Re: Redesign of diskless NFS-root package & ITP diskless-image
Brian May <bam@snoopy.apana.org.au> writes:
> [1 <text/plain; us-ascii (quoted-printable)>]
> On Wed, Sep 15, 1999 at 11:46:36AM +1000, Brian May wrote:
> > [description removed]
>
> I have made most of the changed required for my redesign of diskless.
> Amazingly, it looks like no changed are required for dpkg. I haven't
> yet tested anything though, and implementing secure mode might be a bit
> awkward. Currently I am considering the following:
>
> 1 installation moves /var, /dev, and /tmp into /rw/
> 2 symlinks are created: /var --> /rw/var,
> /dev --> /rw/dev, and
> /tmp --> /rw/tmp.
>
> On startup (non-secure mode) /var, /dev, and /tmp are mounted
> as usual, over the top of the directories under /rw/
>
> (should I do the same thing for /etc too? I inclined not to
> - I think it should be read-only. Making /etc read-write
> might make adding extra hosts easier, as all host
> specific data can be copied and processed on startup)
Do you support multiple clients? I would have a normal /etc that links
most files to /share/etc and some to /rw/etc (the host specific stuff
like hostname). /share would be on / and ro so its available on boot.
> On startup (secure mode) the temp directory is mounted in a temp
> location (eg /copy), and files all files are copied from /rw to /copy.
> This means the read-write files are all contained on the one partition,
> that could easierly be erased/formatted on startup. At this stage, /copy
> is re-mounted over /rw. This would be easier if I didn't have to re-mount
> /copy twice, I will need to think about that.
>
> The result will be that /var, /dev, and /tmp are read-write,
> but completely refreshed every-time the computer boots.
??? What do you mean here? Why copy anything at all? How should the
filesystems be broken? Isn´t it the servers responsibility to keep
them working? Do I have to copy my 2 GB /rw partition to /copy and
then back over my 40KB/s plip link?
> Anyway, as part of this redesign, I propose to package a new package,
> diskless-image.
>
> I am not sure if I normally have to ITP a new package when it is based
> on the same source package, but this one is a bit unusual...
>
> ...it is not meant to be manually installed! Rather, when you create a
> new diskless-image with diskless-newimage, this script automatically
> installs diskless-image.deb with the dpkg --root parameter, so that it
> only effects the NFS-root image. I think it is important to have
> this in the Debian archive though, to make upgrades easier.
>
> I believe that creating a separate package makes diskless for modular
> and easier to maintain. I suspect that it will make installing different
> architectures easier, as diskless-image can be installed a host other then
> the server, but I can't test this.
>
> As it is possible that diskless-image could break your computer if
> installed on the root directory by mistake, I have a check in the preinst
> file to ensure the directory /etc/diskless-image exists. If it doesn't
> installation will abort.
>
> Any comments?
Try to install for an m68k/ppc/alpha diskless station on your i386. I
might test i386/m68k/alpha in any comnbination for server and client
if I find the diskspace for it.
May the Source be with you.
Goswin
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