read only root

[Yan Seiner <yan@seiner.com>]

OK, this is a bit off the beaten path, but I am working with the regular 
Debian for ARM distro.

I'm having a problem getting the system to boot with read-only root.

It seems that somewhere in the startup scripts debian uses /etc/ as a 
/tmp directory and to store volatile files.  Specifically, the problem 
seems to be that debian insists on writing a file, /etc/network/ifstate, 
which is critical in bringing up networking. I've tried creating it and 
then mounting ro, but somewhere in the boot process / is mounted rw, the 
file is deleted, and then / is remounted ro, and networking fails as the 
scripts can't create that file.

I think this should be considered a bug in debian startup; scripts 
should not use /etc/* to store volatile information; that's what /var is 
for....

Before I delve into the startup scripts, is anyone working on changes to 
the startup scripts for embedded platforms?

Thanks,

--Yan

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Linux stuff has made big progress over the competition. When things sit and don't start right away, we have a watch, and those poor guys have to settle for an hourglass.