Make installation process offline

[pkoscik]

I think it would be nice if the installation process could be performed offline.

I have no idea how to go about this, probably downloading non-netinstall Debian ISO, and stripping it from useless things.

[GPlaczek]

It is indeed a good idea, we will also need to find out how to add some other things to the iso like mosquitto since rocketlab guys want to have it installed out of the box

[pkoscik]

Disabling networking in the installer still installs base system.

This way we could just pack needed things into an image, and install them in some post installs script for example.
Looking into that

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References:
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Modify/CD

[pkoscik]

Adding packages should not be hard, we just need to drop them into:

rocket-lag-debian/images/debian/pool/main

before re-creating an iso

[GPlaczek]

I made some progress on adding apt packages to the iso and I think I have found a better solution than to wget all packages (which would be a pain in the ass for sure).
A better way is to use apt to download debs. To generate a list of all dependencies of the package use (this requires debian-based distro, use docker if needed):

ALL_PACKAGES=$(apt-cache depends --recurse --no-recommends \
    --no-suggests --no-conflicts --no-breaks --no-replaces \
    --no-enhances --no-pre-depends ${PACKAGES} | grep "^\w")

Then to download these packages use: (this one downloads debs to your working directory so make sure to cd before)

(cd $pkg_dir && apt-get download $package)

I tried to add mosquitto this way, but it broke busybox (this was probably caused by libc6 package which is a dependency of both these packages). If you are planing to work with this issue this weekend, consider downloading packages this way.
Also, I will not not have time to work on this issue today, so I will appreciate any progress you make.

[pkoscik]

I've had the same issue as above, and not made any significant progress on debugging this. Literally no idea why this happens

[GPlaczek]

I fixed it but forgot to add a note in the issue, my bad. Check out this branch, it works there

[GPlaczek]

Rocket lab guys asked as to deliver a working iso before this weekend, we should try shrinking it as much as we can by then.