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Date:      Mon, 9 Nov 2009 12:56:30 -0600
From:      Peter Steele <psteele@maxiscale.com>
To:        "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Converting a bootable USB stick in to bootable CD-ROM
Message-ID:  <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3394F260@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com>

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I have a FreeBSD image that I install on USB sticks to build new systems. W=
hen the stick boots it automatically clones itself on the system's hard dri=
ve, creating partitions and other configuration parameters that are program=
med into the stick's cloning logic. I want to create a similar mechanism us=
ing a bootable CD-ROM. The biggest difference in the process of course is t=
hat the CD-ROM itself is read-only so clearly there needs to be an mfsroot =
involved in the process. I looked at how the FreeBSD Live CD is setup and t=
he loader.conf file has these lines:

mfsroot_load=3D"YES"
mfsroot_type=3D"mfs_root"
mfsroot_name=3D"/boot/mfsroot"

along with the file /boot/mfsroot.gz and no /etc/fstab. I copied this into =
my BSD image and duplicated the mfsroot settings in my loader.conf.

I use the command below to create the iso file from the BSD image I've prep=
ared.

mkisofs -R -no-emul-boot -o /tmp/bsd.iso -b boot/cdboot  /bsd

When this iso is copied to a CD, it does boot. However, it doesn't seem to =
be picking up the mfsroot config and complains that the system is running f=
rom on a read-only file system. What step am I missing?





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