On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 11:23 AM, Lars NoodC)n <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Martin Marcher wrote: > >... > > > What I'm looking for are starting points to read about what to do when > > RO mounting the root fs (and all other parts) especially on CF-media. > > I did this recently, in December and January, and can point out what I > found. More experienced or expert users will be able to say what the > better options are. > > Since the smallest CF I could get was 1GB, I split it into two, to have > one for the root tree and another partition for reserve copies in case > experiments don't work. The whole system, including extras, is about > 202 MB. I chose to do any compilation on another machine and therefore > left out comp, the man pages (for me) are as essential as the kernel so > I've kept them. I can't remember why I kept misc. > > [X] bsd > [X] bsd.rd > [ ] bsd.mp > [X] base42.tgz > [X] etc42.tgz > [X] misc42.tgz > [ ] comp42.tgz > [X] man42.tgz > [ ] game42.tgz > [ ] xbase42.tgz > [ ] xetc42.tgz > [ ] xshare42.tgz > [ ] xfont42.tgz > [ ] xserv42.tgz > > I chose to have /tmp, /var, and /dev in memory and put the rest of the > normal system into one partition. /home is a symlink to /var/home/, > /root is a symlink to /var/root, /data is a separate partition for spare > material and short term backup. No swap partition was used. > > Templates for /dev and /var are kept in /dev.base and /var.base, > respectively. There are probably better naming conventions. > mfs loads into RAM and then mounts the RAM versions. > > Here is what I have in /etc/fstab (wrapped text) to do that: > > /dev/wd0a / ffs ro 1 1 > /dev/wd0d /data ffs rw,nodev,nosuid 1 2 > > # populate /var with data from CF, then mount in RAM > swap /var mfs -P/var.base,-s160000,noexec,async,nosuid, \ > nodev,noatime,rw 0 0 > > # mount /tmp in memory > swap /tmp mfs noexec,async,nosuid,nodev,noatime,rw, \ > -b4096,-i1024,-s15000,-m0 0 0 > > # mount /dev in memory > swap /dev mfs rw,-P=/dev.base,-s=3000,-i=1024 0 0 > > When you make changes, mount -o rw /, then make the changes then sync. > > I have also used config(8) to tune the GENERIC kernel somewhat. Just > what I chose, I cannot recall, but when it is time to look at that > again, I will try removing unneeded devices. > > Here is what I chose to have in /etc/boot.conf, the re-configured kernel > is called /nbsd: > > stty com0 19200 > set tty com0 > #set image /bsd > set image /nbsd > > To use cu, kermit or tip for serial console, you must be a member of the > group dialer. > > I'm going to assume you have already set up a way to do the > installation. I chose to use PXE boot. Now that I seem to be swimming > in USB devices and media, I will probably try using those next time > instead. Having PXE boot available is an advantage later if you want to > set run live CDs or thin clients. > > For the logging, I've chosen not to worry about it yet. When the > machine powers down, the logs are lost. Maybe you could set up > something in /etc/rc.shutdown to rsync to a non-volatile partition. > An external log server is another option. I've had log servers in the > past, but will postpone that till I can experiment more with IPv6. > There was a good IPv4 summary of logging on BSDTalk in January: > > http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/2008/01/bsdtalk138-central-syslog.html > http://cisx1.uma.maine.edu/~wbackman/bsdtalk/bsdtalk138.ogg > > There is apparently a risk that the log partition on the log server can > get filled by anyone who wants to do so. > > YMMV, > -Lars
I do pretty much the same as this, for years now on WRAP, Soekris and now ALIX too (with BIOS 0.99b) but my fstab is a little different. I install them via PXEbooting OpenBSD and they all run 4.2-stable built on another, fast system, make via release(8) basically. I also have the MFS contens such as /var/logs, /var/..... sync to CF on graceful shutdown via /etc/rc.shutdown and a crontab that periodically syncs the MFS back to CF. Never had a problem with any of these systems or the CF cards. The systems do some really wonderful things, thanks to OpenBSD! =) Regards. Some contents on my CF card (config files, etc.) are remotely backed up via rsync over SSH and/or tar over SSH to a remote system (and a local backup too).
