Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2010 13:40:16 -0500 From: Peter Steele <psteele@maxiscale.com> To: "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: How customized can an mfsroot be? Message-ID: <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F8720@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com> In-Reply-To: <r2j2daa8b4e1004070541v5b617713kddd6a23e4b83c1a9@mail.gmail.com> References: <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F7D05@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com> <x2uade45ae91004051730j87d11987j47b3b945971c85d6@mail.gmail.com> <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F7FAD@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com> <m2gade45ae91004051744pa4d4d86ax6a1e1f38195dc6a7@mail.gmail.com> <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F7FDD@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com> <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F8066@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com> <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F84AD@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com> <4BBC32A4.1080906@infracaninophile.co.uk> <r2j2daa8b4e1004070541v5b617713kddd6a23e4b83c1a9@mail.gmail.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>I'm probably missing something here, but I'm not sure that's correct. If = the OP wants his own /var, then diskless(8) describes how >/var can be automagically populated (see also /etc/rc.initdiskless). The = nanobsd.sh script (designed with flash drives in mind) uses >this method. I looked into adopting something similar some time back but = decided on an alternative solution so I can't provide anything >more than a general comment. > >As a side comment, I'd add I hope the OP publishes the results of his effo= rts to benefit others who may want to do the same. >From what I can tell, diskless talks about network booting via a PXE server= . That's a little different than what I'm doing--booting from a read-only CD-ROM. With network booting, you can create your own customized mfsroot wi= th whatever you want in /var. I could have setup a mfsroot based boot for my CD-ROM, but there are other restrictions to the mfsroot environ= ment that I wanted to avoid. In my read-only CD-ROM boot case, /var is created as a MFS device automatically and populated, but a basic di= rectory layout only is used. Nothing from the CD-ROM /var is copied into th= e MFS /var that is created. I cannot figure out how BSD can do this automagically, so I'll have to have= a duplicate copy of /var on the CD and populate it from that. What I've tr= ied that works well is when I'm about to run mkisofs to create the .iso from, I= rename my /var to /var2 and create an empty /var. When the iso is booted, a default MFS based /var is created with a specific collection of directori= es. I have a startup script that copies my /var2 contents into /var and tha= t does the trick. Thanks to all the responders on this. I think I've worked out all of the ki= nks now.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F8720>