bootstrap-vz/bootstrapvz/plugins/minimize_size/README.rst
Anders Ingemann 953987fddf Combine documentation from github wiki with sphinx
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2015-04-11 16:40:44 +02:00

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minimize size
-------------
This plugin can be used to reduce the size of the resulting image. Often
virtual volumes are much smaller than their reported size until any data
is written to them. During the bootstrapping process temporary data like
the aptitude cache is written to the volume only to be removed again.
The minimize size plugin employs three different strategies to keep a
low volume footprint:
- Mount folders from the host into key locations of the image volume to
avoid any unneccesary disk writes.
- Use `zerofree <http://intgat.tigress.co.uk/rmy/uml/index.html>`__ to
deallocate unused sectors on the volume. On an unpartitioned volume
this will be done for the entire volume, while it will only happen on
the root partition for partitioned volumes.
- Use
`vmware-vdiskmanager <https://www.vmware.com/support/ws45/doc/disks_vdiskmanager_eg_ws.html>`__
to shrink the real volume size (only applicable when using vmdk
backing). The tool is part of the `VMWare
Workstation <https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_workstation/10_0>`__
package.
Settings
~~~~~~~~
- ``zerofree``: Specifies if it should mark unallocated blocks as
zeroes, so the volume could be better shrunk after this.
Valid values: true, false
Default: false
*``optional``*
- ``shrink``: Whether the volume should be shrunk. This setting works
best in conjunction with the zerofree tool.
Valid values: true, false
Default: false
*``optional``*