Re: [gentoo-embedded] ADSL router + firewall + PoPToP....

[Natanael Copa]

On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 14:28 +0100, Marcelo Coelho wrote:
> > Its designed for routers, firewalls, small servers without harddisk.
>
> I need the disk for p2p temp files... But the idea of having all the
> software in ram is very appealing...

I have been playing with the thought of a hybrid. You load all runtimes
(binary executables) into RAM and run them from RAM. But you mount
a /var partition on disk (maybe an encrypted partition?). You have your
software on readonly cdrom, your configuration on floppy/usb and your
data (/var) on disk, mounted as noexec.

> Also, the usb ports come from a
> pci card that i bought so i think (never tested it) that it won't boot
> from usb, only floppy.

There are floppy images on the iso image for booting from both cdrom and
usb. usb.flp has drivers needed to load the system from usb.

> >They are slow. For fast boots, i'd try to make initng work. (but its big)
>
> I don't mind, i still have space :)

I want to save space but dont expect to reboot so often. We are solving
different problems. :)

> But i still have a problem: my ADSL modem is USB, and when i boot the
> pc the modem requires a firmware to be downloaded into it.

Do you have the firmware (and drivers) in gentoo portage? what ebuilds?

> The normal
> baselayout doesn't do that (or the pc takes too long and the modem
> times out or maybe a bug??) in due time, so it's a question that i
> have to cover, nevertheless, i'll try your baselayout.
>
> Do i have to install anything besides the source package?

busybox should be enough.

> > You can probably reuse parts of it. The source package is here:
> > http://tanael.org/alpine/baselayout-alpine/baselayout-alpine-0.9.6.tar.gz
>
>
>
> Thanks!!
>
>
>
> 2006/6/28, Natanael Copa <natanael.copa@×××××.com>:
> > On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 13:56 +0100, Marcelo Coelho wrote:
> > > What about a bootchart? Is there one available?
> >
> > no sorry.
> >
> > > My system is a normal stripped down gentoo install (for now). I'm
> > > making some scripts to make the build process automatic in a build
> > > host and create a tarball with it. My pc doesn't boot from cd-rom...
> > > :(
> >
> > Does it boot from usb?
> > http://tanael.org/alpine/v1.1/usbdrive/
> >
> > Does it boot from floppy? there are floppy images on the iso that will
> > load the kernel from floppy, cdrom drivers and then load the rest from
> > cdrom.
> >
> > > (When i'm satisfied with the results i'll post an how-to at
> > > gentoo-wiki.   :)   ). So what i want is stability and boot up speed.
> > > I don't test initng for a while, and when i did i didn't had good
> > > results, but for what i want it _may_ be good enough, but if the boot
> > > time is similar to your baselayout, i'll use it instead...
> >
> > They are slow. For fast boots, i'd try to make initng work. (but its
> > big)
> >
> > Might be that its fast enough for you if you dont need the
> > coldplugging.
> >
> > > In the mean time, what you want to say with  "But its designed to load
> > > binary packages to ram
> > > during boot, LEAF style." ?
> >
> > It means that is pulls in runtime packages during boot to a tmpfs. All
> > runtimes (binary pacakges) are loaded into ram during boot instead of
> > the classical livecd approch where you mount a squashfs or uninonfs on a
> > cdrom.
> >
> > The drawback is long boot times (you need to install all your packages
> > every time you boot)
> >
> > The benefit is you prevent delays caused by cdrom spinning up
> > (everything is in ram so responsetimes should even be faster than from
> > disk) and you can do (security) updates without rebooting.
> >
> > Its designed for routers, firewalls, small servers without harddisk.
> >
> > >
> > > Thanks!
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > 2006/6/28, Natanael Copa <natanael.copa@×××××.com>:
> > > > On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 07:46 -0400, Ned Ludd wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 11:09 +0200, Natanael Copa wrote:
> > > > > > On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 09:53 +0100, Marcelo Coelho wrote:
> > > > > > > > no not at all. the baselayout-lite one does not depend on bash what so
> > > > > > > > ever and includes pretty much no init/conf scripts. You get to hack on
> > > > > > > > your own init scripts, which is a trivial task.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Well, i have to use a different baselayout. The boot time is far too
> > > > > > > long to be acceptable and there is a problem with hotplug (an error
> > > > > > > appears that the firmware isn't available). But i don't know if it's
> > > > > > > easier to make my init scripts or use initng.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I have made a baselyaout with a stripped down version of runscript that
> > > > > > will run the many init.d script from gentoo out of the box.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Let me know if you are interested and I'll send you the sources
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Does not depend on bash?
> > > >
> > > > no
> > > >
> > > > > Works with ash? :)
> > > >
> > > > yes :)
> > > >
> > > > or... I'm actually using dash currently because coldplugging takes like
> > > > 3 minutes with ash and 5 seconds with dash. (its fixed in next release
> > > > of busybox so I'll drop dash)
> > > >
> > > > > If so I think we would all be interested in moving fwd in that
> > > > > direction. Feel like putting together an updated baselayout-lite ebuild?
> > > >
> > > > I have one already. But its designed to load binary packages to ram
> > > > during boot, LEAF style.
> > > >
> > > > rsync://tanael.org/alpine-portage/sys-apps/baselayout-alpine/
> > > >
> > > > You can probably reuse parts of it. The source package is here:
> > > > http://tanael.org/alpine/baselayout-alpine/baselayout-alpine-0.9.6.tar.gz
> > > >
> > > > I kind of immitate runlevels, (using rc0.d, rc1.d etc) but the big
> > > > difference from normal sysv is that *all* runlevels or "boot stages" are
> > > > executed.
> > > >
> > > > I had to patch some of the init.d scripts. Typically it was replacing:
> > > >
> > > >   if [ expr && expr ] ...
> > > >
> > > > with:
> > > >
> > > >  if [ expr ] && [ expr ] ...
> > > >
> > > > If we could get the init.d script writers to try to not be too bashish,
> > > > it would be great.
> > > >
> > > > If there is interrest I could dump my patches somwhere.
> > > >
> > > > If you want to see it in action, try:
> > > > http://tanael.org/alpine/v1.1/iso/alpine-1.1.3_beta8-060622-i386.iso
> > > >
> > > > Its 125Mb
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > gentoo-embedded@g.o mailing list
> > > >
> > > >
> > > --
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> > >
> >
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> >
> >
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