ApplianceKit-NG 0.6.2

Tools to programatically create distribution images from any distribution

# appliancekit-ng

Copyright (c) 2012, 2013 TortoiseLabs, LLC.

This software is free but copyrighted, see COPYING.md for more details.

## motive

ApplianceKit has become unmaintainable. In addition, it depends on XML and exposes too much implementation details in the Python-based core.

By using an intermediate representation between the XML and what actually happens, it is possible to:

• Implement all logic for bringing up a distribution as data, by using a stack machine to interpret the data.

• Add new distributions by writing specfiles for them instead of entirely new classes of monolithic code in Python.

• Eventually transition away entirely from using AXML.

## intermediate representation

Most of what the ApplianceKit NG core does is:

• Translate XML into IR, for example an XML file might be translated into this high-level IR, which will get compiled into lower-level IR.

` {% extends "debian-6.spec" %} {% set packages=['irssi'] %} `

• Translate high-level IR into low-level IR using translation rules as described in the base specfiles. You can use ak-compile or ak-compile-xml to view what the lowlevel IR parsetree looks like.

• Compile a parse tree into bytecode and then run the bytecode to create the appliance filesystem.

For more information on the IR language, see [ADL.md](ADL.md).

## requirements

• For Alpine: apk-tools.

• For Debian or Ubuntu: debootstrap.

• For CentOS, ScientificLinux, RHEL, openSUSE: rinse.