Overview¶
snf-image-creator is a simple command-line tool for creating OS images. The original media, the image is created from, can be:
- a block device, representing a hard disk
- a disk image file, representing a hard disk (supports all image file formats supported by QEMU)
- the host system itself
Snapshotting¶
snf-image-creator works on snapshots. Any changes made by the program do not affect the original media.
Image Preparation¶
During the image creation, a number of system preparation operations are applied on the media snapshot. Some of those are OS specific. snf-image-creator will use heuristics to detect the OS and determine which operations to apply. Those operations will:
- Shrink the image
- Clear out sensitive user data (passwords, ssh keys, history files, etc.)
- Prepare the guest OS for being deployed on a virtual environment (change device names, remove persistent net rules, install VirtIO drivers, etc.)