Configure KaarPux

Most aspects of how KaarPux is build, and how the final KaarPux system works, is defined in a configuration file.

The configuration file is created in a way similar to the configuration of the Linux kernel.

Install required packages

To be able to run master/bin/kx_configure at least those packages are needed:

  • make
  • gcc
  • patch
  • libncurses*

For some distributions, most of those are included in

  • build-essential

To install the necessary packages, try:

master/bin/kx_pkgs4configure

If this does not work, run master/bin/kx_configure <configuration_file_name> menuconfig and look at the output to determine which packages to install.

Run the configuration program

Now you should be able to run the configuration program:

master/bin/kx_configure <configuration_file_name> menuconfig

See also kx_configure - Create or Update KaarPux Configuration file.

Configuration menu entries

  1. The first menu entry is Build type. Here you can select if KaarPux should be build

    • in your own KVM (KVM)
    • on Amazon EC2 (EC2)
    • in your own machine (LOCAL)

  2. The next couple of menu entries depend on the selected Build type. The contents of those menu entries are described in

    You must go through those menus, and make sure everything is defined according to your needs.

    When building in a virtual machine, you will have the VM_TAG under VM_TAG`Virtual host definitions. This tag can be set to any two-digit value from 10 to 99. Other tags include the %-character, which will be replaced with the choosen VM_TAG. This can be used to configure several virtual machine configurations, with different disk names, DHCP addresses etc. It is suggested, that you include the value of VM_TAG in the <configuration_file_name>

  3. The Target definitions and Build settings are described below.

    In general, the settings in those menus can be left at their default values, but see the sections below for more information.

Target definitions

The Target definitions menus are used to configure the final KaarPux system (i.e. not how and where KaarPux is build).

You can probably leave the Target definitions - KERNEL and Target definitions - KAARPUX USER settings at their defaults.

Depending on your hardware, you may need to change the settings in Target definitions - DISKS, Target definitions - NETWORK, and Target definitions - HARDWARE. However, for build types KVM and EC2, the defaults are probably sufficient.

Unless you live in Denmark, you may want to change the settings in Target definitions - LOCALIZATION.

Build settings

The Build settings menu can be used to tweak how KaarPux is build. In general, the defaults should be sufficient, but advanced users may want to play with tracing, testing, parallelism, etc.