1. Initial test: stacking squashfs images
  2. Discarded options
    1. Appending to squashfs image
    2. Deltas
    3. Binary diff

Initial test: stacking squashfs images

Tails filesystem is already using aufs to provide a read-write filesystem on top of the read-only squashfs image.

This system could probably be extended to support mounting multiple squashfs filesystems on top of each others. Upgrades would be squashfs images with only the files that have been modified since the previous releases. This handles file deletions.

Shipping upgrades could be as simple as shipping those extra squashfs images.

Debian live supports such stacking already: see in live-boot(7) the part about /live/filesystem.module.

Stacking squashfs images like this would still lack a way of upgrading the kernel and the syslinux. This should also be handled by the automated upgrade process.

Here is a test. First the procedure to create the delta squashfs image, to be done as root:

mkdir /mnt/tails-0.7.1
mkdir /mnt/tails-0.7.2
mount -o loop tails-i386-0.7.1.iso /mnt/tails-0.7.1
mount -o loop tails-i386-0.7.2.iso /mnt/tails-0.7.2
mkdir /mnt/tails-0.7.1-root
mkdir /mnt/tails-0.7.2-root
mount -o loop /mnt/tails-0.7.1/live/filesystem.squashfs /mnt/tails-0.7.1-root
mount -o loop /mnt/tails-0.7.2/live/filesystem.squashfs /mnt/tails-0.7.2-root

mkdir /mnt/upgrade-0.7.1-to-0.7.2
mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /mnt/upgrade-0.7.1-to-0.7.2

mkdir /mnt/union
mount -t aufs -o br=/mnt/upgrade-0.7.1-to-0.7.2=rw:/mnt/tails-0.7.1-root=ro none /mnt/union
rsync -avP --delete-after /mnt/tails-0.7.2-root/ /mnt/union/

mksquashfs /mnt/upgrade-0.7.1-to-0.7.2 upgrade-0.7.1-to-0.7.2.squashfs

Compressed size (using default gzip compression) is 82 MB.

Not bad, and the new kernel is included, which can probably be avoided.

Now, let's upgrade an USB stick:

mkdir /media/disk/live
cp   /mnt/tails-0.7.1/live/filesystem.squashfs \
     upgrade-0.7.1-to-0.7.2.squashfs \
     /mnt/tails/0.7.2/live/vmlinuz \
     /mnt/tails/0.7.2/live/initrd.img \
   /media/disk/live

Then fiddle with GRUB or EXTLINUX.

On boot, the new squashfs gets properly integrated. Whiteouts are not working. It looks like the live-boot 2.x mount options miss the wh attribute. But wait, booting with break=top and modifying /scripts/live to replace roopt=rr by roopt=rr+wh is enough to do the trick! Therefore, we've added the wh attribute to live-boot 3.x.

Initial test is pretty conclusive!

Discarded options

Appending to squashfs image

mksquashfs can actually append new files to an existing squashfs image.

Initial images are created with files in a specific order to improve boot time on cd, but on a USB stick random access is a non-issue.

test if mksquashfs can append an image that is currently used without weakening a running system.

Upgrading the system would result in a series of files to be appended to the current squashfs image.

This option had been discared because it is not possible to remove files.

Deltas

A possible way to encode deltas for the two previous methods could be:

  • For each file that has been modified: a binary delta and a new set of metadata if they have changed.
  • A list of deleted files.

And mksquashfs would be used in the running live system after applying the delta to create a squashfs image with the upgrade.

But there is probably things that have been left out of such an early draft.

Binary diff

Plain diff does not work on binary files.

Binary diffs ([rsync], xdelta, bsdiff, VCDIFF) gives poor result on live system images because squashfs images vary strongly as a whole, even for tiny changes of the files inside. That situation is unlikely to change (Debian bug #602965) and is even worse with squashfs-lzma. Quoting xz manpage:

 Compressed output may vary
   The exact compressed output produced from the same uncompressed input
   file may vary between XZ Utils  versions  even if  compression  options
   are identical.  This is because the encoder can be improved (faster or
   better compression) without affecting the file format.  The output can
   vary even between different builds of the same XZ Utils  version, if
   different build options are used.

   The  above means that implementing --rsyncable to create rsyncable .xz
   files is not going to happen without freezing a part of the encoder
   implementation, which can then be used with --rsyncable.