Re: Creating an initrd
On Tue, May 08, 2001 at 08:32:01PM -0700, Alvin Oga wrote: mkinitrd ... or take an existing initrd.gz file...decompress it into /dev/ram or /dev/loop than change the kernel to your version, add your libs/commands and other stuff you want in the initrd to make your system bootable and compress that /dev/loop image into your_initrd.gz and add that as your initrd image in lilo or so goes the simplified 3-line howto... um, point the way or name the doc, if you would. either way...you need to make sure you have minixfs and /dev/ram enabled in your kernel to be able to create initrd files eh? i created a full system in about 2.5Mb that expands into 8-16Mb of linux hierachy that runs in memory ( /dev/ramxx ) ( put that on a 4Mb flash and you've got a nice firewall ?? ) ding ding ding! you've got my attention... that's almost precisely what i'd like to accomplish. can you do that with debian? you can try tomsrtbt too but, its bash is too small as is its libraries do you have a more fleshed-out documentation trail of making a uncompress-onto-ramdisk-during-boot system? -- DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #3 from Will Trillich [EMAIL PROTECTED] : Wondering how to find WHICH PACKAGE CONTAINS x-y-or-z? Just enter dpkg -S part/of/path and you'll get a list of all packages that affect paths like that. For an example, try dpkg -S http. Also see http://newbieDoc.sourceForge.net/ ...
Re: Creating an initrd
Alvin Oga wrote: hi stefan... mkinitrd ... or take an existing initrd.gz file...decompress it into /dev/ram or /dev/loop than change the kernel to your version, add your libs/commands and other stuff you want in the initrd to make your system bootable and compress that /dev/loop image into your_initrd.gz and add that as your initrd image in lilo or so goes the simplified 3-line howto... either way...you need to make sure you have minixfs and /dev/ram enabled in your kernel to be able to create initrd files i created a full system in about 2.5Mb that expands into 8-16Mb of linux hierachy that runs in memory ( /dev/ramxx ) ( put that on a 4Mb flash and you've got a nice firewall ?? ) you can try tomsrtbt too but, its bash is too small as is its libraries have fun alvin I though that its possible to use the ext2 filesystem to use with initrd? Is there an advantage of using the minixfs filesystem over the ext2 filesytem in this application? Anyway, I just want to make an initrd so that I can have etx2 and ReiserFS support compiled as modules and also load a frame buffer module at boot time. Most of this can be done through mkinitrd, the configuration file are a little complicated though. Stef
Re: Creating an initrd - micro-howto
hi ya will there is no initrd howto that i could find... those docs i did find in google searches were out of date and incomplete in terms of getting a flash disk that you can boot into /dev/ram0 -- lets assume that tomsrtbt is too small on the 1.77Mb floppy and cdrom is too much hassle to make to boot into /dev/ram ??? we can take it offline to get you a working initrd ( am assumign you have another pc that we can debug it on c ya alvin more expanded micro-initrd Flash howto ( from vague recollection of memory) === am assuming you wanna boot from floppy or better if booting from 4Mb flash to be on /dev/hda on the target A1. Get a spare PC... A2. boot it normally... A3. install the kernel you wanna be using and compile it and boot until you got the bootable kernel A4. make a boot floppy A5. boot the floppy if it works...good...now we can start B0. Move things around so that you are using ONLY /dev/hdb for your own development system - use /dev/hda as your flash device on your cev box and/or it will be the only disk on your target firewall B1. change/update your kernel to support initrd - turn on mimixfs - turn on /dev/ram - turn on /dev/loop ( better than /dev/ram ?? ) - you will be tweeking /dev/ram to support 8MB or 16Mb since /lib/libc-2.* is how big ??? - /lib /boot /root /bin /sbin /etc must all fit in /dev/ram0 - keep playing with your kernel till you can B2. make ANOTHER boot floppy - something you can play with B3. make some ram devices dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ram0 bs=1k count=8192 dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ram1 bs=1k count=8192 # # you're gonna be tweek -i to cram more bytes into the ram device # mke2fs -m 0 -i 2000 /dev/ram0 mke2fs -m 0 -i 2000 /dev/ram1 mount /dev/ram0 /mnt/ram0 mount /dev/ram1 /mnt/ram1 B4. Start putting what is required to boot your server into the initrd file # # make a script that does this # # # # i forgot where mkinitrd puts its stuff # - check your fs -- makes it easy # # - using mkinitrd helps solve some directory # and copy problem but i forgot where it put stuff # # mkinitrd # -- lets do things the had way # # the boot FLOPPY that DOES work... # mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy = = you should be able to see the guts of your boot floppy = # # make some directories for /var/log /tmp mkdir /mnt/ram0/tmp /mnt/ram0/usr/tmp chmod 1777 /mnt/ram0/tmp /mnt/ram0/usr/tmp ... mkdir /var/log mkdir /var/run mkdir /var/spool # # Copy the contents from the working bootable floppy # to your new boot media that we gonna create # # remember the boot floppy assume /dev/hda1 or /dev/sda1 # for root... we are gonna use /dev/ram0 # cp -par /mnt/floppy/bin /mnt/ram0/bin cp -par /mnt/floppy/etc /mnt/ram0/etc cp -par /mnt/floppy/dev /mnt/ram0/dev cp -par /mnt/floppy/lib /mnt/ram0/lib cp -par /mnt/floppy/boot /mnt/ram0/boot cp -par /mnt/floppy/sbin /mnt/ram0/sbin - fix /mnt/ram0/etc/fstab to point to /dev/hdaxx be sure to add/copy your basic/favorite commands into /mnt/ram0: bash, ls, ping, route, ifconfig, ps, top, dd, mount, cp, mv, etc..etc.. # # copy other non-critical, would be nice ot have commands # into/mnt/ram1 # # # now lets create your initrd file # dd if=/dev/ram0 of=/tmp/initrd.test bs=1k gzip /tmp/initrd.test.gz # dd if=/dev/ram1 of=/tmp/initrd.extra bs=1k gzip /tmp/initrd.extra.gz # cp -p /tmp/initrd.test.gz /boot cp -p /tmp/initrd.extra.gz /boot # # the kernel you want should already be in /boot # B5. Create a temporary lilo.Test.conf file # # Create a boot media that boots into /dev/ram0 # # # on the development machine, the flash is /dev/hda # boot=/dev/hda # map=/boot/map install=/boot/boot.b prompt timeout=50 message=/boot/message linear # # Create a bootable flash disk # image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.2 label=linux-2.4.2-FLASH read-only # # the flash disk will be hda on the target firewall root=/dev/hda1 # initrd=/boot/initrd.test.gz # # end of
Re: Creating an initrd - minixfs
either way...you need to make sure you have minixfs and /dev/ram enabled in your kernel to be able to create initrd files I though that its possible to use the ext2 filesystem to use with initrd? Is there an advantage of using the minixfs filesystem over the ext2 filesytem in this application? i forgot where in the process i turn on/off minixfs and mkinitrd ... but i used both...and had less problems making a bootable flash when i did have minifs on.. .( think its needed for using /dev/ram or /dev/loop devices or for mkinitrd to work ?? donno... - didnt go back and start over to see ... c ya alvin
Re: Creating an initrd
Sean 'Shaleh' Perry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Fairly easy to make, biggest snag is you really have to be root to make them
properly.
If you're building a cramfs or romfs image, then root is unnecessary as
fakeroot works just fine.
--
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Re: Creating an initrd
Joey Hess [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Well there is a package in unstable called mkcramfs that makes initrds
for debian, and it is supported by kernel packages for unstable.
Actually, mkcramfs just makes a cramfs image. It's initrd-tools that
contains mkinitrd which makes initrd images.
--
Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 is out! ( http://www.debian.org/ )
Email: Herbert Xu ~{PmVHI~} [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: Creating an initrd
On Wed, May 09, 2001 at 07:18:02PM +1000, Herbert Xu wrote: Joey Hess [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well there is a package in unstable called mkcramfs that makes initrds for debian, and it is supported by kernel packages for unstable. Actually, mkcramfs just makes a cramfs image. It's initrd-tools that contains mkinitrd which makes initrd images. mkinitrd makes a specific kind of initrd, which is pointless in most cases unless you are trying to design a generic system (say for a boot floppy or something) which can handle lots of different types of hardware. Mostly, it's better to include the offending drivers in the kernel itself. A more sensible use of an initrd is to preconfigure things that are needed to load the root filesystem, like the lvm... -- Andrew Suffield [EMAIL PROTECTED] pgpRtp5rHDZcw.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Creating an initrd
on Wed, May 09, 2001 at 12:09:38AM -0600, Stefan Srdic ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: I though that its possible to use the ext2 filesystem to use with initrd? Is there an advantage of using the minixfs filesystem over the ext2 filesytem in this application? minixfs is reputed to have lower overhead, though I haven't reearched or tested this myself. I believe it has to do with root reserved and superblocks. You can build a few images at 1400 x 1024 bytes and format them with minix, ext2fs, and msdos/vfat to see what the relative merits are. I've always formatted RAM and floppy w/ minixfs rather than ext2 when using a non-DOS filesystem. Cheers. -- Karsten M. Self kmself@ix.netcom.comhttp://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of Gestalt don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org pgp7QkW11TcQS.pgp Description: PGP signature
RE: Creating an initrd
On 08-May-2001 Stefan Srdic wrote: I've compiled the 2.4.3 kernel on my patato box. I'm interrested in creating my own initial RAM disk (initrd) to speed up my boot process. Does anybody know of any good HOW-TO's on initrd's? Does anybody have some insight to share? Fairly easy to make, biggest snag is you really have to be root to make them properly. You need a /dev populated with enough entries for the hardware you care about. Other than that the file system can contain whatever you want/need. I think I started seeing issues around 5 - 8 mb sized initrd files.
Re: Creating an initrd
Stefan Srdic wrote: I've compiled the 2.4.3 kernel on my patato box. I'm interrested in creating my own initial RAM disk (initrd) to speed up my boot process. Does anybody know of any good HOW-TO's on initrd's? Does anybody have some insight to share? Well there is a package in unstable called mkcramfs that makes initrds for debian, and it is supported by kernel packages for unstable. -- see shy jo
RE: Creating an initrd
hi stefan... mkinitrd ... or take an existing initrd.gz file...decompress it into /dev/ram or /dev/loop than change the kernel to your version, add your libs/commands and other stuff you want in the initrd to make your system bootable and compress that /dev/loop image into your_initrd.gz and add that as your initrd image in lilo or so goes the simplified 3-line howto... either way...you need to make sure you have minixfs and /dev/ram enabled in your kernel to be able to create initrd files i created a full system in about 2.5Mb that expands into 8-16Mb of linux hierachy that runs in memory ( /dev/ramxx ) ( put that on a 4Mb flash and you've got a nice firewall ?? ) you can try tomsrtbt too but, its bash is too small as is its libraries have fun alvin On Tue, 8 May 2001, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote: On 08-May-2001 Stefan Srdic wrote: I've compiled the 2.4.3 kernel on my patato box. I'm interrested in creating my own initial RAM disk (initrd) to speed up my boot process. Does anybody know of any good HOW-TO's on initrd's? Does anybody have some insight to share? Fairly easy to make, biggest snag is you really have to be root to make them properly. You need a /dev populated with enough entries for the hardware you care about. Other than that the file system can contain whatever you want/need. I think I started seeing issues around 5 - 8 mb sized initrd files. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
