I've finally found a little time to work on NODOWS again. :-)
This means that I'm also working on mindeb! The mindeb.xml file is in dire need of a cleanup. I'm simplifying it, so that long term maintenance will be easier. I'm also going to try and keep up with the progress in debian and the linux kernel in general.
Mindeb is now using a totally custom kernel, with the following patches:
It is also setup with fewer modules than the default debian kernel. There is no support for graphics or multimedia, no support for ham radio, and limited hardware support. I hope to support as much commonly used hardware as possible, so feedback is appreciated!
OpenVZ?
Why does a minimal project such as mindeb use OpenVZ? The answer is simple, its a great way to keep the base host environment as stable as possible, allowing lots of changes to the virtual environment, without the risk of breaking anything fatally.
I'm not yet sure of the best practices for the virtual environment. I need to do some more testing with squashfs, aufs, and a writable layer.
Squashfs
Squashfs remains a great way to compress a file system. Its popular with LiveCD's and is now included in the kernel. Let's hope that LZMA is included soon too!
Aufs
I was wondering whether or not to use unionfs or aufs. This page has some compelling reasons for aufs. Ironically it is unionfs.org! I started with unionfs, then switched to aufs with debian modules, then had trouble using aufs manually, but then finally found a way to make it work. I'm going to stick with aufs for the foreseeable future unless there is a compelling reason to switch back to unionfs.
Entropy Patch
This is just a very simple patch to allow entropy to be gathered from network and serial console interrupts. Click here to view the patch file.
Root password is nodows, can run with this command:
qemu -m 128 -vnc :0 -net nic,model=rtl8139 -net tap -hda nodows.img
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold | Status=Not/Inst/Cfg-files/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend |/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ Name Version Description +++-=================================-=================================-================================================================================== ii adduser 3.110 add and remove users and groups ii apt 0.7.20 Advanced front-end for dpkg ii apt-utils 0.7.20 APT utility programs ii base-files 5 Debian base system miscellaneous files ii base-passwd 3.5.19 Debian base system master password and group files ii bash 3.2-4 The GNU Bourne Again SHell ii bsd-mailx 8.1.2-0.20071201cvs-3 A simple mail user agent ii bsdutils 1:2.13.1.1-1 Basic utilities from 4.4BSD-Lite ii coreutils 6.10-6 The GNU core utilities ii debconf 1.5.24 Debian configuration management system ii debconf-english 1.5.24 small footprint English-only debconf ii debian-archive-keyring 2008.04.16+nmu1 GnuPG archive keys of the Debian archive ii debianutils 2.30 Miscellaneous utilities specific to Debian ii diff 2.8.1-12 File comparison utilities ii dpkg 1.14.24 Debian package management system ii dropbear 0.51-1 lightweight SSH2 server and client ii e2fslibs 1.41.3-1 ext2 filesystem libraries ii e2fsprogs 1.41.3-1 ext2/ext3/ext4 file system utilities ii findutils 4.4.0-2 utilities for finding files--find, xargs ii gcc-4.2-base 4.2.4-6 The GNU Compiler Collection (base package) ii gcc-4.3-base 4.3.2-1.1 The GNU Compiler Collection (base package) ii gnupg 1.4.9-3 GNU privacy guard - a free PGP replacement ii gpgv 1.4.9-3 GNU privacy guard - signature verification tool ii grep 2.5.3~dfsg-6 GNU grep, egrep and fgrep ii gzip 1.3.12-6 The GNU compression utility ii hostname 2.95 utility to set/show the host name or domain name ii ifupdown 0.6.8+nmu1 high level tools to configure network interfaces ii initscripts 2.86.ds1-61 Scripts for initializing and shutting down the system ii iproute 20080725-2 networking and traffic control tools ii libacl1 2.2.47-2 Access control list shared library ii libattr1 1:2.4.43-1 Extended attribute shared library ii libblkid1 1.41.3-1 block device id library ii libbz2-1.0 1.0.5-1 high-quality block-sorting file compressor library - runtime ii libc6 2.7-18 GNU C Library: Shared libraries ii libcap1 1:1.10-14 support for getting/setting POSIX.1e capabilities ii libcomerr2 1.41.3-1 common error description library ii libdb4.6 4.6.21-11 Berkeley v4.6 Database Libraries [runtime] ii libdevmapper1.02.1 2:1.02.27-4 The Linux Kernel Device Mapper userspace library ii libedit2 2.11~20080614-1 BSD editline and history libraries ii libevent1 1.3e-3 An asynchronous event notification library ii libgcc1 1:4.3.2-1.1 GCC support library ii libgcrypt11 1.4.1-1 LGPL Crypto library - runtime library ii libgnutls26 2.4.2-4 the GNU TLS library - runtime library ii libgpg-error0 1.4-2 library for common error values and messages in GnuPG components ii libgssglue1 0.1-2 mechanism-switch gssapi library ii libkeyutils1 1.2-9 Linux Key Management Utilities (library) ii libkrb53 1.6.dfsg.4~beta1-5 MIT Kerberos runtime libraries ii libldap-2.4-2 2.4.11-1 OpenLDAP libraries ii libldns1 1.4.0-1 ldns library for DNS programming ii liblockfile1 1.08-3 NFS-safe locking library, includes dotlockfile program ii libncurses5 5.7+20081213-1 shared libraries for terminal handling ii libnfsidmap2 0.20-1 An nfs idmapping library ii libnss-ldap 261-2.1 NSS module for using LDAP as a naming service ii libpam-ldap 184-4.2 Pluggable Authentication Module for LDAP ii libpam-modules 1.0.1-5 Pluggable Authentication Modules for PAM ii libpam-runtime 1.0.1-5 Runtime support for the PAM library ii libpam0g 1.0.1-5 Pluggable Authentication Modules library ii libpcre3 7.6-2.1 Perl 5 Compatible Regular Expression Library - runtime files ii libpopt0 1.14-4 lib for parsing cmdline parameters ii libreadline5 5.2-3 GNU readline and history libraries, run-time libraries ii librpcsecgss3 0.18-1 allows secure rpc communication using the rpcsec_gss protocol ii libsasl2-2 2.1.22.dfsg1-23 Cyrus SASL - authentication abstraction library ii libselinux1 2.0.65-5 SELinux shared libraries ii libsepol1 2.0.30-2 Security Enhanced Linux policy library for changing policy binaries ii libslang2 2.1.3-3 The S-Lang programming library - runtime version ii libss2 1.41.3-1 command-line interface parsing library ii libssl0.9.8 0.9.8g-15 SSL shared libraries ii libstdc++6 4.3.2-1.1 The GNU Standard C++ Library v3 ii libtasn1-3 1.4-1 Manage ASN.1 structures (runtime) ii libusb-0.1-4 2:0.1.12-13 userspace USB programming library ii libuuid1 1.41.3-1 universally unique id library ii libvolume-id0 0.125-7 libvolume_id shared library ii libwrap0 7.6.q-16 Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers library ii libxml2 2.6.32.dfsg-5 GNOME XML library ii libxslt1.1 1.1.24-2 XSLT processing library - runtime library ii login 1:4.1.1-6 system login tools ii lsb-base 3.2-20 Linux Standard Base 3.2 init script functionality ii lzma 4.43-14 Compression method of 7z format in 7-Zip program ii mailx 1:20071201-3 Transitional package for mailx rename ii makedev 2.3.1-88 creates device files in /dev ii mawk 1.3.3-11.1 a pattern scanning and text processing language ii mktemp 1.5-9 tool for creating temporary files ii module-init-tools 3.4-1 tools for managing Linux kernel modules ii mount 2.13.1.1-1 Tools for mounting and manipulating filesystems ii ncurses-base 5.7+20081213-1 basic terminal type definitions ii ncurses-bin 5.7+20081213-1 terminal-related programs and man pages ii net-tools 1.60-22 The NET-3 networking toolkit ii netbase 4.34 Basic TCP/IP networking system ii nfs-common 1:1.1.2-6lenny1 NFS support files common to client and server ii nscd 2.7-18 GNU C Library: Name Service Cache Daemon ii ntp 1:4.2.4p4+dfsg-8 Network Time Protocol daemon and utility programs ii open-iscsi 2.0.870~rc3-0.4 High performance, transport independent iSCSI implementation ii passwd 1:4.1.1-6 change and administer password and group data ii perl-base 5.10.0-19 minimal Perl system ii portmap 6.0-9 RPC port mapper ii pound 2.4.3-1 reverse proxy, load balancer and HTTPS front-end for Web servers ii procps 1:3.2.7-11 /proc file system utilities ii psmisc 22.6-1 Utilities that use the proc filesystem ii readline-common 5.2-3 GNU readline and history libraries, common files ii rsync 3.0.3-2 fast remote file copy program (like rcp) ii rsyslog 3.18.6-3 enhanced multi-threaded syslogd ii sed 4.1.5-6 The GNU sed stream editor ii ssmtp 2.62-2.2 extremely simple MTA to get mail off the system to a mail hub ii sysv-rc 2.86.ds1-61 System-V-like runlevel change mechanism ii sysvinit 2.86.ds1-61 System-V-like init utilities ii sysvinit-utils 2.86.ds1-61 System-V-like utilities ii tar 1.20-1 GNU version of the tar archiving utility ii tzdata 2008h-2 time zone and daylight-saving time data ii ucf 3.0014 Update Configuration File: preserve user changes to config files. ii udev 0.125-7 /dev/ and hotplug management daemon ii udhcpc 0.9.8cvs20050303-2.1 very small DHCP client ii unbound 1.0.2-1 validating, recursive, caching DNS resolver ii util-linux 2.13.1.1-1 Miscellaneous system utilities ii vim-common 1:7.1.314-3+lenny2 Vi IMproved - Common files ii vim-tiny 1:7.1.314-3+lenny2 Vi IMproved - enhanced vi editor - compact version ii wget 1.11.4-2 retrieves files from the web ii xsltproc 1.1.24-2 XSLT command line processor ii zlib1g 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-12 compression library - runtime
Linux kernel 2.6.26, almost all the modules included with the debian kernel, though I removed ipv6 for now. Initramfs.
qemu -m 256 -vnc :0 -net nic,model=rtl8139 -net tap -hda /root/nodows/work/images/test6.imgBackups: The image allows for backup of some basic data, like /etc/passwd, fstab, and such. To do so, files must be copied from /etc/ to /initrd/mnt/0/etc/ following the same path structure, and then the file /initrd/mnt/0/etc/init.d/restore must be run. This will create a file called "backups" which will tell the rebooting system which files to restore. A more sophisticated and comprehensive configuration system will follow. Oh yes, and I also plan to be switching this mindeb blog over to movabletype soon.
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