From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 8 08:11:28 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EB789106566B for ; Thu, 8 Apr 2010 08:11:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from perryh@pluto.rain.com) Received: from agora.rdrop.com (unknown [IPv6:2607:f678:1010::34]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A13A48FC13 for ; Thu, 8 Apr 2010 08:11:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: from agora.rdrop.com (66@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by agora.rdrop.com (8.13.1/8.12.7) with ESMTP id o388BPQ5094383 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT); Thu, 8 Apr 2010 01:11:26 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from perryh@pluto.rain.com) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by agora.rdrop.com (8.13.1/8.12.9/Submit) with UUCP id o388BPfM094382; Thu, 8 Apr 2010 01:11:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fbsd61 by pluto.rain.com (4.1/SMI-4.1-pluto-M2060407) id AA04131; Thu, 8 Apr 10 01:00:30 PDT Date: Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:59:49 -0700 From: perryh@pluto.rain.com To: psteele@maxiscale.com Message-Id: <4bbd8cf5.kM98GPFbc40Ckgzy%perryh@pluto.rain.com> References: <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F7D05@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com> <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F7FAD@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com> <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F7FDD@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com> <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F8066@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com> <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F84AD@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com> <4BBC32A4.1080906@infracaninophile.co.uk> <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F8720@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com> In-Reply-To: <7B9397B189EB6E46A5EE7B4C8A4BB7CB3B6F8720@MBX03.exg5.exghost.com> User-Agent: nail 11.25 7/29/05 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How customized can an mfsroot be? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:11:29 -0000 Peter Steele wrote: > In my read-only CD-ROM boot case, /var is created as a MFS device > automatically and populated, but a basic directory layout only is > used. Nothing from the CD-ROM /var is copied into the 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 tried 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 directories. I have > a startup script that copies my /var2 contents into /var and that > does the trick. You might be able to reduce the iso size some by making a tarball of /var (using tar -y or tar -z) instead of keeping /var2 as a tree. Granted you would then need to have tar(1) in the iso, which may cancel out much of the savings if you would not otherwise have needed it.