Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 20:50:29 +0200 From: Ed Schouten <ed@80386.nl> To: hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: A simple and hopefully usable FreeBSD live CD Message-ID: <20100822185029.GV2978@hoeg.nl>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
--lFRK9w0o3gensELN Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="oTjmB4SGUHx7SKxS" Content-Disposition: inline --oTjmB4SGUHx7SKxS Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hello all, A couple of major releases ago, we had a FreeBSD disc1.iso which also included the livefs. Nowadays the livefs comes on a separate disc. This livefs disc has a couple of issues in my opinion: - The livefs disc does not feature any installsets, which means if your system has 1 CD-ROM drive, you have to resort to network connectivity to obtain the installsets to perform a manual install. - The livefs installation places everything in /dist and does some odd tricks to get the basic things working, which means that any tool that assumes a specific pathname doesn't work anymore. I remember the GEOM tools were once broken because of this. You also have to add symlinks here and there to make something as simple as scp(1) work, because the ssh(1) binary is in the wrong place. I think I already mentioned it on some of the lists, but I've spent some time creating a better FreeBSD live CD (or at least I tried to). Basically the CD is just a stock FreeBSD installation (base + manpages + kernel) with a small mfsroot between the boot process to let it use unionfs and tmpfs before calling into /sbin/init. You can just run adduser, dhclient and fire up a SSH daemon. It's exactly the same as an installation of FreeBSD on a harddisk, with the only exception that any changes don't survive a reboot. It also has a copy of all the installsets, which means you can do installations and recoveries. I've attached a copy of the script I use to generate the CD. Just make sure you have FreeBSD-9.0-CURRENT-201008-amd64-disc1.iso placed in the same directory as the script and that you have an up-to-date HEAD source tree in /usr/src, with a GENERIC kernel already built. You also need to have cdrtools installed. After that, you should be able to run gencd.sh as root (needed for retaining file permissions), which should generate a FreeBSD-9.0-CURRENT-201008-amd64-ed.iso. Right now it still requires the source tree, because the fixes for tmpfs needed to make it all work aren't in the 201008 snapshot. By the time 201009 is released, the script can easily be modified to use the kernel binaries. I'm sending this email for two different reasons: 1. Be sure to give the CD a try and share your experiences. Does it work? Does it crash? Is it usable for you? If not, why not? 2. Would a CD like this be a good addition to the provided install media? Does it actually solve shortcomings of the existing media? If people think it's a nice CD to work with, I could consider integrating it into release(7). Thanks! --=20 Ed Schouten <ed@80386.nl> WWW: http://80386.nl/ --oTjmB4SGUHx7SKxS Content-Type: application/octet-stream Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="freebsd-bootcd.tar.gz" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 H4sIAMVpcUwAA+1X6VPbSBafr+iveOOkJiaxfHCEzSQwY2wB2jUWK8lhqBQFstSyu6LDJcmQ ZCb/+/5eSwYbcnzJ7tbW+pXL6u53H939OsyEGOeBPk7Twg9aE5H4QTOf/vQjod1u7+3uEr6d vd02f9udnR31Zdjaam9Tp7OzvbPVftne61C7s9vZ6fxE7R9qxVdgnhdeBlNE8D06keXfwJe+ 0N33fwSe/Nway6SVTzXN7R7vv2q29d7Ito2hq2+1O+323zRzeDZy949QJ4dOX38KKt2Lg5c7 eiBzv9OUeapZI/crNCJQBFouCtKFpsmQ3tG1DEifX5OeCGrTpVZMRaJtCH+aUu0U+aCxoAz1 WMPiB1lQRwulpvnTMPImOek2JWnuTyfkB4ps6vnvaeuAWoG4aSXzKKK//qIimwsti0EdLtNp 8ftAZqTHpEpyGQP1t4ma/no7FSJaQWooEtI/fArpqYoH6T3Gs6ewzCswafGkNfZyof6av/1G MEOxzcCnlywrxLGXzLyJyO8GX2N6ssz1XmSJiHLeqyKT/ld4WryjK1rS9bzI5Ez303iWJiIp cgT1CcKzStd63sw/xuM0yrXYey9YUGueZ60880km2ChRVAn8h2EPe9bwaP/YGBq22aO+4bh9 096vXc9ug+uWH9TIHDpudzC4Glp943B0vF8G6uBOZ5R6gciafpqE9OYNGdaRFoc5h/yKUfu1 C8Op3S0lXiz2ayVntXaPLD7OgMTsqlwv4hnGS1LmiYSalSXWp2rumRKR3V7F6Twp9mtDq/aM DpSdovBRVaE3j4q8lfnKVq1I5/50gQ0RlbFWldWiXLgS7ydZujS+vR/n2Hia7xNy4xUSX2uL 9HPEGP8iy1IkNF2lbskE22Gx1PRVlsL8LqJVOO7LdvJJzkh/lTykYIOxL0O1m/S/Yyemuojn kboGSB+TIvaDcprS03KHk/6WwvLC4Kr8QVvyv30E/l9DuHr/39fWD9SB+/Bled9/8f7f3evs qft/e3d7e3uvzff/7tb6/v+PQOu5rtFz6qWzj5mcTAuq+5vENz8ZATk4HueFSOiNCH6vbvdm mk0OmKWLXa1YcsoEgnODux7rjLIFegNcOON5gWOXvCQghA9XCOXpPPOFWsF55mUfKUyzOG/Q rSymhCOPv9DJUuI0kKHEnQEZDfIyQTORxbIoRECzLL2RAQao1gJ/AnKiKL2VCc6gNAkkM+Us hfliUfzK407zgWk5peHCJj8NQMntRyYKD7ayVG+c3jCqig4LASQpzmvRAIXMKYI8FnOvVrm3 ahP3SpEnY9x3LGPrsSFQuBSRhSHwM5jDuH+PLVR6WUkKUn8eozfwFklrIR84DkAXewVaDS/K 7wOvEsaCl91YFIB7YjrkWEfuedc2COMz23pr9o0+HV4AaVB35J5YNnWHfUIb4drm4ci1bIeu r7sO6J89Y5SqsuEFGX+c2YbjEBjM07OBCTGQa3eHrmk4DfQZvcGobw6PGwQpNLRcGpinpgsy 12qwOhb0mJOsIzo17N4Jpt1Dc2C6F8qgI9MdsrojNpDOurZr9kaDrk1nI/vMcpQ0dqtvOr1B 1zw1+k2CEVBMxls0zuScoO1ZdhO/FS8PDVjYPRwoUUoNvET3ZPRcdud+1EPMYNygQc6Z0TN5 YPxhwJOufdGoxDrGP0cgApKl9bun3WP4Vv9OVJAQ9PnGKduLODijQ8c13ZFr0LFl9R0WBfGO Yb81e4bzmgaWowI2cowGlLhdpR5SEC2gMT4cOaaKmzl0DdsenbmmNdxkQSfWOQIDY7vg7qsY W0PlM2Jk2Rcsl+OhUtCg8xMD6zaHVEWty7FwEL2ey9KWKKEV8XSXnKWhcTww0ZT2DMZaLOjc dIxNZMx0mMAsNZ93L5SPI+U+5wq2lcOl0m2ojJJ5RN3+W5ONr4hRB45Z1Qz6SEhyRr2TKvq8 C1qa9kQmfjTHofIm/5i3Zl7mxc3pwYPlSCZoqR+vq1708fJcpry4tIpOMUlXCUM/KaIHvEUg 00dLkRw/XMtwQqyuoXUGqdJaNao3qQy0QIo6jhmcN/4Ub4/ncT7Z1P7UNmRSUBg0KFeGvda0 jXJE+1StbIQBJulMJPWaahBZTBqJGhJ6ZffP7U3Q4KFYB93P+6R36JdfqBzjjYHSujoyB8bQ 2tQ2NoL5bKvO6lYxELBQurBjY6Z66jrbiVkeCTGrd9qKFI/Megejzw9cTFUWVtykcsIH7bvL Bs2TXE4SHIfstohEnKsgII5zvyCJA9vn/3cKdQldKwySw4PjnuoSlrZfk6Q3pRQMX7zYJIja YHZ52cTnit+VIKyXpmwqIyRLXSaKcF/D7SLDoF6RbNIL6oAODqrIJqVjIG+U+hrU3uQAt1VQ kVrF2LlcCYpSW/q/iIMfhPm7S+j7U+MrpIbnEJ5iyGTND169fNnmUZilMX9VrvHq4PVW1Xcq fD7ziqmiyNKa9vn1N/Sph92XFSrUQ3m335FXvQu/LLFCrvgACx+pwGcscLnyoNYopdxOZSHQ yPDa7VQkiRC4Nb9jDQL0NVsU6pFqDqmSqaGc8BqUSZ3ryssmfqMqWIxv3l1yVWobred0lokb wVuUX3b5FP+84fm8UoUxEcVMBnVVCx2uBfRC8ywhtT1KASIrGxSuoLzkvNsoqAbsfPlJcA+C CbWq2aJkebstqFXC7sjV7Jv0VTruOKr5N3lU2O441OxL9Mozf8qvH/iOEKaE07YQsWqfkBxE aS7Uq5g7IF/k+X3MKj5VCqubqFaiamyRPw1kBqLaQp3xQfhorlUPlQkvovsnfilbgOCmrvLX vuQGeHKjXGPBCqfkLifo8/otvYY1rGENa1jDGtawhjWsYQ1rWMMa1rCGVfgXvtdQFAAoAAA= --oTjmB4SGUHx7SKxS-- --lFRK9w0o3gensELN Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (FreeBSD) iEYEARECAAYFAkxxcXUACgkQ52SDGA2eCwV0UwCfRqYV93dxYWQHUtut8oZ7KM7I V4cAniAwZIoSp5AgnODBdupMzH/Hk/ni =LSt2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --lFRK9w0o3gensELN--
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20100822185029.GV2978>