator.package()

  Other available methods are
    * creator.launch_shell(): This launches a root shell within the
      install root
    * creator.cleanup(): Tear down the image.  Note that this also
      occurs when the image object is deleted
 

== Image Creator Backends ==

The basic idea is that there are (presently) 3 main classes used to
implement different types of images.  No matter which you use, the
interface should be largely the same.  This means that, eg,
livecd-creator _could_ generate other types of outputs just by
switching from the LiveImageCreator to another ImageCreator object.

* ImageCreator: This is the guts of what most image creators will
  need to use.  It provides all of the bits to handle a kickstart
  config, install packages into an install root, etc.  It leaves
  a number of hook methods which maybe be implemented by more specific
  creators:
   i) _mount_instroot(self): This method is where your filesystems
   should get mounted.  The root of your filesystem tree should be
   located at self._instroot
   ii) _unmount_instroot(self): This method is called to undo
   _mount_instroot() basically.
   iii) _create_bootconfig(self): Set up anything needed for your
   image to boot.  This could involve creating an initramfs, writing a
   bootloader configuration, etc.  The filesystem is still mounted at
   self._instroot at this point.  Note that this could be a no-op.
   iv) _stage_final_image(self): Do whatever is needed to make your
   image "consumable" and copy it to self._outdir.  eg, for live CDs,
   this is where we generate the iso images.  Note that this could be
   a no-op.

  Other hooks are available to subclasses, as well as a number of
  helper methods which can be used in implementing the hooks. See
  the inline docstrings for more details.

  Overriding other methods is not supported or guaranteed to continue
  to give consistent results over time.

* LoopImageCreator: This generates ext3 images in a loopback file
  which could then later be booted in a virtual machine environment.
  NOTE: this does nothing to set up booting

* LiveImageCreator: This builds on top of the LoopImageCreator to
  build live images which use dm-snapshot, etc.  This is what is used
  by livecd-creator.