Making a Linux-Based Recovery CD
Hi I have been playing around with making a custom boot CD to help with the setup and fixing of Windows systems. Although many things are possible with my current CD, there are some (Linux) programs which Win95/DOS just doesn't have (like dd, YAST's partitioning tool, etc...), plus Win95/DOS can't access ext2 partitions. Is it possible to take a small, basic Linux install and make it bootable on CD? I'm thinking of installing Linux (SuSE 6.1) on a spare hard disk then just taking the image of it and burning it on CD with the help of 'mkisofs', 'mkbootcd' and 'cdrecord'. The big problem I can see is the mounting of file systems - not all computers have a CD drive on hdc (for example). Is there a LILO parameter I could use to get round this? I'm planning on having the whole file system under one partition, or is it better to have a /boot partition and then everything else mounted as loopback devices? Also, I presume the mount command will still work properly running off a CD so that hard disk partitions can be mounted once the CD has booted? As you can tell, my knowledge of Linux booting isn't particularly great, so please bear with me if what I say is stupid! Many Thanks for any help, Andrew
You could make a bootable floppy with a general purpose kernel, then after booting, mount your cdrom wherever the system will let you. Make sure your floppy kernel has support for ide cdroms, and the various filesystems built in.( Don't forget joliet extensions). As a matter of fact, why not just use the Suse bootfloppy and rescue system? Why reinvent the wheel? Go to www.freshmeat.net and do a search for "boot". There are about 20 projects that do what you want, especially Mindi Linux. Andrew Smith wrote:
Hi
I have been playing around with making a custom boot CD to help with the setup and fixing of Windows systems. Although many things are possible with my current CD, there are some (Linux) programs which Win95/DOS just doesn't have (like dd, YAST's partitioning tool, etc...), plus Win95/DOS can't access ext2 partitions. Is it possible to take a small, basic Linux install and make it bootable on CD? I'm thinking of installing Linux (SuSE 6.1) on a spare hard disk then just taking the image of it and burning it on CD with the help of 'mkisofs', 'mkbootcd' and 'cdrecord'.
The big problem I can see is the mounting of file systems - not all computers have a CD drive on hdc (for example). Is there a LILO parameter I could use to get round this? I'm planning on having the whole file system under one partition, or is it better to have a /boot partition and then everything else mounted as loopback devices? Also, I presume the mount command will still work properly running off a CD so that hard disk partitions can be mounted once the CD has booted?
As you can tell, my knowledge of Linux booting isn't particularly great, so please bear with me if what I say is stupid!
Many Thanks for any help,
Andrew
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zentara wrote:
You could make a bootable floppy with a general purpose kernel, then after booting, mount your cdrom wherever the system will let you. Make sure your floppy kernel has support for ide cdroms, and the various filesystems built in.( Don't forget joliet extensions).
As a matter of fact, why not just use the Suse bootfloppy and rescue system? Why reinvent the wheel? Go to www.freshmeat.net and do a search for "boot". There are about 20 projects that do what you want, especially Mindi Linux.
I think the rescue system is it. I had a *nice* job to save some data from a friends laptop with NTFS, but no network card. Booted the rescue system with one of my pcmcia cards in linux and lacked the ntfs module ;-( Copied it from another system by disk and goodness either ftp'd everything or used NFS - do not remember.
From that time I realy want a rescue system that has all network and filesystem modules incl. smb stuff. Whatever network surrounding you're in whatever X86 based and powered system -YOU- save the data after major corruption.
Juergen
Andrew Smith wrote:
Hi
I have been playing around with making a custom boot CD to help with the setup and fixing of Windows systems. Although many things are possible with my current CD, there are some (Linux) programs which Win95/DOS just doesn't have (like dd, YAST's partitioning tool, etc...), plus Win95/DOS can't access ext2 partitions. Is it possible to take a small, basic Linux install and make it bootable on CD? I'm thinking of installing Linux (SuSE 6.1) on a spare hard disk then just taking the image of it and burning it on CD with the help of 'mkisofs', 'mkbootcd' and 'cdrecord'.
The big problem I can see is the mounting of file systems - not all computers have a CD drive on hdc (for example). Is there a LILO parameter I could use to get round this? I'm planning on having the whole file system under one partition, or is it better to have a /boot partition and then everything else mounted as loopback devices? Also, I presume the mount command will still work properly running off a CD so that hard disk partitions can be mounted once the CD has booted?
As you can tell, my knowledge of Linux booting isn't particularly great, so please bear with me if what I say is stupid!
Many Thanks for any help,
Andrew
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-- =========================================== __ _ Juergen Braukmann juergen.braukmann@gmx.de| -o)/ / (_)__ __ ____ __ Tel: 0201-743648 dk4jb@db0qs.#nrw.deu.eu | /\\ /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / ===========================================_\_v __/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\
HI ! I need to use FTP, email services, but in a secure way... how could I configure them to be used but under SSH ?? thanks bye --ed
for ftp you can use sftp, which now comes with openssh. of course that means only unix/linux clients to unix/linux servers. there is also a way to use pop over ssh, look on linuxdoc.org for secure pop or apop or something like that. dont know about smtp. On Tue, 10 Jul 2001, Linux - User wrote:
HI !
I need to use FTP, email services, but in a secure way...
how could I configure them to be used but under SSH ??
thanks
bye
--ed
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Chad Whitten Network/Systems Administrator Nexband Communications chadwick@nexband.com
Hi ! I'm having problems with a Symbolic link that I create using the "ln -s" command The issue is that some times when I reboot the PC or make a physical reset it losses the link and make it to a completely another target. Any idea of what could it be ?
Some sym links are reset by startup scripts. One that I am aware of is the java sym-link in /usr/lib. It always get set to the JDK1.1.8 that came with SuSE. -ronc On Tuesday 10 July 2001 19:23, Linux - User wrote:
Hi !
I'm having problems with a Symbolic link that I create using the "ln -s" command
The issue is that some times when I reboot the PC or make a physical reset it losses the link and make it to a completely another target.
Any idea of what could it be ?
participants (6)
-
Andrew Smith -
dog＠intop.net -
Juergen Braukmann -
Linux - User -
Ron Cordell -
zentara