From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from zcars04f.nortelnetworks.com (zcars04f.nortelnetworks.com [47.129.242.57]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id j4PHsDIo009423 for <gentoo-catalyst@lists.gentoo.org>; Wed, 25 May 2005 17:54:14 GMT Received: from zrtps0m6.us.nortel.com (zrtps0m6.us.nortel.com [47.140.192.58]) by zcars04f.nortelnetworks.com (Switch-2.2.6/Switch-2.2.0) with ESMTP id j4PHsJB16186 for <gentoo-catalyst@lists.gentoo.org>; Wed, 25 May 2005 13:54:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: from lemming.engeast.baynetworks.com (lemming.engeast.baynetworks.com [47.17.140.90]) by zrtps0m6.us.nortel.com (Switch-2.2.6/Switch-2.2.0) with ESMTP id j4PHsGG17691 for <gentoo-catalyst@lists.gentoo.org>; Wed, 25 May 2005 13:54:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: from psmith by lemming.engeast.baynetworks.com with local (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 1Db05A-0002HD-00 for <gentoo-catalyst@lists.gentoo.org>; Wed, 25 May 2005 13:54:16 -0400 To: gentoo-catalyst@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: Unionfs (was: Re: [gentoo-catalyst] Keeping a test environment using catalyst) References: <17024.65176.779934.871798@lemming.engeast.baynetworks.com> <1115755578.27166.9.camel@cgianelloni.nuvox.net> <vpdrd5ryhkaf.fsf@lemming.engeast.baynetworks.com> <1115816128.20511.3.camel@cgianelloni.nuvox.net> <vpdroebh4t08.fsf@lemming.engeast.baynetworks.com> <1115832819.23106.6.camel@cgianelloni.nuvox.net> <vpdris1p4nfy.fsf@lemming.engeast.baynetworks.com> <1115909854.14448.10.camel@cgianelloni.nuvox.net> <vpdrwtq44cvq.fsf@lemming.engeast.baynetworks.com> <1115919662.14448.16.camel@cgianelloni.nuvox.net> <vpdrhdgz1b1o.fsf_-_@lemming.engeast.baynetworks.com> <1117042404.14290.170.camel@cgianelloni.nuvox.net> From: "Paul Smith" <psmith@nortel.com> In-Reply-To: <1117042404.14290.170.camel@cgianelloni.nuvox.net> Date: 25 May 2005 13:54:16 -0400 Message-ID: <vpdr8y23ry2f.fsf@lemming.engeast.baynetworks.com> User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.4 Precedence: bulk List-Post: <mailto:gentoo-catalyst@lists.gentoo.org> List-Help: <mailto:gentoo-catalyst+help@gentoo.org> List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:gentoo-catalyst+unsubscribe@gentoo.org> List-Subscribe: <mailto:gentoo-catalyst+subscribe@gentoo.org> List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail <gentoo-catalyst.gentoo.org> X-BeenThere: gentoo-catalyst@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-catalyst@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Archives-Salt: 7b0e5a99-5350-4e4c-9081-310452aadd83 X-Archives-Hash: 2ef70c36a1c3b86080baa64999874d99 %% Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@gentoo.org> writes: cg> I'm just curious why this needs to be done within the initrd, at cg> all. I guess it could be, but I could also see it working outside cg> the initrd. If you do it after initrd, you'll have to be very, very careful. "Outside" the initrd you've invoked the real init, and it's starting to bring up the system. If you haven't already set up the unionfs before that, you better be darn sure you do it immediately... if not you will have applications coming up with the wrong configs, failing because they can't write to /etc and/or /var, etc. cg> Anyway, if we were to do it, we would allow for mounting a USB key cg> or other such device. Most likely, it would be via a cg> unionfs=/dev/$blah option, that would mount that device, along cg> with the CD, as a unionfs. Yes. I have this working right now, although it just uses a ramdisk today. Obviously using my current method, in order to use a keydisk or maybe even a file on a FAT partition which contains an ext2 partition and is mounted as a loop FS, you would need to add smarts to the initrd (linuxrc) to detect the hardware and mount those partitions. cg> One thing I probably would *not* do is make the entire CD a cg> unionfs, as I just think it would be a waste of energy and would cg> make troubleshooting much harder. I'm not sure what you mean by "not make the entire CD a unionfs"...? Do you just mean that some root directories would not link to the unionfs but instead would go to the cdrom? Or...? cg> Things like /var, /etc, /root, and /home would definitely be cool cg> to not only be writable, but also survivable from a reboot. Yes, that's the ultimate goal of course. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul D. Smith <psmith@nortel.com> HASMAT--HA Software Mthds & Tools "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them. -- gentoo-catalyst@gentoo.org mailing list