I decided it would be good to have a bootable rescue CD -- one that had 
all of /bin, /usr/bin, etc.  I wrote a script that created the file 
system image that I wanted, then -- following the instructions in the 
bootable CD How-To -- I ran mkhybrid.  Here I ran into my first 
problem:  I needed a boot image.  My attempt to compile from source
failed (no, I don't know why), so I picked up boot-big.fs from from the 
1.5 distribution tree on ftp.netbsd.org.  And it did indeed produce a 
mostly-usable CD.  But...

I was rather surprised, when it booted, to find myself in sysinst.  I 
assume that this is some attribute of boot-big -- is there a way to 
make that not happen?  I also found that root was /dev/mcd0a, which 
isn't what I wanted -- I wanted /dev/cd0a to be root, so that /bin, /
usr/share/man, etc., would be where they should be.  (I bypassed that 
operationally via 'mount -t cd9660 /dev/cd0a /mnt' and 'chroot /mnt'.)

My next problem is that I would like to have /tmp as an mfs file 
system.  But where can I mount it?  I may not have a /dev/wd0b (and, in 
fact, I did not when I test-booted the disk on a laptop that has only a
n EvilOS2000 partition).  /dev/cd0a is busy, and there is no disk label 
on /dev/cd0d, for example.

I'll be happy to post the script when it's done, but I'd like to work 
out a few of these glitches first.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb