Bug#864777: initramfs-tools: Please support a tmpfs boot mode

[Peter Colberg <peter@colberg.org>]

Hi Benjamin,

On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 05:47:54PM +0200, Benjamin Drung wrote:
> Package: initramfs-tools
> Version: 0.130
> Severity: normal
> Tags: patch
> 
> Hi,
> 
> The tmpfs boot mode allows one to operate a disk-less live system by
> downloading a root tarball (that can be created with debootstrap) and
> extracting it to a tmpfs root partition.
> 
> The tmpfs boot mode is similar to the nfs boot mode, but it does not
> rely on any external service (after booting). We use this boot mode for
> our compute nodes. I have attached a patch to support this boot mode and
> tested it with qemu and on real hardware.

Please take a look at the package live-boot (and the man page of the
same name in live-boot-doc). Specifically, the parameter fetch=URL
should satisfy your requirements and consume less resources.

live-boot creates an overlay filesystem backed by a squashfs image,
which means it likely uses much less RAM than copying root to tmpfs.
(For my system, squashfs reduces the required memory to a third.)

Regards,
Peter