Re: Is it possible to have squashfs inside initrd?

2014-09-20 13:07 GMT+02:00 Stefan Baur <newsgroups.mail2@stefanbaur.de>:

Am 20.09.2014 um 12:36 schrieb Daniel Lindgren:

> I've been trying to create a PXE bootable live Debian without the need
> to fetch the squashfs file from a network server. The use case is an
> easy way to clean hdds on computers that are to be sold or disposed. I'm
> aware of DBAN, it's not an option anymore since it's become payware

What keeps you from using the free version as it is available on
sourceforge (dban.sorceforge.net)?

There are limitations to DBAN. I've had issues on some hardware too.

> I would like to integrate filesystem.squashfs in initrd, if possible.
> The file transfer performance issue is solved with using http/iPXE
> instead of tftp.

If you use http, you need an http server. So why not just place the
squashfs on the http server as well? The method already exists, no need
to reinvent the wheel.

That's fine if you always boot on the same LAN as the HTTP server. We have about 60 LAN:s with clients. The fetch parameter uses a fixed URL, the squashfs file would have to be fetched from the same server no matter where the client is booted, which means file transfer over WAN in most cases.

iPXE can dynamically adapt the address to the current LAN, which means that the initrd file is always transferred over LAN.

Cheers,

Daniel

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