m...@linux.it (Marco d'Itri) writes:
> Some people also argued that they would be more comfortable with a
> smaller root file system which can act as a rescue system, but I am
> not sure about which tools they would miss from an initramfs with
> busybox and fsck.
lvm, dmsetup, mdadm, crypto stuff for obvious things you just forgot to
mention. Usualy initramfs would included them as needed. But I had
enough cases where I moved my / or /usr around to a different
configuration and the initramfs stoped working (largely because you
forget to rebuild it).
For a more extensive repair session you also wan't bash, openvt, ssh,
netcat, dd_rescue, tar, gzip, less, $EDITOR, ifconfig, ip, ping, rsync,
... The list goes on and on I'm sure. I think for most people the time
is past where we need / as rescue system can't have a real live/rescue
image in /boot instead. And the rest probably boots one over the
network.
> A side note, I think it would be interesting to design a small
> initramfs in the 25-50 MB range which could permanently live in /boot
> and work as a complete rescue system like the tiny live CDs do.
As I mentioned I have a bug open (in the grml bug tracker) about
providing a grml.deb. That would install an image in /boot and add
itself to the bootloader. The small grml image is more like 180MB than
25-50MB but it is a verry good rescue system. And harddisk space is
usualy cheap.
But if someone feels the need for something more compact then a 25-50 MB
image could be made for sure. I've been doing this for years now in
various forms:
- have a 2nd Debian with just base installed on the disk as alternat
boot entry
- build an initrd with rescue tools
- build an initramfs with rescue toosl
- have Debian Installer over netboot available
- add a Debian Installer image to /boot
- add grml to /boot
Actualy how about having Debian-Installer build a deb package that
installs an image in /boot and adds it to the bootloader? A businesscard
image would be just about the size you requested.
+1000 on the idea of providing some sort of rescue image in /boot via a
deb in Debian.
MfG
Goswin
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