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Mikhail ChusavitinandClaude Sonnet 5 b8c45d54c1 feat(iso): split the live medium into semantic SquashFS layers

Booting via BMC virtual CD reads the ~2.8 GB filesystem squashfs
sequentially during the live-boot toram copy; a mid-read drop of the
redirected medium loses the whole copy and fails the boot (v14). Split
the rootfs into self-contained semantic layers so a retry re-reads at
most one ~500-700 MiB layer, not everything. This is a resilience /
reduced-re-read mechanism, not a fix for the virtual-media instability.

NVIDIA variants now ship 7 layers (00-base, 05-firmware, 08-desktop,
10-nvidia-driver, 20-nvidia-platform, 30-nvidia-cuda-libs,
40-nvidia-dcgm-cuda) plus an explicit live/filesystem.module that fixes
their OverlayFS order; amd/nogpu keep a single squashfs.

- lib/squashfs-layers.sh: deterministic classifier (dpkg file ownership
  plus explicit rules for build.sh-injected files, never a path
  substring), per-layer mksquashfs, 800 MiB hard ceiling, unsquashfs -s
  plus strict extraction of every layer, merged-rootfs bootability check.
- build.sh: split the monolith after the full lb build, verify and merge,
  write the module file, delete the monolith only then; abort before ISO
  assembly on any failure. Runs the builder test suites up front.
- fast-path: force a full build for a multi-layer medium;
  fast_path_repack_squashfs hard-refuses (it would drop layers).
- iso-validation.sh: validate_iso_squashfs_layers (module vs layer set
  match, size ceiling, no lone giant squashfs) and
  validate_iso_media_integrity (xorriso -check_media).
- bee-install: honour filesystem.module order, abort on any layer failure.
- 9013-toram-retry: record the real rsync exit code (it printed a false
  rc=0) and correct the "resumes the tail" comment (rsync without
  --partial keeps only fully-copied layers). No unsafe partial resume.
- tests: test-squashfs-layers.sh plus a multi-layer guard in
  test-build-libs.sh; both run at the top of every build.
- docs: bible-local architecture and decision, iso/README, iso-build-rules.

Verified by a full nvidia build: 7 layers 622/199/256/466/37/567/562 MiB,
every validator passes, xorriso -check_media good, merged rootfs bootable.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

2026-09-04 15:38:14 +03:00

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ISO Build

bee ISO is built inside a Debian 12 builder container via iso/builder/build-in-container.sh.

Requirements

Docker Desktop or another Docker-compatible container runtime
Privileged containers enabled
Enough free disk space for builder cache, Debian live-build artifacts, NVIDIA driver cache, and CUDA userspace packages

Build On macOS

From the repository root:

sh iso/builder/build-in-container.sh

The script defaults to linux/amd64 builder containers, so it works on:

Intel Mac
Apple Silicon (M1 / M2 / M3 / M4) via Docker Desktop's Linux VM

You do not need to pass --platform manually for normal ISO builds.

Useful Options

Build with explicit SSH keys baked into the ISO:

sh iso/builder/build-in-container.sh --authorized-keys ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Force a clean rebuild of the builder image and build caches:

sh iso/builder/build-in-container.sh --clean-build

Use a custom cache directory:

sh iso/builder/build-in-container.sh --cache-dir /path/to/cache

Notes

The builder image is automatically rebuilt if the local tag exists for the wrong architecture.
The live ISO boots with Debian live-boot toram, so the read-only medium is copied into RAM during boot and the runtime no longer depends on the original USB/BMC virtual media staying present.
The NVIDIA variants ship the root filesystem as several semantic SquashFS layers (live/filesystem-v<ver>-NN-*.squashfs) plus an explicit live/filesystem.module that fixes their OverlayFS order. This bounds the data a toram retry must re-read after a virtual-media drop; it is not a fix for virtual-media instability. amd / nogpu keep a single squashfs. See bible-local/architecture/squashfs-layers.md.
The builder splits the layers deterministically after the full lb build, verifies each one, re-merges them into a bootable rootfs, and only then deletes the monolith. The fast path is disabled for a multi-layer medium (it forces a full build).
Target systems require at least 16 GB of installed RAM for the full compressed live medium plus normal runtime overhead. On supported hardware, do not classify a mid-copy failure as low RAM without direct ENOSPC, OOM, or tmpfs-limit evidence.
The NVIDIA variant installs DCGM 4 packages matched to the CUDA user-mode driver major version. For driver branch 580 / CUDA 13.x, the package family is datacenter-gpu-manager-4-cuda13 rather than legacy datacenter-gpu-manager.
Override the container platform only if you know why:

BEE_BUILDER_PLATFORM=linux/amd64 sh iso/builder/build-in-container.sh

The shipped ISO is still amd64.
Output ISO artifacts are written under dist/.

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