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Date:      Wed, 08 Mar 1995 16:10:20 +1000
From:      Stephen Hocking <sysseh@devetir.qld.gov.au>
To:        current@FreeBSD.org
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Repair floppies - what should we have?
Message-ID:  <199503080610.GAA15627@netfl15a.devetir.qld.gov.au>

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Recently a crash in the middle of a make world trashed my libc.so, and this 
caused me to think long and hard about the issue of repair floppies. What I 
came up with was this -

1)	A boot floppy with only a kernel and enough support to tell you to
	stick another floppy (the repair root fs) in the drive. This floppy
	should have your last OK kernel on it (particularly if you have some
	sort of weird hardware config that is not supported by the installation
	floppy).

2)	The tools floppy.  A root filesystem with the usual stuff, linked
	*statically* - /bin/sh, mount, fsck, disklabel, fdisk, tar, ed, cat,
	cp, mv, ln, ifconfig (any other candidates?). The system would come
	up on this and toss you into a shell.

3)	The libraries floppy - a tarred floppy with all the important dynamic
	libraries on it.

Anybody else got ideas? And, how do I persuade something to boot a kernel off 
one floppy and prompt me to insert a root fs?

	Stephen

        I do not speak for the Worker's Compensation Board of Queensland -
                     They don't pay me enough for that!




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