Configuration file for bootcdwrite
The file bootcdwrite.conf contains configuration option for the bootcdwrite(1) program of the same named package. The file must be located in the configuration directory which is usually /etc/bootcd.
Blank lines are ignored and lines with leading # are comments. Values have to be set with name=value
SRCDISK="<path>"
Define the filesystems root directory from which to build an image. If you want to build bootcd from a remote system, export root-directory with nfs, mount it locally and add SRCDISK=<mountpoint>.
Default is "/"
KERNEL="<path>"
Define the path to the kernel which should be used. (SRCDISK will be automatically added to path if path does not start with "/" !)
Default is "vmlinuz"
KERNEL<number>="<path>"
You can define multiple additional kernels with <number>. The numbers have to start with 1 and can continue with 2, 3, 4 .... The syntax is as defined in KERNEL A label for KERNEL<number> can e defined with KLABEL<number> the default is KLABEL<number>=linux<number>
INITRD="<path>"
Recent official debian kernel images (2.4.x) have started installing initrd images. If you want to use such a kernel to build a bootcd without recompiling the kernel you have to use an initrd image and add it here. (SRCDISK will be automatically added to path of INITRD if it does not start with "/" !)
The installed initrd image used to boot from hard disk does not always work from cdrom and miss some drivers and features you need for bootcd. If CDDEV="auto" should be used, you have to build a new initrd. Install bootcd-mkinitramfs to do so. Default is "initrd.img"
INITRD<number>="<path>"
If KERNEL<number> is defined an initrd for this kernel can be defined here.
RAMDISK_SIZE=<number in kByte>
Two Ramdisks ram1 and ram2 will be created, with the following directories:
ram1: /dev /etc /home /root /tmp ram2: /var
Both Ramdisks have the same size which is defined by RAMDISK_SIZE.
Default is 16384
TYP="<CD|DVD>"
Define TYP=CD or TYP=DVD if you want to get a warning if the size of the image will be larger as a CD or DVD. The CD or DVD itself will no longer be automatically burned by bootcdwrite. Only the iso image will be created.
Default is "CD"
CDDEV="<auto|device> [...]">
You can specify one or more CD devices to boot from and/or auto. The first entry is the default, the others will be given as boot options to the user. See DISPLAY. Devices are separated by spaces. If you use INITRD and you have installed installed bootcd-mkinitramfs you can use "auto" to try to find the bootcd on all SCSI and IDE CDROMS automatically.
Default is "auto /dev/hda /dev/hdb /dev/hdc /dev/hdd /dev/r0 /dev/sr1"
DISPLAY[<number>]="<file>"
Define the text to display at boot time (see syslinux doku). At boot time you can press Function Keys to see the text files. (F1 = DISPLAY, F2 = DISPLAY2, F3 = DISPLAY3 ...)
Default for DISPLAY is "/usr/share/bootcd/default.txt" The word
kernelinfo will be replaced with a file which includes some kernelinfo. F10 lists all people mentioned in changelog.gz.
DO_CHECK="<yes|no>"
To check for possible problems can take a long time, but it is recommended to do the checks.
Default="yes"
APPEND="<kernel parameter>"
If you need kernel options other than "root=..." see append in lilo.conf(5).
Default is ""
APPEND<number>="<kernel parameter>"
If KERNEL<number> is defined kernel parameters for this kernel can be defined here.
NOT_TO_CD=""
Add directories which should be excluded from bootcd. Directories are separated by spaces. (SRCDISK will be automatically added to each path that does not start with "/" !).
Default is ""
NOT_TO_RAM=""
When you boot from CD parts of the CD will be copied to ram. Here you can decide, what should not go to ram. The directories /etc /var /dev /tmp /home and /root will be in RAM because they have to be writable. Directories are separated by spaces.
On CD this dirs will get different names (/etc.ro, /var.ro, ...) but you do not have to use those different names in NOT_TO_RAM any more !!! If you exclude files in NOT_TO_RAM, they will be copied to CD and you will find a symbolic link instead of the file in RAM pointing to the file on CD. (SRCDISK will be automatically added to each path that does not start with "/" !). Because most people's home and root directories are to large to include in RAM, subdirectories can be excluded with the default setting. Default is "$(find $SRCDISK/home $SRCDISK/root -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d)"
SSHOSTKEY="<yes|no>"
If you are using ssh it is helpful to have a unique ssh hostkey for each CD. This will be generated at burntime with SSHHOSTKEY="<yes>".
Default is "no"
UDEV_FIXNET=<yes|no>
If you are using the udev filesystem and want to install the image on other machines, you need to set this to "yes" because the network interfaces are hardwired in /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules (etch) or in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules (lenny) and we must remove them.
Default is "no"
ERRORLOG="<file>"
All errors would be logged to this location.
Default is "/var/log/bootcdwrite.log"
VAR="<path>"
The ISO-image is written to this directory.
Default is "/var/spool/bootcd"
FLOPPY_RUNTIME_DEV="<floppy device>"
When you boot from cd bootcd can read changes from this device, e.g. /dev/fd0.
Default is ""
BOOTFLOPPY="<yes|no>"
If you want to boot from FLOPPY specify BOOTFLOPPY=yes. This reduces space on floppy used by bootcdflopcp. For this to work FLOPPY_CREATE_DEV has to be specified.
Default is also "no"
BOOT_ONLY_WITH_FLOPPY="<yes|no>"
If you want to boot several machines from the same cdrom, you must have the individual configuration (exp: /etc/network/interfaces) on floppy. If one can not be mounted it is a good idea to stop booting and to wait for manual interaction instead of coming up with a wrong configuration.
Default is "no"
CLEAN_VAR="<yes|no>"
Cached files in /var will be deleted, before /var will be copied to bootcd, if this parameter is set. This will minimize needed space on CD. At this time only the following command will be executed: apt-get clean.
Default is "yes"
FASTBOOT="<yes|no>"
If is set additional images for the ramdisk will be created by bootcdwrite and copied to CD. This allows faster booting, but needs extra space on CD.
Default is "yes"
DEVFS="<yes|no>"
With devfs you do not need device files and inodes in /dev/*. If running diskless this will save some ram (See /usr/src/linux/Documentation/filesystems/devfs/README for more infos). It is probably better not to use this feature in future, because it will be obsolete in newer kernels.
Default is "no"
TO_FSTAB="<fstab entry>"
Add additional mount point entries to the cdrom's /etc/fstab. If you don't want additional mount points, leave it as "".
e.g.: TO_FSTAB="/dev/hdc1 /home ext3 defaults 1 1" Default is ""
NOTCOMPRESSED="<list of files and directories>"
Files or Directory-Trees that should never be compressed on CD can be listed here. This is useful for documentation which should be visible without installing the bootcd-image.
Define the path as it is on the CD, (with /var.ro instead of /var) and separate files and directories with spaces. Default is ""
DISABLE_CRON="<list of files>"
Files listed will be on the cdrom with a .no_run_on_bootcd suffix so run-parts won't execute them. The original file will be a link to /bin/true. This is meant for cron maintenance scripts which are useless on a static cdrom. The default is to disable the daily find, standard and security scripts. With bootcd2disk this files will be reactivated again. (SRCDISK will be automatically added to path if path does not start with "/" !)
Default is "etc/cron.daily/find etc/cron.daily/standard etc/cron.daily/security"
BOOTCDMODPROBE="<standard|bootcd|auto>"
This option is only relevant, if bootcd-mkinitramfs is installed. If booted from initrd, bootcd has to load the necessary modules. If only modules provided by initramfs-tools are needed you can specify "standard" here. If bootcd should try extra hard to load necessary modules you can specify "bootcd" here. Bootcd will use discover for this purpose. So discover has to be installed. If you specify "auto", bootcd will check if discover is installed. If it is installed "BOOTCDMODPROBE=bootcd" will be set, if not "BOOTCDMODPROBE=standard" will be set. Be aware that people have reported, that sometimes BOOTCDMODPROBE=bootcd may not work but sometimes it is needed. Default is "standard"
MKISOFS_CHNG="<option>"
Add some additional options to mkisofs on creating cdimage. Possible syntax is MKISOFS_CHNG="[[!]<option>...]".
Most people will probably define "", but it was reported that you may need the following option with newer hardware "-boot-load-size 20".
Please create debian-bugreports if you have to use special options, not mentioned here. Then I can list this options here!
Example: MKISOFS_CHNG="-opt1 -opt2 <value> !-opt3" means: use "-opt1" and "-opt2 <value>", don't use any
previous "-opt1 [<value>...]", "-opt2 [<value>...]" and
"-opt3 [<value>...]".
Leave any other options as defined.
function extra_changes() {
return }
It is possible to define a function called extra_changes to have some files modified on the ISO image.
Example:
function extra_changes() {
echo "noname" >$VAR/changes/etc.ro/hostname
}
Optional
/etc/bootcd/bootcdwrite.conf
Configuration for bootcdwrite.
This manual page was written by Carsten Dinkelmann <[email protected]>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).