From owner-freebsd-small Fri Aug 25 19: 5:51 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C2FE837B43E; Fri, 25 Aug 2000 19:05:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from harmony.village.org (harmony.village.org [10.0.0.6]) by rover.village.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA77669; Fri, 25 Aug 2000 20:05:44 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from imp@harmony.village.org) Received: from harmony.village.org (localhost.village.org [127.0.0.1]) by harmony.village.org (8.9.3/8.8.3) with ESMTP id UAA20725; Fri, 25 Aug 2000 20:05:38 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <200008260205.UAA20725@harmony.village.org> To: Alan Clegg Subject: Re: read only / filesystem Cc: Greg Lehey , freebsd-questions , freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 26 Aug 2000 01:47:50 -0000." <20000826014750.F32393@diskfarm.firehouse.net> References: <20000826014750.F32393@diskfarm.firehouse.net> <20000824002732.A45983@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <20000824101341.D66923@wantadilla.lemis.com> <20000824130404.A51338@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <20000825111535.F548@wantadilla.lemis.com> <20000824234917.A93373@mammalia.org> <20000826110117.F52219@wantadilla.lemis.com> Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 20:05:37 -0600 From: Warner Losh Sender: owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In message <20000826014750.F32393@diskfarm.firehouse.net> Alan Clegg writes: : In my recent bashing around with my NIC and NFS booting, I've come : across several issues regarding both read-only / and problems with : installing on NFS-only systems. I can see that both of these are : intertwined, and I'd be willing to work on this project. OK. : I'd recommend working with (around?) the existing /etc/rc.diskless[12] : which already deal in a rather painful (when mount_null is disfunctional) : way with a possible read-only /. Hmmm, we've found it to be relatively easy. The biggest problems that we've seen are with /dev (which is hard to update with the current rc.diskless2), the need to customize /var directories (a simple mtree helped to fix this and the need to have a few files in /etc read/write (/etc/resolv.conf and /etc/ttys are needed for our product). For those files we've had OK luck with symbolic liks to a writable partition. However, could use some improvement. : As to the question of it being worth the effort, yes, it is, if for no : reason other than '-small' installations that may rely on booting from : un-modifiable devices such as CD-ROM, or from devices with a limited : write-lifetime such as flash. : : Anyway, Yes, I'll take up the banner (in my spare time 8-) to get this : on-task. I know that Timing Solutions would be very interested in this. Warner To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message