Subject: Re: Building a bootable image
To: None <netbsd-users@netbsd.org>
From: Jan Danielsson <jan.m.danielsson@gmail.com>
List: netbsd-users
Date: 03/23/2007 15:00:21
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Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumacher wrote:
>>    Want I want is to be able to boot from a CD, and have some basic
>> commands. The most advanced application I need is "vi".
>=20
> You want a Live-CD, check out pkgsrc/sysutils/mklivecd. It's a
> shellskript useful to create Live-CDs. It will create a chroot where
> you can install all apps you need and then you can create an ISO to be
> burnt onto CD.

   That shell script was a quite impressing piece of work. Unfortunately
it seems to croak due to the fact that GRUB (I'm using amd64) and cdboot
(Only -current? I'm running NetBSD/amd64 3.0) are missing. Am I out of lu=
ck?

>>    Surely someone must have created such a CD before, and have a rough=

>> idea about what I need to do? I'm not at all interested in getting X
>> running. I only need the command line tools.
>>
>>    Oh, and I would also like to know how to best preserve all relevant=

>> data when I copy (or tar) the files from the old disk to the new one,
>> and then copy (or untar) it back later.
>=20
> That's exactly the task Hubert's Ghost 4 Unix[1] was created for. But
> AFAIK G4U doesn't support CGD.=20
>=20
> However, I strongly suggest using dump(8) instead of tar(1). The
> unreliability of tar(1) is legendary, see [2], dump(8) is much more sta=
ble.
> Even better would be a dd(1) of your data. This will read the data
> from block level and copy *anything* on your hdd, even already deleted
> data ;-)

   :-) The problem is that I'm also going to resize the partitions while
moving them around which makes dd a little too tricky for me.
dump/restore seem to be exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks!

> BTW: I created a Live-CD some weeks ago for my tutorial on secure data
> deletion. It is available at [3]. It's only 67MB large and contains of
> a down sized NetBSD current without network access, but with CGD. You
> could use that CD to dump your data to another harddrive. The dump
> could be encrypted on the fly with bdes(1) and secure deleted with
> wipe(1) afterwards ;-)

   My kind of boot CD! I'll give it a try!



--=20
Kind regards,
Jan Danielsson



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