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Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2008 19:56:28 +0000
From: "Jay L. T. Cornwall" <jay@jcornwall.me.uk>
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Subject: Read-only, diskless boot
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Hi,

I am trying to install FreeBSD onto a CompactFlash card for an ALIX
system. This guide precisely documents my goals:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/solid-state/ro-fs.html

Unfortunately, it has not been updated for FreeBSD 7. Crucial files such
as /etc/rc.diskless2 have been replaced by a new mechanism in
/etc/rc.initdiskless. The little documentation I have scraped from the
web is too focused on PXE boots with NFS-mounted directories for me to
figure the new system out.

All I need is:
  * / partition to work in read-only mode.
  * Volatile directories such as /root, /var and /tmp to be populated
    into a memory filesystem on boot.

The /conf system seems to be related to this, however
/etc/rc.initdiskless specifically says that it is not the correct
mechanism to use for /var. (Quite what is, I've no idea.)

Can someone give me a leg up?

-- 
Jay L. T. Cornwall
http://www.jcornwall.me.uk/