The Linux Bootdisk HOWTO

Tom Fawcett

��������Bootdisk-HOWTO@linuxdoc.org
��������

v4.2, November 2000

This document describes how to design and build boot/root diskettes for
Linux. These disks can be used as rescue disks or to test new system
components. You should be reasonably familiar with system administration
tasks before attempting to build a bootdisk. If you just want a rescue disk
to have for emergencies, see Appendix A.1.

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Table of Contents
1. Preface
1.1. Version notes
1.2. Yet to do
1.3. Feedback and credits
1.4. Distribution policy

2. Introduction
3. Bootdisks and the boot process
3.1. The boot process
3.2. Disk types

4. Building a root filesystem
4.1. Overview
4.2. Creating the filesystem
4.3. Populating the filesystem
4.4. Providing for PAM and NSS
4.5. Modules
4.6. Some final details
4.7. Wrapping it up

5. Choosing a kernel
6. Putting them together: Making the diskette(s)
6.1. Transferring the kernel with LILO
6.2. Transferring the kernel without LILO
6.3. Setting the ramdisk word
6.4. Transferring the root filesystem

7. Troubleshooting, or The Agony of Defeat
8. Miscellaneous topics
8.1. Reducing root filesystem size
8.2. Non-ramdisk root filesystems
8.3. Building a utility disk

9. How the pros do it
10. Creating bootable CD-ROMs
10.1. What is El Torito?
10.2. How it Works
10.3. How to make it work
10.4. Create Win9x Bootable CD-Roms

11. Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) list
A. Resources and pointers
A.1. Pre-made Bootdisks
A.2. Rescue packages
A.3. LILO -- the Linux loader
A.4. Ramdisk usage
A.5. The Linux boot process

B. LILO boot error codes
C. Sample root filesystem listings
D. Sample utility disk directory listing

1. Preface

Important: This document may be outdated. If the date on the title page
is more than six months ago, please check the Bootdisk-HOWTO homepage to
see if a more recent version exists.

Although this document should be legible in its text form, it looks much
better in Postscript, PDF or HTML forms because of the typographical
conventions used.
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1.1. Version notes

Graham Chapman wrote the original Bootdisk-HOWTO and supported it through
version 3.1. Tom Fawcett started as co-author around the time kernel v2 was
introduced, and he is the document's current maintainer. Chapman has
disappeared from the Linux community and his whereabouts are currently
unknown.

This information is intended for Linux on the Intel platform. Much of this
information may be applicable to Linux on other processors, but I have no
first-hand experience or information about this. If you have experience with
bootdisks on other platforms, please contact me.
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1.2. Yet to do

1. Describe how to create bootable LS110 disks.

2. Describe how to deal with the huge libc.so shared libraries. The options
are basically to get older, smaller libraries or to cut down existing
libraries.

3. Re-analyze distribution bootdisks and update the "How the Pros do it"
section.

4. Delete section that describes how to upgrade existing distribution
bootdisks. This is usually more trouble than it's worth.

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1.3. Feedback and credits

I welcome any feedback, good or bad, on the content of this document. I have
done my best to ensure that the instructions and information herein are
accurate and reliable. Please let me know if you find errors or omissions.
When writing, please indicate the version number of the document you're
referencing.

We thank the many people who assisted with corrections and suggestions. Their
contributions have made it far better than we could ever have done alone.

Send comments and corrections to the author at the email address above.
Please read Section 7 before asking me questions. Do not email me disk
images.
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1.4. Distribution policy

Copyright � 1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000 by Tom Fawcett and Graham Chapman.
This document may be distributed under the terms set forth in the Linux
Documentation Project License. Please contact the authors if you are unable
to get the license.

This is free documentation. It is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of
merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
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2. Introduction

Linux boot disks are useful in a number of situations, such as testing a new
kernel, recovering from a disk failure (anything from a lost boot sector to a
disk head crash), fixing a disabled system, or upgrading critical system
files safely (such as libc.so).

There are several ways of obtaining boot disks:

��*�Use one from a distribution such as Slackware. This will at least allow
you to boot.

��*�Use a rescue package to set up disks designed to be used as rescue disks.

��*�Learn what is required for each of the types of disk to operate, then
build your own.

Some people choose the last option so they can do it themselves. That way, if
something breaks, they can work out what to do to fix it. Plus it's a great
way to learn about how a Linux system works.

This document assumes some basic familiarity with Linux system administration
concepts. For example, you should know about directories, filesystems and
floppy diskettes. You should know how to use mount and df. You should know
what /etc/passwd and fstab files are for and what they look like. You should
know that most of the commands in this HOWTO should be run as root.

Constructing a bootdisk from scratch can be complicated. If you haven't read
the Linux FAQ and related documents, such as the Linux Installation HOWTO and
the Linux Installation Guide, you should not be trying to build boot
diskettes. If you just need a working bootdisk for emergencies, it is much
easier to download a prefabricated one. See Appendix A.1, below, for where to
find these.
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3. Bootdisks and the boot process

A bootdisk is basically a miniature, self-contained Linux system on a
diskette. It must perform many of the same functions that a complete
full-size Linux system performs. Before trying to build one you should
understand the basic Linux boot process. Here we present the basics, which
are sufficient for understanding the rest of this document. Many details and
alternative options have been omitted.
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3.1. The boot process

All PC systems start the boot process by executing code in ROM (specifically,
the BIOS) to load the sector from sector 0, cylinder 0 of the boot drive. The
boot drive is usually the first floppy drive (designated A: in DOS and /dev/
fd0 in Linux). The BIOS then tries to execute this sector. On most bootable
disks, sector 0, cylinder 0 contains either:

��*�code from a boot loader such as LILO, which locates the kernel, loads it
and executes it to start the boot proper; or

��*�the start of an operating system kernel, such as Linux.

If a Linux kernel has been raw-copied to a diskette, the first sector of the
disk will be the first sector of the Linux kernel itself. This first sector
will continue the boot process by loading the rest of the kernel from the
boot device.

When the kernel is completely loaded, it initializes device drivers and its
internal data structures. Once it is completely initialized, it consults a
special location in its image called the ramdisk word. This word tells it how
and where to find its root filesystem. A root filesystem is simply a
filesystem that will be mounted as ``/''. The kernel has to be told where to
look for the root filesystem; if it cannot find a loadable image there, it
halts.

In some boot situations ?? often when booting from a diskette ?? the root
filesystem is loaded into a ramdisk, which is RAM accessed by the system as
if it were a disk. RAM is several orders of magnitude faster than a floppy
disk, so system operation is fast from a ramdisk. Also, the kernel can load a
compressed filesystem from the floppy and uncompress it onto the ramdisk,
allowing many more files to be squeezed onto the diskette.

Once the root filesystem is loaded and mounted, you see a message like:
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.

Once the system has loaded a root filesystem successfully, it tries to
execute the init program (in /bin or /sbin). init reads its configuration
file /etc/inittab, looks for a line designated sysinit, and executes the
named script. The sysinit script is usually something like /etc/rc or /etc/
init.d/boot. This script is a set of shell commands that set up basic system
services, such as running fsck on hard disks, loading necessary kernel
modules, initializing swapping, initializing the network, and mounting disks
mentioned in /etc/fstab.

This script often invokes various other scripts to do modular initialization.
For example, in the common SysVinit structure, the directory /etc/rc.d/
contains a complex structure of subdirectories whose files specify how to
enable and shut down most system services. However, on a bootdisk the sysinit
script is often very simple.

When the sysinit script finishes control returns to init, which then enters
the default runlevel, specified in inittab with the initdefault keyword. The
runlevel line usually specifies a program like getty, which is responsible
for handling commununications through the console and ttys. It is the getty
program which prints the familiar ``login:'' prompt. The getty program in
turn invokes the login program to handle login validation and to set up user
sessions.
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3.2. Disk types

Having reviewed the basic boot process, we can now define various kinds of
disks involved. We classify disks into four types. The discussion here and
throughout this document uses the term ``disk'' to refer to floppy diskettes
unless otherwise specified, though most of the discussion could apply equally
well to hard disks.

boot
A disk containing a kernel which can be booted. The disk can be used to
boot the kernel, which then may load a root file system on another disk.
The kernel on a bootdisk usually must be told where to find its root
filesystem.

Often a bootdisk loads a root filesystem from another diskette, but it is
possible for a bootdisk to be set up to load a hard disk's root
filesystem instead. This is commonly done when testing a new kernel (in
fact, ``make zdisk'' will create such a bootdisk automatically from the
kernel source code).

root
A disk with a filesystem containing files required to run a Linux system.
Such a disk does not necessarily contain either a kernel or a boot
loader.

A root disk can be used to run the system independently of any other
disks, once the kernel has been booted. Usually the root disk is
automatically copied to a ramdisk. This makes root disk accesses much
faster, and frees up the disk drive for a utility disk.

boot/root
A disk which contains both the kernel and a root filesystem. In other
words, it contains everything necessary to boot and run a Linux system
without a hard disk. The advantage of this type of disk is that is it
compact ?? everything required is on a single disk. However, the
gradually increasing size of everything means that it is increasingly
difficult to fit everything on a single diskette, even with compression.

utility
A disk which contains a filesystem, but is not intended to be mounted as
a root file system. It is an additional data disk. You would use this
type of disk to carry additional utilities where you have too much to fit
on your root disk.

In general, when we talk about ``building a bootdisk'' we mean creating both
the boot (kernel) and root (files) portions. They may be either together (a
single boot/root disk) or separate (boot + root disks). The most flexible
approach for rescue diskettes is probably to use separate boot and root
diskettes, and one or more utility diskettes to handle the overflow.
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4. Building a root filesystem

Creating the root filesystem involves selecting files necessary for the
system to run. In this section we describe how to build a compressed root
filesystem. A less common option is to build an uncompressed filesystem on a
diskette that is directly mounted as root; this alternative is described in
Section 8.2.
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4.1. Overview

A root filesystem must contain everything needed to support a full Linux
system. To be able to do this, the disk must include the minimum requirements
for a Linux system:

��*�The basic file system structure,

��*� Minimum set of directories: /dev, /proc, /bin, /etc, /lib, /usr, /tmp,

��*�Basic set of utilities: sh, ls, cp, mv, etc.,

��*�Minimum set of config files: rc, inittab, fstab, etc.,

��*�Devices: /dev/hd*, /dev/tty*, /dev/fd0, etc.,

��*�Runtime library to provide basic functions used by utilities.

Of course, any system only becomes useful when you can run something on it,
and a root diskette usually only becomes useful when you can do something
like:

��*� Check a file system on another drive, for example to check your root
file system on your hard drive, you need to be able to boot Linux from
another drive, as you can with a root diskette system. Then you can run
fsck on your original root drive while it is not mounted.

��*�Restore all or part of your original root drive from backup using archive
and compression utilities such as cpio, tar, gzip and ftape.

We describe how to build a compressed filesystem, so called because it is
compressed on disk and, when booted, is uncompressed onto a ramdisk. With a
compressed filesystem you can fit many files (approximately six megabytes)
onto a standard 1440K diskette. Because the filesystem is much larger than a
diskette, it cannot be built on the diskette. We have to build it elsewhere,
compress it, then copy it to the diskette.
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4.2. Creating the filesystem

In order to build such a root filesystem, you need a spare device that is
large enough to hold all the files before compression. You will need a device
capable of holding about four megabytes. There are several choices:

��*�Use a ramdisk (DEVICE = /dev/ram0). In this case, memory is used to
simulate a disk drive. The ramdisk must be large enough to hold a
filesystem of the appropriate size. If you use LILO, check your
configuration file (/etc/lilo.conf) for a line like RAMDISK = nnn which
determines the maximum RAM that can be allocated to a ramdisk. The
default is 4096K, which should be sufficient. You should probably not try
to use such a ramdisk on a machine with less than 8MB of RAM. Check to
make sure you have a device like /dev/ram0, /dev/ram or /dev/ramdisk. If
not, create /dev/ram0 with mknod (major number 1, minor 0).

��*�If you have an unused hard disk partition that is large enough (several
megabytes), this is acceptable.

��*�Use a loopback device, which allows a disk file to be treated as a
device. Using a loopback device you can create a three megabyte file on
your hard disk and build the filesystem on it.

Type man losetup for instructions on using loopback devices. If you don't
have losetup, you can get it along with compatible versions of mount and
unmount from the util-linux package in the directory ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl
/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.

If you do not have a loop device (/dev/loop0, /dev/loop1, etc.) on your
system, you will have to create one with ``mknod /dev/loop0 b 7 0''. Once
you've installed these special mount and umount binaries, create a
temporary file on a hard disk with enough capacity (eg, /tmp/fsfile). You
can use a command like:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/fsfile bs=1k count=nnn
to create an nnn-block file.

Use the file name in place of DEVICE below. When you issue a mount
command you must include the option -o loop to tell mount to use a
loopback device. For example:
mount -o loop -t ext2 /tmp/fsfile /mnt
will mount /tmp/fsfile via a loopback device at the mount point /mnt. A
df will confirm this.

After you've chosen one of these options, prepare the DEVICE with:
dd if=/dev/zero of=DEVICE bs=1k count=4096

This command zeroes out the device.

Important: Zeroing the device is critical because the filesystem will be
compressed later, so all unused portions should be filled with zeroes to
achieve maximum compression. Keep this in mind whenever you move or
delete files on the filesystem. The filesystem will correctly de-allocate
the blocks, but it will not zero them out again. If you do a lot of
deletions and copying, your compressed filesystem may end up much larger
than necessary.

Next, create the filesystem. The Linux kernel recognizes two file system
types for root disks to be automatically copied to ramdisk. These are minix
and ext2, of which ext2 is preferred. If using ext2, you may find it useful
to use the -i option to specify more inodes than the default; -i 2000 is
suggested so that you don't run out of inodes. Alternatively, you can save on
inodes by removing lots of unnecessary /dev files. mke2fs will by default
create 360 inodes on a 1.44Mb diskette. I find that 120 inodes is ample on my
current rescue root diskette, but if you include all the devices in the /dev
directory then you will easily exceed 360. Using a compressed root filesystem
allows a larger filesystem, and hence more inodes by default, but you may
still need to either reduce the number of files or increase the number of
inodes.

So the command you use will look like:
mke2fs -m 0 -i 2000 DEVICE

(If you're using a loopback device, the disk file you're using should be
supplied in place of this DEVICE.)

The mke2fs command will automatically detect the space available and
configure itself accordingly. The ``-m�0'' parameter prevents it from
reserving space for root, and hence provides more usable space on the disk.

Next, mount the device:
mount -t ext2 DEVICE /mnt
(You must create a mount point /mnt if it does not already exist.) In the
remaining sections, all destination directory names are assumed to be
relative to /mnt.
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4.3. Populating the filesystem

Here is a reasonable minimum set of directories for your root filesystem [1]:

��*�/dev -- Device files, required to perform I/O

��*�/proc -- Directory stub required by the proc filesystem

��*�/etc -- System configuration files

��*�/sbin -- Critical system binaries

��*�/bin -- Essential binaries considered part of the system

��*�/lib -- Shared libraries to provide run-time support

��*�/mnt -- A mount point for maintenance on other disks

��*�/usr -- Additional utilities and applications

Three of these directories will be empty on the root filesystem, so they only
need to be created with mkdir. The /proc directory is basically a stub under
which the proc filesystem is placed. The directories /mnt and /usr are only
mount points for use after the boot/root system is running. Hence again,
these directories only need to be created.

The remaining four directories are described in the following sections.
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4.3.1. /dev

A /dev directory containing a special file for all devices to be used by the
system is mandatory for any Linux system. The directory itself is a normal
directory, and can be created with mkdir in the normal way. The device
special files, however, must be created in a special way, using the mknod
command.

There is a shortcut, though ?? copy your existing /dev directory contents,
and delete the ones you don't want. The only requirement is that you copy the
device special files using -R option. This will copy the directory without
attempting to copy the contents of the files. Be sure to use an upper case R.
The command is:
cp -dpR /dev /mnt
assuming that the diskette is mounted at /mnt. The dp switches ensure that
symbolic links are copied as links, rather than using the target file, and
that the original file attributes are preserved, thus preserving ownership
information.

If you want to do it the hard way, use ls -l to display the major and minor
device numbers for the devices you want, and create them on the diskette
using mknod.

However the devices are copied, it is worth checking that any special devices
you need have been placed on the rescue diskette. For example, ftape uses
tape devices, so you will need to copy all of these if you intend to access
your floppy tape drive from the bootdisk.

Note that one inode is required for each device special file, and inodes can
at times be a scarce resource, especially on diskette filesystems. It
therefore makes sense to remove any device special files that you don't need
from the diskette /dev directory. For example, if you do not have SCSI disks
you can safely remove all the device files starting with sd. Similarly, if
you don't intend to use your serial port then all device files starting with
cua can go.

Important: Be sure to include the following files from this directory:
console, kmem, mem, null, ram0 and tty1.

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4.3.2. /etc

This directory contains important configuration files. On most systems, these
can be divided into three groups:

1. Required at all times, e.g. rc, fstab, passwd.

2. May be required, but no one is too sure.

3. Junk that crept in.

Files which are not essential can usually be identified with the command:
ls -ltru
This lists files in reverse order of date last accessed, so if any files are
not being accessed, they can be omitted from a root diskette.

On my root diskettes, I have the number of config files down to 15. This
reduces my work to dealing with three sets of files:

1. The ones I must configure for a boot/root system:

a. rc.d/* -- system startup and run level change scripts

b. fstab -- list of file systems to be mounted

c. inittab -- parameters for the init process, the first process started
at boot time.

2. The ones I should tidy up for a boot/root system:

a. passwd -- Critical list of users, home directories, etc.

b. group -- user groups.

c. shadow -- passwords of users. You may not have this.

d. termcap -- the terminal capability database.

If security is important, passwd and shadow should be pruned to avoid
copying user passwords off the system, and so that unwanted logins are
rejected when you boot from diskette.

Be sure that passwd contains at least root. If you intend other users
to login, be sure their home directories and shells exist.

termcap, the terminal database, is typically several hundred kilobytes.
The version on your boot/root diskette should be pruned down to contain
only the terminal(s) you use, which is usually just the linux or
linux-console entry.

3. The rest. They work at the moment, so I leave them alone.

Out of this, I only really have to configure two files, and what they should
contain is surprisingly small.

��*�rc should contain:
#!/bin/sh
/bin/mount -av
/bin/hostname Kangaroo
Be sure it is executable, and be sure any absolute filenames are correct.
You don't really need to run hostname ?? it just looks nicer if you do.

��*�fstab should contain at least:
/dev/ram0 / ext2 defaults
/dev/fd0 / ext2 defaults
/proc /proc proc defaults
You can copy entries from your existing fstab, but you should not
automatically mount any of your hard disk partitions; use the noauto
keyword with them. Your hard disk may be damaged or dead when the
bootdisk is used.

Your inittab should be changed so that its sysinit line runs rc or whatever
basic boot script will be used. Also, if you want to ensure that users on
serial ports cannot login, comment out all the entries for getty which
include a ttys or ttyS device at the end of the line. Leave in the tty ports
so that you can login at the console.

A minimal inittab file looks like this:
id:2:initdefault:
si::sysinit:/etc/rc
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 9600 tty1
2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 9600 tty2
The inittab file defines what the system will run in various states including
startup, move to multi-user mode, etc. Check carefully the filenames
mentioned in inittab; if init cannot find the program mentioned the bootdisk
will hang, and you may not even get an error message.

Note that some programs cannot be moved elsewhere because other programs have
hardcoded their locations. For example, on my system, /etc/shutdown has
hardcoded in it /etc/reboot. If I move reboot to /bin/reboot, and then issue
a shutdown command, it will fail because it cannot find the reboot file.

For the rest, just copy all the text files in your /etc directory, plus all
the executables in your /etc directory that you cannot be sure you do not
need. As a guide, consult the sample listing in Appendix C. Probably it will
suffice to copy only those files, but systems differ a great deal, so you
cannot be sure that the same set of files on your system is equivalent to the
files in the list. The only sure method is to start with inittab and work out
what is required.

Most systems now use an /etc/rc.d/ directory containing shell scripts for
different run levels. The minimum is a single rc script, but it may be
simpler just to copy inittab and the /etc/rc.d directory from your existing
system, and prune the shell scripts in the rc.d directory to remove
processing not relevent to a diskette system environment.
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4.3.3. /bin and /sbin

The /bin directory is a convenient place for extra utilities you need to
perform basic operations, utilities such as ls, mv, cat and dd. See Appendix
C for an example list of files that go in a /bin and /sbin directories. It
does not include any of the utilities required to restore from backup, such
as cpio, tar and gzip. That is because I place these on a separate utility
diskette, to save space on the boot/root diskette. Once the boot/root
diskette is booted, it is copied to the ramdisk leaving the diskette drive
free to mount another diskette, the utility diskette. I usually mount this as
/usr.

Creation of a utility diskette is described below in Section 8.3. It is
probably desirable to maintain a copy of the same version of backup utilities
used to write the backups so you don't waste time trying to install versions
that cannot read your backup tapes.

Important: Be sure to include the following programs: init, getty or
equivalent, login, mount, some shell capable of running your rc scripts,
a link from sh to the shell.

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4.3.4. /lib

In /lib you place necessary shared libraries and loaders. If the necessary
libraries are not found in your /lib directory then the system will be unable
to boot. If you're lucky you may see an error message telling you why.

Nearly every program requires at least the libc library, libc.so.N, where N
is the current version number. Check your /lib directory. The file libc.so.N
is usually a symlink to a filename with a complete version number:

% ls -l /lib/libc*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4016683 Apr 16 18:48 libc-2.1.1.so*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr 10 12:25 libc.so.6 -> libc-2.1.1.so*

In this case, you want libc-2.1.1.so. To find other libraries you should go
through all the binaries you plan to include and check their dependencies
with ldd. For example:
% ldd /sbin/mke2fs
libext2fs.so.2 => /lib/libext2fs.so.2 (0x40014000)
libcom_err.so.2 => /lib/libcom_err.so.2 (0x40026000)
libuuid.so.1 => /lib/libuuid.so.1 (0x40028000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4002c000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)
Each file on the right-hand side is required. The file may be a symbolic
link.

Note that some libraries are quite large and will not fit easily on your root
filesystem. For example, the libc.so listed above is about 4 meg. You will
probably need to strip libraries when copying them to your root filesystem.
See Section 8.1 for instructions.

In /lib you must also include a loader for the libraries. The loader will be
either ld.so (for A.OUT libraries, which are no longer common) or ld-linux.so
(for ELF libraries). Newer versions of ldd tell you exactly which loader is
needed, as in the example above, but older versions may not. If you're unsure
which you need, run the file command on the library. For example:
% file /lib/libc.so.4.7.2 /lib/libc.so.5.4.33 /lib/libc-2.1.1.so
/lib/libc.so.4.7.2: Linux/i386 demand-paged executable (QMAGIC), stripped
/lib/libc.so.5.4.33: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, version 1, stripped
/lib/libc-2.1.1.so: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, version 1, not stripped
The QMAGIC indicates that 4.7.2 is for A.OUT libraries, and ELF indicates
that 5.4.33 and 2.1.1 are for ELF.

Copy the specific loader(s) you need to the root filesystem you're building.
Libraries and loaders should be checked carefully against the included
binaries. If the kernel cannot load a necessary library, the kernel may hang
with no error message.
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4.4. Providing for PAM and NSS

Your system may require dynamically loaded libraries that are not visible to
ldd. If you don't provide for these, you may have trouble logging in or using
your bootdisk.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.4.1. PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules)

If your system uses PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules), you must make
some provision for it on your bootdisk. Briefly, PAM is a sophisticated
modular method for authenticating users and controlling their access to
services. An easy way to determine if your system uses PAM is run ldd on your
login executable; if the output includes libpam.so, you need PAM.

Fortunately, security is usually of no concern with bootdisks since anyone
who has physical access to a machine can usually do anything they want
anyway. Therefore, you can effectively disable PAM by creating a simple /etc/
pam.conf file in your root filesystem that looks like this:
OTHER auth optional /lib/security/pam_permit.so
OTHER account optional /lib/security/pam_permit.so
OTHER password optional /lib/security/pam_permit.so
OTHER session optional /lib/security/pam_permit.so
Also copy the file /lib/security/pam_permit.so to your root filesystem. This
library is only about 8K so it imposes minimal overhead.

This configuration allows anyone complete access to the files and services on
your machine. If you care about security on your bootdisk for some reason,
you'll have to copy some or all of your hard disk's PAM setup to your root
filesystem. Be sure to read the PAM documentation carefully, and copy any
libraries needed in /lib/security onto your root filesystem.

You must also include /lib/libpam.so on your bootdisk. But you already know
this since you ran ldd on /bin/login, which showed this dependency.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.4.2. NSS (Name Service Switch)

If you are using glibc (aka libc6), you will have to make provisions for name
services or you will not be able to login. The file /etc/nsswitch.conf
controls database lookups for various servies. If you don't plan to access
services from the network (eg, DNS or NIS lookups), you need only prepare a
simple nsswitch.conf file that looks like this:
passwd: files
shadow: files
group: files
hosts: files
services: files
networks: files
protocols: files
rpc: files
ethers: files
netmasks: files
bootparams: files
automount: files
aliases: files
netgroup: files
publickey: files
This specifies that every service be provided only by local files. You will
also need to include /lib/libnss_files.so.X, where X is 1 for glibc 2.0 and 2
for glibc 2.1. This library will be loaded dynamically to handle the file
lookups.

If you plan to access the network from your bootdisk, you may want to create
a more elaborate nsswitch.conf file. See the nsswitch man page for details.
You must include a file /lib/libnss_service.so.1 for each service you
specify.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.5. Modules

If you have a modular kernel, you must consider which modules you may want to
load from your bootdisk after booting. You might want to include ftape and
zftape modules if your backup tapes are on floppy tape, modules for SCSI
devices if you have them, and possibly modules for PPP or SLIP support if you
want to access the net in an emergency.

These modules may be placed in /lib/modules. You should also include insmod,
rmmod and lsmod. Depending on whether you want to load modules automatically,
you might also include modprobe, depmod and swapout. If you use kerneld,
include it along with /etc/conf.modules.

However, the main advantage to using modules is that you can move
non-critical modules to a utility disk and load them when needed, thus using
less space on your root disk. If you may have to deal with many different
devices, this approach is preferable to building one huge kernel with many
drivers built in.

Important: In order to boot a compressed ext2 filesystem, you must have
ramdisk and ext2 support built-in. They cannot be supplied as modules.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.6. Some final details

Some system programs, such as login, complain if the file /var/run/utmp and
the directory /var/log do not exist. So:
mkdir -p /mnt/var/{log,run{
touch /mnt/var/run/utmp

Finally, after you have set up all the libraries you need, run ldconfig to
remake /etc/ld.so.cache on the root filesystem. The cache tells the loader
where to find the libraries. You can do this with:
ldconfig -r /mnt

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.7. Wrapping it up

When you have finished constructing the root filesystem, unmount it, copy it
to a file and compress it:
umount /mnt
dd if=DEVICE bs=1k | gzip -v9 > rootfs.gz
When this finishes you will have a file rootfs.gz. This is your compressed
root filesystem. You should check its size to make sure it will fit on a
diskette; if it doesn't you'll have to go back and remove some files. Some
suggestions for reducing root filesystem size appear in Section 8.1.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Choosing a kernel

At this point you have a complete compressed root filesystem. The next step
is to build or select a kernel. In most cases it would be possible to copy
your current kernel and boot the diskette from that. However, there may be
cases where you wish to build a separate one.

One reason is size. If you are building a single boot/root diskette, the
kernel will be one of the largest files on the diskette so you will have to
reduce the size of the kernel as much as possible. To reduce kernel size,
build it with the minumum set of facilities necessary to support the desired
system. This means leaving out everything you don't need. Networking is a
good thing to leave out, as well as support for any disk drives and other
devices which you don't need when running your boot/root system. As stated
before, your kernel must have ramdisk and ext2 support built into it.

Having worked out a minimum set of facilities to include in a kernel, you
then need to work out what to add back in. Probably the most common uses for
a boot/root diskette system would be to examine and restore a corrupted root
file system, and to do this you may need kernel support. For example, if your
backups are all held on tape using Ftape to access your tape drive, then, if
you lose your current root drive and drives containing Ftape, then you will
not be able to restore from your backup tapes. You will have to reinstall
Linux, download and reinstall ftape, and then try to read your backups.

The point here is that, whatever I/O support you have added to your kernel to
support backups should also be added into your boot/root kernel.

The procedure for actually building the kernel is described in the
documentation that comes with the kernel. It is quite easy to follow, so
start by looking in /usr/src/linux. If you have trouble building a kernel,
you should probably not attempt to build boot/root systems anyway. Remember
to compress the kernel with ``make zImage''.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. Putting them together: Making the diskette(s)

At this point you have a kernel and a compressed root filesystem. If you are
making a boot/root disk, check their sizes to make sure they will both fit on
one disk. If you are making a two disk boot+root set, check the root
filesystem to make sure it will fit on a single diskette.

You should decide whether to use LILO to boot the bootdisk kernel. The
alternative is to copy the kernel directly to the diskette and boot without
LILO. The advantage of using LILO is that it enables you to supply some
parameters to the kernel which may be necessary to initialize your hardware
(Check the file /etc/lilo.conf on your system. If it exists and has a line
like ``append=...'', you probably need this feature). The disadvantage of
using LILO is that building the bootdisk is more complicated and takes
slightly more space. You will have to set up a small separate filesystem,
which we shall call the kernel filesystem, where you transfer the kernel and
a few other files that LILO needs.

If you are going to use LILO, read on; if you are going to transfer the
kernel directly, skip ahead to Section 6.2.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.1. Transferring the kernel with LILO

The first thing you must do is create a small configuration file for LILO. It
should look like this:
boot =/dev/fd0
install =/boot/boot.b
map =/boot/map
read-write
backup =/dev/null
compact
image = KERNEL
label = Bootdisk
root =/dev/fd0
For an explanation of these parameters, see LILO's user documentation. You
will probably also want to add an append=... line to this file from your hard
disk's /etc/lilo.conf file.

Save this file as bdlilo.conf.

You now have to create a small filesystem, which we shall call a kernel
filesystem, to distinguish it from the root filesystem.

First, figure out how large the filesystem should be. Take the size of your
kernel in blocks (the size shown by ``ls -s KERNEL'') and add 50. Fifty
blocks is approximately the space needed for inodes plus other files. You can
calculate this number exactly if you want to, or just use 50. If you're
creating a two-disk set, you may as well overestimate the space since the
first disk is only used for the kernel anyway. Call this number
KERNEL_BLOCKS.

Put a floppy diskette in the drive (for simplicity we'll assume /dev/fd0) and
create an ext2 kernel filesystem on it:
mke2fs -i 8192 -m 0 /dev/fd0 KERNEL_BLOCKS
The ``-i 8192'' specifies one inode per 8192 bytes. Next, mount the
filesystem, remove the lost+found directory, and create dev and boot
directories for LILO:
mount /dev/fd0 /mnt
rm -rf /mnt/lost+found
mkdir /mnt/{boot,dev}

Next, create devices /dev/null and /dev/fd0. Instead of looking up the device
numbers, you can just copy them from your hard disk using -R:
cp -R /dev/{null,fd0} /mnt/dev
LILO needs a copy of its boot loader, boot.b, which you can take from your
hard disk. It is usually kept in the /boot directory.
cp /boot/boot.b /mnt/boot
Finally, copy in the LILO configuration file you created in the last section,
along with your kernel. Both can be put in the root directory:
cp bdlilo.conf KERNEL /mnt
Everything LILO needs is now on the kernel filesystem, so you are ready to
run it. LILO's -r flag is used for installing the boot loader on some other
root:
lilo -v -C bdlilo.conf -r /mnt
LILO should run without error, after which the kernel filesystem should look
something like this:
total 361
1 ??rw??r????r???? 1 root root 176 Jan 10 07:22 bdlilo.conf
1 drwxr??xr??x 2 root root 1024 Jan 10 07:23 boot/
1 drwxr??xr??x 2 root root 1024 Jan 10 07:22 dev/
358 ??rw??r????r???? 1 root root 362707 Jan 10 07:23 vmlinuz
boot:
total 8
4 ??rw??r????r???? 1 root root 3708 Jan 10 07:22 boot.b
4 ??rw?????????????? 1 root root 3584 Jan 10 07:23 map
dev:
total 0
0 brw??r?????????? 1 root root 2, 0 Jan 10 07:22 fd0
0 crw??r????r???? 1 root root 1, 3 Jan 10 07:22 null

Do not worry if the file sizes are slightly different from yours.

Now leave the diskette in the drive and go to Section 6.3.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.2. Transferring the kernel without LILO

If you are not using LILO, transfer the kernel to the bootdisk with dd:
% dd if=KERNEL of=/dev/fd0 bs=1k
353+1 records in
353+1 records out
In this example, dd wrote 353 complete records + 1 partial record, so the
kernel occupies the first 354 blocks of the diskette. Call this number
KERNEL_BLOCKS and remember it for use in the next section.

Finally, set the root device to be the diskette itself, then set the root to
be loaded read/write:
rdev /dev/fd0 /dev/fd0
rdev -R /dev/fd0 0
Be careful to use a capital -R in the second rdev command.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.3. Setting the ramdisk word

Inside the kernel image is the ramdisk word that specifies where the root
filesystem is to be found, along with other options. The word can be accessed
and set via the rdev command, and its contents are interpreted as follows:

+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+
| Bit field|Description |
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+
| 0-10|Offset to start of ramdisk, in 1024 byte blocks|
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+
| 11-13|unused |
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+
| 14|Flag indicating that ramdisk is to be loaded |
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+
| 15|Flag indicating to prompt before loading rootfs|
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+

If bit 15 is set, on boot-up you will be prompted to place a new floppy
diskette in the drive. This is necessary for a two-disk boot set.

There are two cases, depending on whether you are building a single boot/root
diskette or a double ``boot+root'' diskette set.

1. If you are building a single disk, the compressed root filesystem will be
placed right after the kernel, so the offset will be the first free block
(which should be the same as KERNEL_BLOCKS). Bit 14 will be set to 1, and
bit 15 will be zero. For example, say you're building a single disk and
the root filesystem will begin at block 253 (decimal). The ramdisk word
value should be 253 (decimal) with bit 14 set to 1 and bit 15 set to 0.
To calculate the value you can simply add the decimal values. 253 + (2^
14) = 253 + 16384 = 16637. If you don't quite understand where this
number comes from, plug it into a scientific calculator and convert it to
binary,

2. If you are building a two-disk set, the root filesystem will begin at
block zero of the second disk, so the offset will be zero. Bit 14 will be
set to 1 and bit 15 will be 1. The decimal value will be 2^14 + 2^15 =
49152 in this case.

After carefully calculating the value for the ramdisk word, set it with rdev
-r. Be sure to use the decimal value. If you used LILO, the argument to rdev
here should be the mounted kernel path, e.g. /mnt/vmlinuz; if you copied the
kernel with dd, instead use the floppy device name (e.g., /dev/fd0).
rdev -r KERNEL_OR_FLOPPY_DRIVE VALUE

If you used LILO, unmount the diskette now.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.4. Transferring the root filesystem

The last step is to transfer the root filesystem.

��*�If the root filesystem will be placed on the same disk as the kernel,
transfer it using dd with the seek option, which specifies how many
blocks to skip:
dd if=rootfs.gz of=/dev/fd0 bs=1k seek=KERNEL_BLOCKS

��*�If the root filesystem will be placed on a second disk, remove the first
diskette, put the second diskette in the drive, then transfer the root
filesystem to it:
dd if=rootfs.gz of=/dev/fd0 bs=1k

Congratulations, you are done!

Important: You should always test a bootdisk before putting it aside for
an emergency. If it fails to boot, read on.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Troubleshooting, or The Agony of Defeat

When building bootdisks, the first few tries often will not boot. The general
approach to building a root disk is to assemble components from your existing
system, and try and get the diskette-based system to the point where it
displays messages on the console. Once it starts talking to you, the battle
is half over because you can see what it is complaining about, and you can
fix individual problems until the system works smoothly. If the system just
hangs with no explanation, finding the cause can be difficult. The
recommended procedure for investigating the problem where the system will not
talk to you is as follows:

��*�You may see a message like this:
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on XX:YY
This is a common problem and it has only a few causes. First, check the
device XX:YY against the list of device codes in /usr/src/linux/
Documentation/devices.txt. If it is incorrect, you probably didn't do an
rdev -R, or you did it on the wrong image. If the device code is correct,
then check carefully the device drivers compiled into your kernel. Make
sure it has floppy disk, ramdisk and ext2 filesystem support built-in.

��*�If you see many errors like:
end_request: I/O error, dev 01:00 (ramdisk), sector NNN
This is an I/O error from the ramdisk driver, usually because the kernel
is trying to write beyond the end of the device. The ramdisk is too small
to hold the root filesystem. Check your bootdisk kernel's initialization
messages for a line like:
Ramdisk driver initialized : 16 ramdisks of 4096K size
Check this size against the uncompressed size of the root filesystem. If
the ramdisks aren't large enough, make them larger.

��*�Check that the root disk actually contains the directories you think it
does. It is easy to copy at the wrong level so that you end up with
something like /rootdisk/bin instead of /bin on your root diskette.

��*�Check that there is a /lib/libc.so with the same link that appears in
your /lib directory on your hard disk.

��*�Check that any symbolic links in your /dev directory in your existing
system also exist on your root diskette filesystem, where those links are
to devices which you have included in your root diskette. In particular,
/dev/console links are essential in many cases.

��*�Check that you have included /dev/tty1, /dev/null, /dev/zero, /dev/mem, /
dev/ram and /dev/kmem files.

��*�Check your kernel configuration -- support for all resources required up
to login point must be built in, not modules. So ramdisk and ext2 support
must be built-in.

��*�Check that your kernel root device and ramdisk settings are correct.

Once these general aspects have been covered, here are some more specific
files to check:

1. Make sure init is included as /sbin/init or /bin/init. Make sure it is
executable.

2. Run ldd init to check init's libraries. Usually this is just libc.so, but
check anyway. Make sure you included the necessary libraries and loaders.

3. Make sure you have the right loader for your libraries -- ld.so for a.out
or ld-linux.so for ELF.

4. Check the /etc/inittab on your bootdisk filesystem for the calls to getty
(or some getty-like program, such as agetty, mgetty or getty_ps).
Double-check these against your hard disk inittab. Check the man pages of
the program you use to make sure these make sense. inittab is possibly
the trickiest part because its syntax and content depend on the init
program used and the nature of the system. The only way to tackle it is
to read the man pages for init and inittab and work out exactly what your
existing system is doing when it boots. Check to make sure /etc/inittab
has a system initialisation entry. This should contain a command to
execute the system initialization script, which must exist.

5. As with init, run ldd on your getty to see what it needs, and make sure
the necessary library files and loaders were included in your root
filesystem.

6. Be sure you have included a shell program (e.g., bash or ash) capable of
running all of your rc scripts.

7. If you have a /etc/ld.so.cache file on your rescue disk, remake it.

If init starts, but you get a message like:
Id xxx respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
it is coming from init, usually indicating that getty or login is dying as
soon as it starts up. Check the getty and login executables and the libraries
they depend upon. Make sure the invocations in /etc/inittab are correct. If
you get strange messages from getty, it may mean the calling form in /etc/
inittab is wrong.

If you get a login prompt, and you enter a valid login name but the system
prompts you for another login name immediately, the problem may be with PAM
or NSS. See Section 4.4. The problem may also be that you use shadow
passwords and didn't copy /etc/shadow to your bootdisk.

If you try to run some executable, such as df, which is on your rescue disk
but you yields a message like: df: not found, check two things: (1) Make sure
the directory containing the binary is in your PATH, and (2) make sure you
have libraries (and loaders) the program needs.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

8. Miscellaneous topics

8.1. Reducing root filesystem size

Sometimes a root filesystem is too large to fit on a diskette even after
compression. Here are some ways to reduce the filesystem size:

1. Increase the diskette density. By default, floppy diskettes are formatted
at 1440K, but higher density formats are available. fdformat will format
disks for the following sizes: 1600, 1680, 1722, 1743, 1760, 1840, and
1920. Most 1440K drives will support 1722K, and this is what I always use
for bootdisks. See the fdformat man page and /usr/src/linux/Documentation
/devices.txt.

2. Replace your shell. Some of the popular shells for Linux, such as bash
and tcsh, are large and require many libraries. Light-weight alternatives
exist, such as ash, lsh, kiss and smash, which are much smaller and
require few (or no) libraries. Most of these replacement shells are
available from http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/shells/. Make sure
any shell you use is capable of running commands in all the rc files you
include on your bootdisk.

3. Strip libraries and binaries. Many libraries and binaries are distributed
with debugging information. Running file on these files will tell you
``not stripped'' if so. When copying binaries to your root filesystem, it
is good practice to use:
objcopy --strip-all FROM TO

Important: When copying libraries, be sure to use strip-debug instead
of strip-all.

4. If you deleted or moved many files when you were creating the root
filesystem, create it again. See the NOTE ABOVE on the importance of not
having dirty blocks in the filesystem.

5. Move non-critical files to a utility disk. If some of your binaries are
not needed immediately to boot or login, you can move them to a utility
disk. See Section 8.3 for details. You may also consider moving modules
to a utility disk as well.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.2. Non-ramdisk root filesystems

Section 4 gave instructions for building a compressed root filesystem which
is loaded to ramdisk when the system boots. This method has many advantages
so it is commonly used. However, some systems with little memory cannot
afford the RAM needed for this, and they must use root filesystems mounted
directly from the diskette.

Such filesystems are actually easier to build than compressed root
filesystems because they can be built on a diskette rather than on some other
device, and they do not have to be compressed. We will outline the procedure
as it differs from the instructions above. If you choose to do this, keep in
mind that you will have much less space available.

1. Calculate how much space you will have available for root files. If you
are building a single boot/root disk, you must fit all blocks for the
kernel plus all blocks for the root filesystem on the one disk.

2. Using mke2fs, create a root filesystem on a diskette of the appropriate
size.

3. Populate the filesystem as described above.

4. When done, unmount the filesystem and transfer it to a disk file but do
not compress it.

5. Transfer the kernel to a floppy diskette, as described above. When
calculating the ramdisk word, set bit 14 to zero, to indicate that the
root filesystem is not to be loaded to ramdisk. Run the rdev's as
described.

6. Transfer the root filesystem as before.

There are several shortcuts you can take. If you are building a two-disk set,
you can build the complete root filesystem directly on the second disk and
you need not transfer it to a hard disk file and then back. Also, if you are
building a single boot/root disk and using LILO, you can build a single
filesystem on the entire disk, containing the kernel, LILO files and root
files, and simply run LILO as the last step.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

8.3. Building a utility disk

Building a utility disk is relatively easy -- simply create a filesystem on a
formatted disk and copy files to it. To use it with a bootdisk, mount it
manually after the system is booted.

In the instructions above, we mentioned that the utility disk could be
mounted as /usr. In this case, binaries could be placed into a /bin directory
on your utility disk, so that placing /usr/bin in your path will access them.
Additional libraries needed by the binaries are placed in /lib on the utility
disk.

There are several important points to keep in mind when designing a utility
disk:

1. Do not place critical system binaries or libraries onto the utility disk,
since it will not be mountable until after the system has booted.

2. You cannot access a floppy diskette and a floppy tape drive
simultaneously. This means that if you have a floppy tape drive, you will
not be able to access it while your utility disk is mounted.

3. Access to files on the utility disk will be slow.

Appendix D shows a sample of files on a utility disk. Here are some ideas for
files you may find useful: programs for examining and manipulating disks (
format, fdisk) and filesystems (mke2fs, fsck, debugfs, isofs.o), a
lightweight text editor (elvis, jove), compression and archive utilities (
gzip, bzip, tar, cpio, afio), tape utilities (mt, ftmt, tob, taper),
communications utilities (ppp.o, slip.o, minicom) and utilities for devices (
setserial, mknod).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

9. How the pros do it

You may notice that the bootdisks used by major distributions such as
Slackware, RedHat or Debian seem more sophisticated than what is described in
this document. Professional distribution bootdisks are based on the same
principles outlined here, but employ various tricks because their bootdisks
have additional requirements. First, they must be able to work with a wide
variety of hardware, so they must be able to interact with the user and load
various device drivers. Second, they must be prepared to work with many
different installation options, with varying degrees of automation. Finally,
distribution bootdisks usually combine installation and rescue capabilities.

Some bootdisks use a feature called initrd (initial ramdisk). This feature
was introduced around 2.0.x and allows a kernel to boot in two phases. When
the kernel first boots, it loads an initial ramdisk image from the boot disk.
This initial ramdisk is a root filesystem containing a program that runs
before the real root fs is loaded. This program usually inspects the
environment and/or asks the user to select various boot options, such as the
device from which to load the real rootdisk. It typically loads additional
modules not built in to the kernel. When this initial program exits, the
kernel loads the real root image and booting continues normally. For further
information on initrd, see your local file /usr/src/linux/Documentation/
initrd.txt and ftp://elserv.ffm.fgan.de/pub/linux/loadlin-1.6/
initrd-example.tgz

The following are summaries of how each distribution's installation disks
seem to work, based on inspecting their filesystems and/or source code. We do
not guarantee that this information is completely accurate, or that they have
not changed since the versions noted.

Slackware (v.3.1) uses a straightforward LILO boot similar to what is
described in Section 6.1. The Slackware bootdisk prints a bootup message (??
Welcome to the Slackware Linux bootkernel disk!??) using LILO's message
parameter. This instructs the user to enter a boot parameter line if
necessary. After booting, a root filesystem is loaded from a second disk. The
user invokes a setup script which starts the installation. Instead of using a
modular kernel, Slackware provides many different kernels and depends upon
the user to select the one matching his or her hardware requirements.

RedHat (v.4.0) also uses a LILO boot. It loads a compressed ramdisk on the
first disk, which runs a custom init program. This program queries for
drivers then loads additional files from a supplemental disk if necessary.

Debian (v.1.3) is probably the most sophisticated of the installation disk
sets. It uses the SYSLINUX loader to arrange various load options, then uses
an initrd image to guide the user through installation. It appears to use
both a customized init and a customized shell.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10. Creating bootable CD-ROMs

Note: This section was contributed by Rizwan Mohammed Darwe (rizwan AT
clovertechnologies dot com)

This section assumes that you are familiar with the process and workings of
writing CDs in linux. Consider this to be a quick reference to include the
ability to boot the CD which you will burn. The CD-Writing-HOWTO should give
you an in-depth reference.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.1. What is El Torito?

For the x86 platform, many BIOS's have begun to support bootable CDs. The
patches for mkisofs is based on the standard called "El Torito". Simply put,
El Torito is a specification that says how a cdrom should be formatted such
that you can directly boot from it.

The "El Torito" spec says that any cdrom drive should work (SCSI or EIDE) as
long as the BIOS supports El Torito. So far this has only been tested with
EIDE drives because none of the SCSI controllers that has been tested so far
appears to support El Torito. The motherboard definately has to support El
Torito. How do you if your motherboard supports "El Torito"? Well, the ones
that support lets you choose booting from HD, Floppy, Network or CDROM.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.2. How it Works

The El Torito standard works by making the CD drive appear, through BIOS
calls, to be a normal floppy drive. This way you simply put any floppy size
image (exactly 1440k for a 1.44 meg floppy) somewhere in the ISO filesystem.
In the headers of the ISO fs you place a pointer to this image. The BIOS will
then grab this image from the CD and for all purposes it acts as if it were
booting from the floppy drive. This allows a working LILO boot disk, for
example, to simply be used as is.

Roughly speaking, the first 1.44 (or 2.88 if supported) Mbytes of the CD-ROM
contains a floppy-disk image supplied by you. This image is treated like a
floppy by the BIOS and booted from. (As a consequence, while booting from
this virtual floppy, your original drive A: (/dev/fd0) may not be accessible,
but you can try with /dev/fd1).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.3. How to make it work

First create a file, say "boot.img", which is an exact image of the bootable
floppy-disk which you want to boot via the CD-ROM. This must be an 1.44 MB
bootable floppy-disk. The command below will do this
dd if=/dev/fd0 of=boot.img bs=10k count=144
assuming the floppy is in the A: drive.

Place this image somewhere in the hierarchy which will be the source for the
iso9660 filesystem. It is a good idea to put all boot related files in their
own directory ("boot/" under the root of the iso9660 fs, for example).

One caveat -- Your boot floppy must load any initial ramdisk via LILO, not
the kernel ramdisk driver! This is because once the linux kernel starts up,
the BIOS emulation of the CD as a floppy disk is circumvented and will fail.
LILO will load the initial ramdisk using BIOS disk calls, so the emulation
works as designed.

The El Torito specification requires a "boot catalog" to be created as well.
This is a 2048 byte file which is of no interest except it is required. The
patchwork done by the author of mkisofs will cause it to automatically create
the boot catalog, but you must specify where the boot catalog will go in the
iso9660 filesystem. Usually it is a good idea to put it in the same place as
the boot image, and a name like boot.catalog seems appropriate.

So we have our boot image in the file boot.img, and we are going to put it in
the directory boot/ under the root of the iso9660 filesystem. We will have
the boot catalog go in the same directory with the name boot.catalog. The
command to create the iso9660 fs in the file bootcd.iso is then:
mkisofs -r -b boot/boot.img -c boot/boot.catalog -o bootcd.iso .
The -b option specifies the boot image to be used (note the path is relative
to the root of the iso9660 disk), and the -c option is for the boot catalog
file. The -r option will make approptiate file ownerships and modes (see the
mkisofs manpage). The "." in the end says to take the source from the current
directory.

Now burn the CD with the usual cdrecord command and it is ready to boot.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.4. Create Win9x Bootable CD-Roms

The first step is to get hold of the bootable image used by the source CD.
But you cannot simply mount the CD under linux and dd the first 1440k to a
floppy disk or to a file like boot.img. Instead you simply boot with the
source CD-ROM.

When you boot the Win98 CD you are dropped to A: prompt which is the actual
ramdisk. And D: or Z: is where all the installables are residing. By using
the diskcopy command of dos copy the A: image into the actual floppy drive
which is now B: The command below will do this.
diskcopy A: B:
It works just like dd. You can try booting from this newly created disk to
test if the booting process is similar to that of the source CD. Then the
usual dd of this floppy to a file like boot.img and then rest is as usual.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

11. Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) list

Q: I boot from my boot/root disks and nothing happens. What do I do?
Q: How does the Slackware/Debian/RedHat bootdisk work?
Q: How can I make a boot disk with a XYZ driver?
Q: How do I update my root diskette with new files?
Q: How do I remove LILO so that I can use DOS to boot again?
Q: How can I boot if I've lost my kernel and my boot disk?
Q: How can I make extra copies of boot/root diskettes?
Q: How can I boot without typing in ??ahaxxxx=nn,nn,nn?? every time?
Q: At boot time, I get error ??A: cannot execute B??. Why?
Q: My kernel has ramdisk support, but initializes ramdisks of 0K. Why?

Q: I boot from my boot/root disks and nothing happens. What do I do?

A: See Section 7, above.

Q: How does the Slackware/Debian/RedHat bootdisk work?

A: See Section 9, above.

Q: How can I make a boot disk with a XYZ driver?

A: The easiest way is to obtain a Slackware kernel from your nearest
Slackware mirror site. Slackware kernels are generic kernels which atttempt
to include drivers for as many devices as possible, so if you have a SCSI or
IDE controller, chances are that a driver for it is included in the Slackware
kernel.

Go to the a1 directory and select either IDE or SCSI kernel depending on the
type of controller you have. Check the xxxxkern.cfg file for the selected
kernel to see the drivers which have been included in that kernel. If the
device you want is in that list, then the corresponding kernel should boot
your computer. Download the xxxxkern.tgz file and copy it to your boot
diskette as described above in the section on making boot disks.

You must then check the root device in the kernel, using the command rdev
zImage. If this is not the same as the root device you want, use rdev to
change it. For example, the kernel I tried was set to /dev/sda2, but my root
SCSI partition is /dev/sda8. To use a root diskette, you would have to use
the command rdev zImage /dev/fd0.

If you want to know how to set up a Slackware root disk as well, that's
outside the scope of this HOWTO, so I suggest you check the Linux Install
Guide or get the Slackware distribution. See the section in this HOWTO titled
``References''.

Q: How do I update my root diskette with new files?

A: The easiest way is to copy the filesystem from the rootdisk back to the
DEVICE you used (from Section 4.2, above). Then mount the filesystem and make
the changes. You have to remember where your root filesystem started and how
many blocks it occupied:
dd if=/dev/fd0 bs=1k skip=ROOTBEGIN count=BLOCKS | gunzip > DEVICE
mount -t ext2 DEVICE /mnt
After making the changes, proceed as before (in Section 4.7) and transfer the
root filesystem back to the disk. You should not have to re-transfer the
kernel or re-compute the ramdisk word if you do not change the starting
position of the new root filesystem.

Q: How do I remove LILO so that I can use DOS to boot again?

A: This is not really a Bootdisk topic, but it is asked often. Within Linux,
you can run:
/sbin/lilo -u

You can also use the dd command to copy the backup saved by LILO to the boot
sector. Refer to the LILO documentation if you wish to do this.

Within DOS and Windows you can use the DOS command:
FDISK /MBR
MBR stands for Master Boot Record. This command replaces the boot sector with
a clean DOS one, without affecting the partition table. Some purists disagree
with this, but even the author of LILO, Werner Almesberger, suggests it. It
is easy, and it works.

Q: How can I boot if I've lost my kernel and my boot disk?

A: If you don't have a boot disk standing by, probably the easiest method is
to obtain a Slackware kernel for your disk controller type (IDE or SCSI) as
described above for ``How do I make a boot disk with a XXX driver?''. You can
then boot your computer using this kernel, then repair whatever damage there
is.

The kernel you get may not have the root device set to the disk type and
partition you want. For example, Slackware's generic SCSI kernel has the root
device set to /dev/sda2, whereas my root Linux partition happens to be /dev/
sda8. In this case the root device in the kernel will have to be changed.

You can still change the root device and ramdisk settings in the kernel even
if all you have is a kernel, and some other operating system, such as DOS.

rdev changes kernel settings by changing the values at fixed offsets in the
kernel file, so you can do the same if you have a hex editor available on
whatever systems you do still have running -- for example, Norton Utilities
Disk Editor under DOS. You then need to check and if necessary change the
values in the kernel at the following offsets:
HEX DEC DESCRIPTION
0x01F8 504 Low byte of RAMDISK word
0x01F9 505 High byte of RAMDISK word
0x01FC 508 Root minor device number - see below
0X01FD 509 Root major device number - see below

The interpretation of the ramdisk word was described in Section 6.3, above.

The major and minor device numbers must be set to the device you want to
mount your root filesystem on. Some useful values to select from are:
DEVICE MAJOR MINOR
/dev/fd0 2 0 1st floppy drive
/dev/hda1 3 1 partition 1 on 1st IDE drive
/dev/sda1 8 1 partition 1 on 1st SCSI drive
/dev/sda8 8 8 partition 8 on 1st SCSI drive
Once you have set these values then you can write the file to a diskette
using either Norton Utilities Disk Editor, or a program called rawrite.exe.
This program is included in all distributions. It is a DOS program which
writes a file to the ``raw'' disk, starting at the boot sector, instead of
writing it to the file system. If you use Norton Utilities you must write the
file to a physical disk starting at the beginning of the disk.

Q: How can I make extra copies of boot/root diskettes?

A: Because magnetic media may deteriorate over time, you should keep several
copies of your rescue disk, in case the original is unreadable.

The easiest way of making copies of any diskettes, including bootable and
utility diskettes, is to use the dd command to copy the contents of the
original diskette to a file on your hard drive, and then use the same command
to copy the file back to a new diskette. Note that you do not need to, and
should not, mount the diskettes, because dd uses the raw device interface.

To copy the original, enter the command:
dd if=DEVICENAME of=FILENAME
where DEVICENAME is the device name of the diskette drive and FILENAME is the
name of the (hard-disk) output file. Omitting the count parameter causes dd
to copy the whole diskette (2880 blocks if high-density).

To copy the resulting file back to a new diskette, insert the new diskette
and enter the reverse command:
dd if=FILENAME of=DEVICENAME

Note that the above discussion assumes that you have only one diskette drive.
If you have two of the same type, you can copy diskettes using a command
like:
dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/dev/fd1

Q: How can I boot without typing in ??ahaxxxx=nn,nn,nn?? every time?

A: Where a disk device cannot be autodetected it is necessary to supply the
kernel with a command device parameter string, such as:
aha152x=0x340,11,3,1
This parameter string can be supplied in several ways using LILO:

��*�By entering it on the command line every time the system is booted via
LILO. This is boring, though.

��*�By using LILO's lock keyword to make it store the command line as the
default command line, so that LILO will use the same options every time
it boots.

��*�By using the append= statement in the LILO config file. Note that the
parameter string must be enclosed in quotes.

For example, a sample command line using the above parameter string would be:
zImage aha152x=0x340,11,3,1 root=/dev/sda1 lock

This would pass the device parameter string through, and also ask the kernel
to set the root device to /dev/sda1 and save the whole command line and reuse
it for all future boots.

A sample APPEND statement is:
APPEND = ??aha152x=0x340,11,3,1??

Note that the parameter string must not be enclosed in quotes on the command
line, but it must be enclosed in quotes in the APPEND statement.

Note also that for the parameter string to be acted on, the kernel must
contain the driver for that disk type. If it does not, then there is nothing
listening for the parameter string, and you will have to rebuild the kernel
to include the required driver. For details on rebuilding the kernel, go to /
usr/src/linux and read the README, and read the Linux FAQ and Installation
HOWTO. Alternatively you could obtain a generic kernel for the disk type and
install that.

Readers are strongly urged to read the LILO documentation before
experimenting with LILO installation. Incautious use of the BOOT statement
can damage partitions.

Q: At boot time, I get error ??A: cannot execute B??. Why?

A: There are several cases of program names being hardcoded in various
utilities. These cases do not occur everywhere, but they may explain why an
executable apparently cannot be found on your system even though you can see
that it is there. You can find out if a given program has the name of another
hardcoded by using the strings command and piping the output through grep.

Known examples of hardcoding are:

��*�shutdown in some versions has /etc/reboot hardcoded, so reboot must be
placed in the /etc directory.

��*�init has caused problems for at least one person, with the kernel being
unable to find init.

To fix these problems, either move the programs to the correct directory, or
change configuration files (e.g. inittab) to point to the correct directory.
If in doubt, put programs in the same directories as they are on your hard
disk, and use the same inittab and /etc/rc.d files as they appear on your
hard disk.

Q: My kernel has ramdisk support, but initializes ramdisks of 0K. Why?

A: Where this occurs, a kernel message like this will appear as the kernel is
booting:
Ramdisk driver initialized : 16 ramdisks of 0K size

This is probably because the size has been set to 0 by kernel parameters at
boot time. This could possibly be because of an overlooked LILO configuration
file parameter:
ramdisk= 0

This was included in sample LILO configuration files in some older
distributions, and was put there to override any previous kernel setting. If
you have such a line, remove it.

Note that if you attempt to use a ramdisk of 0 size, the behaviour can be
unpredictable, and can result in kernel panics.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A. Resources and pointers

When retrieving a package, always get the latest version unless you have good
reasons for not doing so.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A.1. Pre-made Bootdisks

These are sources for distribution bootdisks. Please use one of the mirror
sites to reduce the load on these machines.

��*�Slackware bootdisks, rootdisks and Slackware mirror sites

��*�RedHat bootdisks and Red Hat mirror sites

��*�Debian bootdisks and Debian mirror sites

In addition to the distribution bootdisks, the following rescue disk images
are available. Unless otherwise specified, these are available in the
directory http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/recovery/!INDEX.html

��*�tomsrtbt, by Tom Oehser, is a single-disk boot/root disk based on kernel
2.0, with a large set of features and support programs. It supports IDE,
SCSI, tape, network adaptors, PCMCIA and more. About 100 utility programs
and tools are included for fixing and restoring disks. The package also
includes scripts for disassembling and reconstructing the images so that
new material can be added if necessary.

��*�rescue02, by John Comyns, is a rescue disk based on kernel 1.3.84, with
support for IDE and Adaptec 1542 and NCR53C7,8xx. It uses ELF binaries
but it has enough commands so that it can be used on any system. There
are modules that can be loaded after booting for all other SCSI cards. It
probably won't work on systems with 4 mb of ram since it uses a 3 mb ram
disk.

��*�resque_disk-2.0.22, by Sergei Viznyuk, is a full-featured boot/root disk
based on kernel 2.0.22 with built-in support for IDE, many difference
SCSI controllers, and ELF/AOUT. Also includes many modules and useful
utilities for repairing and restoring a hard disk.

��*�cramdisk images, based on the 2.0.23 kernel, available for 4 meg and 8
meg machines. They include math emulation and networking (PPP and dialin
script, NE2000, 3C509), or support for the parallel port ZIP drive. These
diskette images will boot on a 386 with 4MB RAM. MSDOS support is
included so you can download from the net to a DOS partition.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A.2. Rescue packages

Several packages for creating rescue disks are available on metalab.unc.edu.
With these packages you specify a set of files for inclusion and the software
automates (to varying degrees) the creation of a bootdisk. See http://
metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/recovery/!INDEX.html for more information.
Check the file dates carefully. Some of these packages have not been updated
in several years and will not support the creation of a compressed root
filesystem loaded into ramdisk. To the best of our knowledge, Yard is the
only package that will.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A.3. LILO -- the Linux loader

Written by Werner Almesberger. Excellent boot loader, and the documentation
includes information on the boot sector contents and the early stages of the
boot process.

Ftp from ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/packages/lilo/. It is also available
on Metalab and mirrors.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A.4. Ramdisk usage

An excellent description of the how the ramdisk code works may be found with
the documentation supplied with the Linux kernel. See /usr/src/linux/
Documentation/ramdisk.txt. It is written by Paul Gortmaker and includes a
section on creating a compressed ramdisk.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A.5. The Linux boot process

For more detail on the Linux boot process, here are some pointers:

��*�The Linux System Administrators' Guide has a section on booting.

��*�The LILO ``Technical overview'' has the definitive technical, low-level
description of the boot process, up to where the kernel is started.

��*�The source code is the ultimate guide. Below are some kernel files
related to the boot process. If you have the Linux kernel source code,
you can find these under /usr/src/linux on your machine; alternatively,
Shigio Yamaguchi (shigio at tamacom.com) has a very nice hypertext kernel
browser for reading kernel source files. Here are some relevant files to
look at:

arch/i386/boot/bootsect.S and setup.S
Contain assembly code for the bootsector itself.

arch/i386/boot/compressed/misc.c
Contains code for uncompressing the kernel.

arch/i386/kernel/
Directory containing kernel initialization code. setup.c defines the
ramdisk word.

drivers/block/rd.c
Contains the ramdisk driver. The procedures rd_load and rd_load_image
load blocks from a device into a ramdisk. The procedure
identify_ramdisk_image determines what kind of filesystem is found
and whether it is compressed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

B. LILO boot error codes

Questions about these codes are asked so often on Usenet that we include them
here as a public service. This summary is excerpted from Werner Almsberger's
LILO User Documentation.

When LILO loads itself, it displays the word LILO. Each letter is printed
before or after performing some specific action. If LILO fails at some point,
the letters printed so far can be used to identify the problem.

+-----------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|Output |Problem |
+-----------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|(nothing) |No part of LILO has been loaded. LILO either isn't installed or|
| |the partition on which its boot sector is located isn't active.|
+-----------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|L |The first stage boot loader has been loaded and started, but it|
| |can't load the second stage boot loader. The two-digit error |
| |codes indicate the type of problem. (See also section ``Disk |
| |error codes''.) This condition usually indicates a media |
| |failure or a geometry mismatch (e.g. bad disk parameters). |
+-----------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|LI |The first stage boot loader was able to load the second stage |
| |boot loader, but has failed to execute it. This can either be |
| |caused by a geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/boot.b without|
| |running the map installer. |
+-----------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|LIL |The second stage boot loader has been started, but it can't |
| |load the descriptor table from the map file. This is typically |
| |caused by a media failure or by a geometry mismatch. |
+-----------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|LIL? |The second stage boot loader has been loaded at an incorrect |
| |address. This is typically caused by a subtle geometry mismatch|
| |or by moving /boot/boot.b without running the map installer. |
+-----------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|LIL- |The descriptor table is corrupt. This can either be caused by a|
| |geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/map without running the |
| |map installer. |
+-----------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|LILO |All parts of LILO have been successfully loaded. |
+-----------+---------------------------------------------------------------+

If the BIOS signals an error when LILO is trying to load a boot image, the
respective error code is displayed. These codes range from 0x00 through 0xbb.
See the LILO User Guide for an explanation of these.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

C. Sample root filesystem listings

/:
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 bin
drwx????x????x 2 root root 4096 Nov 1 15:39 dev
drwx????x????x 3 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 etc
drwx????x????x 4 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 lib
drwx????x????x 5 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 mnt
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 proc
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 root
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 sbin
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 tmp
drwx????x????x 7 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 usr
drwx????x????x 5 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 var

/bin:
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 62660 Nov 1 15:39 ash
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 9032 Nov 1 15:39 cat
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 10276 Nov 1 15:39 chmod
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 9592 Nov 1 15:39 chown
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 23124 Nov 1 15:39 cp
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 23028 Nov 1 15:39 date
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 14052 Nov 1 15:39 dd
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 14144 Nov 1 15:39 df
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 69444 Nov 1 15:39 egrep
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 395 Nov 1 15:39 false
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 69444 Nov 1 15:39 fgrep
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 69444 Nov 1 15:39 grep
-rwx????x????x 3 root root 45436 Nov 1 15:39 gunzip
-rwx????x????x 3 root root 45436 Nov 1 15:39 gzip
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 8008 Nov 1 15:39 hostname
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 12736 Nov 1 15:39 ln
-rws????x????x 1 root root 15284 Nov 1 15:39 login
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 29308 Nov 1 15:39 ls
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 8268 Nov 1 15:39 mkdir
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 8920 Nov 1 15:39 mknod
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 24836 Nov 1 15:39 more
-rws????x????x 1 root root 37640 Nov 1 15:39 mount
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 12240 Nov 1 15:39 mt
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 12932 Nov 1 15:39 mv
-r-x????x????x 1 root root 12324 Nov 1 15:39 ps
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 5388 Nov 1 15:39 pwd
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 10092 Nov 1 15:39 rm
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Nov 1 15:39 sh -> ash
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 25296 Nov 1 15:39 stty
-rws????x????x 1 root root 12648 Nov 1 15:39 su
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 4444 Nov 1 15:39 sync
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 110668 Nov 1 15:39 tar
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 19712 Nov 1 15:39 touch
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 395 Nov 1 15:39 true
-rws????x????x 1 root root 19084 Nov 1 15:39 umount
-rwx????x????x 1 root root 5368 Nov 1 15:39 uname
-rwx????x????x 3 root root 45436 Nov 1 15:39 zcat

/dev:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 Nov 1 15:39 cdrom -> cdu31a
brw??rw??r???? 1 root root 15, 0 May 5 1998 cdu31a
crw?????????????? 1 root root 4, 0 Nov 1 15:29 console
crw??rw??rw?? 1 root uucp 5, 64 Sep 9 19:46 cua0
crw??rw??rw?? 1 root uucp 5, 65 May 5 1998 cua1
crw??rw??rw?? 1 root uucp 5, 66 May 5 1998 cua2
crw??rw??rw?? 1 root uucp 5, 67 May 5 1998 cua3
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 0 Aug 8 13:54 fd0
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 36 Aug 8 13:54 fd0CompaQ
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 84 Aug 8 13:55 fd0D1040
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 88 Aug 8 13:55 fd0D1120
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 12 Aug 8 13:54 fd0D360
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 16 Aug 8 13:54 fd0D720
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 120 Aug 8 13:55 fd0D800
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 32 Aug 8 13:54 fd0E2880
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 104 Aug 8 13:55 fd0E3200
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 108 Aug 8 13:55 fd0E3520
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 112 Aug 8 13:55 fd0E3840
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 28 Aug 8 13:54 fd0H1440
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 124 Aug 8 13:55 fd0H1600
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 44 Aug 8 13:55 fd0H1680
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 60 Aug 8 13:55 fd0H1722
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 76 Aug 8 13:55 fd0H1743
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 96 Aug 8 13:55 fd0H1760
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 116 Aug 8 13:55 fd0H1840
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 100 Aug 8 13:55 fd0H1920
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Nov 1 15:39 fd0H360 ??> fd0D360
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Nov 1 15:39 fd0H720 ??> fd0D720
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 52 Aug 8 13:55 fd0H820
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 68 Aug 8 13:55 fd0H830
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 4 Aug 8 13:54 fd0d360
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 8 Aug 8 13:54 fd0h1200
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 40 Aug 8 13:54 fd0h1440
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 56 Aug 8 13:55 fd0h1476
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 72 Aug 8 13:55 fd0h1494
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 92 Aug 8 13:55 fd0h1600
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 20 Aug 8 13:54 fd0h360
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 48 Aug 8 13:55 fd0h410
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 64 Aug 8 13:55 fd0h420
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 24 Aug 8 13:54 fd0h720
brw??rw???????? 1 root floppy 2, 80 Aug 8 13:55 fd0h880
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 0 May 5 1998 hda
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 1 May 5 1998 hda1
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 2 May 5 1998 hda2
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 3 May 5 1998 hda3
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 4 May 5 1998 hda4
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 5 May 5 1998 hda5
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 6 May 5 1998 hda6
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 64 May 5 1998 hdb
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 65 May 5 1998 hdb1
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 66 May 5 1998 hdb2
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 67 May 5 1998 hdb3
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 68 May 5 1998 hdb4
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 69 May 5 1998 hdb5
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 3, 70 May 5 1998 hdb6
crw??r?????????? 1 root kmem 1, 2 May 5 1998 kmem
crw??r?????????? 1 root kmem 1, 1 May 5 1998 mem
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Nov 1 15:39 modem ??> ttyS1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Nov 1 15:39 mouse ??> psaux
crw??rw??rw?? 1 root root 1, 3 May 5 1998 null
crwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10, 1 Oct 5 20:22 psaux
brw??r?????????? 1 root disk 1, 1 May 5 1998 ram
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 1, 0 May 5 1998 ram0
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 1, 1 May 5 1998 ram1
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 1, 2 May 5 1998 ram2
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 1, 3 May 5 1998 ram3
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 1, 4 May 5 1998 ram4
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 1, 5 May 5 1998 ram5
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 1, 6 May 5 1998 ram6
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 1, 7 May 5 1998 ram7
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 1, 8 May 5 1998 ram8
brw??rw???????? 1 root disk 1, 9 May 5 1998 ram9
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Nov 1 15:39 ramdisk ??> ram0
*** I have only included devices for the IDE partitions I use.
*** If you use SCSI, then use the /dev/sdXX devices instead.
crw?????????????? 1 root root 4, 0 May 5 1998 tty0
crw??w?????????? 1 root tty 4, 1 Nov 1 15:39 tty1
crw?????????????? 1 root root 4, 2 Nov 1 15:29 tty2
crw?????????????? 1 root root 4, 3 Nov 1 15:29 tty3
crw?????????????? 1 root root 4, 4 Nov 1 15:29 tty4
crw?????????????? 1 root root 4, 5 Nov 1 15:29 tty5
crw?????????????? 1 root root 4, 6 Nov 1 15:29 tty6
crw?????????????? 1 root root 4, 7 May 5 1998 tty7
crw?????????????? 1 root tty 4, 8 May 5 1998 tty8
crw?????????????? 1 root tty 4, 9 May 8 12:57 tty9
crw??rw??rw?? 1 root root 4, 65 Nov 1 12:17 ttyS1
crw??rw??rw?? 1 root root 1, 5 May 5 1998 zero

/etc:
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 164 Nov 1 15:39 conf.modules
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 668 Nov 1 15:39 fstab
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 71 Nov 1 15:39 gettydefs
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 389 Nov 1 15:39 group
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 413 Nov 1 15:39 inittab
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 65 Nov 1 15:39 issue
??rw??r????r???? 1 root root 746 Nov 1 15:39 ld.so.cache
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 32 Nov 1 15:39 motd
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 949 Nov 1 15:39 nsswitch.conf
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 pam.d
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 139 Nov 1 15:39 passwd
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 516 Nov 1 15:39 profile
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 387 Nov 1 15:39 rc
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 55 Nov 1 15:39 shells
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 774 Nov 1 15:39 termcap
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 78 Nov 1 15:39 ttytype
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Nov 1 15:39 utmp ??> ../var/run/utmp
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Nov 1 15:39 wtmp ??> ../var/log/wtmp

/etc/pam.d:
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 356 Nov 1 15:39 other

/lib:
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 45415 Nov 1 15:39 ld??2.0.7.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 Nov 1 15:39 ld??linux.so.2 ??> ld??2.0.7.so
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 731548 Nov 1 15:39 libc??2.0.7.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Nov 1 15:39 libc.so.6 ??> libc??2.0.7.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 Nov 1 15:39 libcom_err.so.2 ??> libcom_err.so.2.0
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 6209 Nov 1 15:39 libcom_err.so.2.0
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 153881 Nov 1 15:39 libcrypt??2.0.7.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 Nov 1 15:39 libcrypt.so.1 ??> libcrypt??2.0.7.so
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 12962 Nov 1 15:39 libdl??2.0.7.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Nov 1 15:39 libdl.so.2 ??> libdl??2.0.7.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Nov 1 15:39 libext2fs.so.2 ??> libext2fs.so.2.4
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 81382 Nov 1 15:39 libext2fs.so.2.4
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 25222 Nov 1 15:39 libnsl??2.0.7.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Nov 1 15:39 libnsl.so.1 ??> libnsl??2.0.7.so
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 178336 Nov 1 15:39 libnss_files??2.0.7.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Nov 1 15:39 libnss_files.so.1 ??> libnss_files??2.0.7.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Nov 1 15:39 libpam.so.0 ??> libpam.so.0.64
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 26906 Nov 1 15:39 libpam.so.0.64
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 Nov 1 15:39 libpam_misc.so.0 ??> libpam_misc.so.0.64
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 7086 Nov 1 15:39 libpam_misc.so.0.64
??r??xr??xr??x 1 root root 35615 Nov 1 15:39 libproc.so.1.2.6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Nov 1 15:39 libpwdb.so.0 ??> libpwdb.so.0.54
??rw??r??r?????? 1 root root 121899 Nov 1 15:39 libpwdb.so.0.54
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 Nov 1 15:39 libtermcap.so.2 ??> libtermcap.so.2.0.8
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 12041 Nov 1 15:39 libtermcap.so.2.0.8
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 12874 Nov 1 15:39 libutil??2.0.7.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Nov 1 15:39 libutil.so.1 ??> libutil??2.0.7.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Nov 1 15:39 libuuid.so.1 ??> libuuid.so.1.1
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 8039 Nov 1 15:39 libuuid.so.1.1
drwx????x????x 3 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 modules
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 security

/lib/modules:
drwx????x????x 4 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 2.0.35

/lib/modules/2.0.35:
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 block
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 cdrom

/lib/modules/2.0.35/block:
drwx???????????? 1 root root 7156 Nov 1 15:39 loop.o

/lib/modules/2.0.35/cdrom:
drwx???????????? 1 root root 24108 Nov 1 15:39 cdu31a.o

/lib/security:
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 8771 Nov 1 15:39 pam_permit.so

*** Directory stubs for mounting
/mnt:
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 cdrom
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 floppy

/proc:

/root:
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 176 Nov 1 15:39 .bashrc
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 182 Nov 1 15:39 .cshrc
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 455 Nov 1 15:39 .profile
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 4014 Nov 1 15:39 .tcshrc

/sbin:
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 23976 Nov 1 15:39 depmod
??rwx????x????x 2 root root 274600 Nov 1 15:39 e2fsck
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 41268 Nov 1 15:39 fdisk
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 9396 Nov 1 15:39 fsck
??rwx????x????x 2 root root 274600 Nov 1 15:39 fsck.ext2
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 29556 Nov 1 15:39 getty
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 6620 Nov 1 15:39 halt
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 23116 Nov 1 15:39 init
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 25612 Nov 1 15:39 insmod
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 10368 Nov 1 15:39 kerneld
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 110400 Nov 1 15:39 ldconfig
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 6108 Nov 1 15:39 lsmod
??rwx????x????x 2 root root 17400 Nov 1 15:39 mke2fs
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 4072 Nov 1 15:39 mkfs
??rwx????x????x 2 root root 17400 Nov 1 15:39 mkfs.ext2
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 5664 Nov 1 15:39 mkswap
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 22032 Nov 1 15:39 modprobe
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Nov 1 15:39 reboot ??> halt
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 7492 Nov 1 15:39 rmmod
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 12932 Nov 1 15:39 shutdown
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 Nov 1 15:39 swapoff ??> swapon
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 5124 Nov 1 15:39 swapon
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Nov 1 15:39 telinit ??> init
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 6944 Nov 1 15:39 update

/tmp:

/usr:
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 bin
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 lib
drwx????x????x 3 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 man
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 sbin
drwx????x????x 3 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 share
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 1 15:39 tmp ??> ../var/tmp

/usr/bin:
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 37164 Nov 1 15:39 afio
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 5044 Nov 1 15:39 chroot
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 10656 Nov 1 15:39 cut
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 63652 Nov 1 15:39 diff
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 12972 Nov 1 15:39 du
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 56552 Nov 1 15:39 find
??r??x????x????x 1 root root 6280 Nov 1 15:39 free
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 7680 Nov 1 15:39 head
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 8504 Nov 1 15:39 id
??r??sr??xr??x 1 root bin 4200 Nov 1 15:39 passwd
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 14856 Nov 1 15:39 tail
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 19008 Nov 1 15:39 tr
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 7160 Nov 1 15:39 wc
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 4412 Nov 1 15:39 whoami

/usr/lib:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 Nov 1 15:39 libncurses.so.4 ??> libncurses.so.4.2
??rw??r??r?????? 1 root root 260474 Nov 1 15:39 libncurses.so.4.2

/usr/sbin:
??r??x????x????x 1 root root 13684 Nov 1 15:39 fuser
??rwx????x????x 1 root root 3876 Nov 1 15:39 mklost+found

/usr/share:
drwx????x????x 4 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 terminfo

/usr/share/terminfo:
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 l
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 v

/usr/share/terminfo/l:
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 1552 Nov 1 15:39 linux
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 1516 Nov 1 15:39 linux??m
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 1583 Nov 1 15:39 linux??nic

/usr/share/terminfo/v:
??rw?????????????? 2 root root 1143 Nov 1 15:39 vt100
??rw?????????????? 2 root root 1143 Nov 1 15:39 vt100??am

/var:
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 log
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 run
drwx????x????x 2 root root 1024 Nov 1 15:39 tmp

/var/log:
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 0 Nov 1 15:39 wtmp

/var/run:
??rw?????????????? 1 root root 0 Nov 1 15:39 utmp

/var/tmp:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

D. Sample utility disk directory listing

total 579
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 42333 Jul 28 19:05 cpio
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 32844 Aug 28 19:50 debugfs
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 103560 Jul 29 21:31 elvis
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 29536 Jul 28 19:04 fdisk
??rw??r??r?????? 1 root root 128254 Jul 28 19:03 ftape.o
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 17564 Jul 25 03:21 ftmt
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 64161 Jul 29 20:47 grep
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 45309 Jul 29 20:48 gzip
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 23560 Jul 28 19:04 insmod
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 118 Jul 28 19:04 lsmod
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5 Jul 28 19:04 mt ??> mt??st
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 9573 Jul 28 19:03 mt??st
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 Jul 28 19:05 rmmod ??> insmod
??rwxr??xr??x 1 root root 104085 Jul 28 19:05 tar
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5 Jul 29 21:35 vi ??> elvis

Notes

[1] The directory structure presented here is for root diskette use only.
Real Linux systems have a more complex and disciplined set of policies,
called the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, for determining where files
should go.)