etc/Windows/vlmcsd/man/vlmcsd-floppy.7.html

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  16 <title>VLMCSD-FLOPPY</title>
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  20
  21 <h1 align="center">VLMCSD-FLOPPY</h1>
  22
  23 <a href="#NAME">NAME</a><br>
  24 <a href="#DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a><br>
  25 <a href="#SUPPORTED HYPERVISORS">SUPPORTED HYPERVISORS</a><br>
  26 <a href="#SETUP">SETUP</a><br>
  27 <a href="#CONFIGURATION">CONFIGURATION</a><br>
  28 <a href="#OPERATION">OPERATION</a><br>
  29 <a href="#PERMANENT CHANGES OF INITRD">PERMANENT CHANGES OF INITRD</a><br>
  30 <a href="#FAQ">FAQ</a><br>
  31 <a href="#FILES">FILES</a><br>
  32 <a href="#BUGS">BUGS</a><br>
  33 <a href="#AUTHOR">AUTHOR</a><br>
  34 <a href="#CREDITS">CREDITS</a><br>
  35 <a href="#SEE ALSO">SEE ALSO</a><br>
  36
  37 <hr>
  38
  39
  40 <h2>NAME
  41 <a name="NAME"></a>
  42 </h2>
  43
  44
  45 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">floppy144.vfd -
  46 a bootable floppy disk with Linux and <b>vlmcsd</b>(8)</p>
  47
  48 <h2>DESCRIPTION
  49 <a name="DESCRIPTION"></a>
  50 </h2>
  51
  52
  53
  54 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em"><b>floppy144.vfd</b>
  55 is an image of a bootable floppy that contains a minimal
  56 version of Linux and <b>vlmcsd</b>(8). It requires only 16
  57 MB of RAM. Its primary purpose is to run <b>vlmcsd</b>(8) in
  58 a small virtual machine which makes it easy to use
  59 <b>vlmcsd</b>(8) to activate the virtual machine&rsquo;s
  60 host computer which is not possible in Windows 8.1 and up.
  61 The floppy image is a standard 3,5&quot; floppy with 1.44 MB
  62 storage. It is formatted with a FAT12 filesystem. The floppy
  63 can be mounted to apply several customizations.</p>
  64
  65 <h2>SUPPORTED HYPERVISORS
  66 <a name="SUPPORTED HYPERVISORS"></a>
  67 </h2>
  68
  69
  70 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">The floppy
  71 image has been tested with the following hypervisors:</p>
  72
  73 <p style="margin-left:22%; margin-top: 1em">VMWare,
  74 VirtualBox, Hyper-V and QEMU</p>
  75
  76 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">Others are
  77 likely to work.</p>
  78
  79 <h2>SETUP
  80 <a name="SETUP"></a>
  81 </h2>
  82
  83
  84 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">Create a new
  85 virtual machine. Assign 16 MB of RAM. Add a floppy drive and
  86 attach <b>floppy144.vfd</b> to this drive. Do not create a
  87 virtual hard disk. Setup the virtual machine to boot from a
  88 floppy drive (VirtualBox has floppy boot disabled by
  89 default). If possible, setup a virtual machine with plain
  90 old BIOS (not UEFI). If you created an UEFI virtual machine,
  91 enable the compatibility support mode (CSM) to allow a BIOS
  92 compatible boot. Set number of CPUs to 1. The Linux kernel
  93 is not capable of SMP. Remove IDE, SATA, SCSI and USB
  94 support if possible. The Linux kernel can&rsquo;t handle
  95 this and ignores any devices connected to these buses.</p>
  96
  97 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">Setup an
  98 ethernet card. The following models are supported:</p>
  99
 100 <p style="margin-left:22%; margin-top: 1em">Intel PRO/1000
 101 <br>
 102 AMD PCNET III <br>
 103 AMD PCNET32 <br>
 104 VMWare vmxnet3 (paravirtualized driver used by VMWare) <br>
 105 virtio (paravirtualized driver used by VirtualBox, QEMU, KVM
 106 and lguest)</p>
 107
 108 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">Most
 109 hypervisors emulate an Intel PRO/1000 or AMD PCNET32 by
 110 default. Selecting a paravirtualized driver slightly
 111 improves performance. In VirtualBox you can simply select
 112 virtio in the network configuration dialog. VMWare requires
 113 that you add or change the VMX file. Use
 114 &rsquo;ethernet0.virtualDev&nbsp;=&nbsp;&quot;vmxnet3&quot;&rsquo;
 115 in your VMWare config file.</p>
 116
 117 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">If you are
 118 using QEMU, you must also setup a TAP adapter. Port
 119 redirection does not work to activate your own computer.</p>
 120
 121 <h2>CONFIGURATION
 122 <a name="CONFIGURATION"></a>
 123 </h2>
 124
 125
 126
 127 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em"><b>floppy144.vfd</b>
 128 can be customized to fit your needs. This is done by editing
 129 the file syslinux.cfg on the floppy image. The floppy image
 130 must be mounted. Under Linux you can simply attach
 131 <b>floppy144.vfd</b> to a loop device which is mountable
 132 like any other block device. For Windows you must use some
 133 software that allows mounting a floppy image, e.g.
 134 <a href="http://www.osforensics.com/tools/mount-disk-images.html">OSFMount</a></p>
 135
 136 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">OSFMount works
 137 under all Windows versions beginning with Windows XP up to
 138 Windows 10 (32- and 64-bit).</p>
 139
 140 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">The default
 141 syslinux.cfg file looks like this:</p>
 142
 143 <p style="margin-left:22%; margin-top: 1em"><small>prompt 0
 144 <br>
 145 TIMEOUT 50 <br>
 146 default dhcp</small></p>
 147
 148 <p style="margin-left:22%; margin-top: 1em"><small>LABEL
 149 dhcp <br>
 150 KERNEL bzImage <br>
 151 APPEND vga=773 quiet initrd=initrd KBD=us
 152 LISTEN=[::]:1688,0.0.0.0:1688 TZ=UTC0 IPV4_CONFIG=DHCP
 153 NTP_SERVER=pool.ntp.org HOST_NAME=vlmcsd
 154 ROOT_PASSWORD=vlmcsd USER_NAME=user USER_PASSWORD=vlmcsd
 155 GUEST_PASSWORD=vlmcsd INETD=Y
 156 WINDOWS=06401-00206-271-395032-03-1033-9600.0000-1652016
 157 OFFICE2010=06401-00096-199-204970-03-1033-9600.0000-1652016
 158 OFFICE2013=06401-00206-234-921934-03-1033-9600.0000-1652016
 159 HWID=36:4F:46:3A:88:63:D3:5F</small></p>
 160
 161 <p style="margin-left:22%; margin-top: 1em"><small>LABEL
 162 static <br>
 163 KERNEL bzImage <br>
 164 APPEND vga=773 quiet initrd=initrd KBD=fr
 165 LISTEN=[::]:1688,0.0.0.0:1688 TZ=CET-1CEST,M3.5.0,M10.5.0/3
 166 IPV4_CONFIG=STATIC IPV4_ADDRESS=192.168.20.123/24
 167 IPV4_GATEWAY=192.168.20.2 IPV4_DNS1=192.168.20.2
 168 IPV4_DNS2=NONE NTP_SERVER=pool.ntp.org HOST_NAME=vlmcsd
 169 ROOT_PASSWORD=vlmcsd USER_NAME=user USER_PASSWORD=vlmcsd
 170 GUEST_PASSWORD=vlmcsd INETD=Y</small></p>
 171
 172 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">There are two
 173 configurations in this files: <i>dhcp</i> (for configuring
 174 the IPv4 network via DHCP) and <i>static</i> (for a static
 175 IPv4 configuration). The kernel always boots the <i>dhcp</i>
 176 configuration without asking (lines &rsquo;prompt 0&rsquo;
 177 and &rsquo;default dhcp&rsquo;). You can simply change the
 178 default configuration to <i>static</i> and then customize
 179 the APPEND line in the <i>static</i> configuration. For more
 180 details how to customize the syslinux.cfg file see
 181 <b>syslinux</b>(1).</p>
 182
 183 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">Each APPPEND
 184 line contains one or more items seperated by spaces. <b>All
 185 items are case-sensitive</b>. The following parameters can
 186 be customized: <b><br>
 187 vga=</b><i>vesa-video-mode</i></p>
 188
 189 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Sets the VESA display mode for
 190 the virtual machine. The parameter is not optional. If you
 191 ommit it, you will not see anything on the screen. 773 means
 192 1024x768 with 256 colors. See
 193 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_BIOS_Extensions#Linux_video_mode_numbers">Wikipedia</a>
 194 for more video modes. Note that all 16 color (4-bit) modes
 195 will not work. Use 8-bit (256 colors), 16-bit (65536
 196 colors), 24-bit and 32-bit (&gt; 16 Million colors) only.
 197 All modes above 1280x1024 are non-VESA-standard and vary for
 198 all (virtual) graphic cards.</p>
 199
 200 <table width="100%" border="0" rules="none" frame="void"
 201        cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
 202 <tr valign="top" align="left">
 203 <td width="11%"></td>
 204 <td width="7%">
 205
 206
 207 <p><b>quiet</b></p></td>
 208 <td width="4%"></td>
 209 <td width="78%">
 210
 211
 212 <p>This causes the kernel not display the its log during
 213 boot. You may omit <b>quiet</b> but it doesn&rsquo;t make
 214 much sense. The boot log is actually very verbose and
 215 scrolls away from screen quickly. If any errors occur during
 216 boot, they will be displayed even if <b>quiet</b> is present
 217 in the APPEND line. You may evaluate the complete boot log
 218 later by using the dmesg command or the menu on
 219 /dev/tty8.</p> </td></tr>
 220 </table>
 221
 222
 223 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>initrd=</b><i>initial-ram-disk-file</i></p>
 224
 225 <p style="margin-left:22%;">This defines the initial ram
 226 disk that the kernel will read. There is only one initial
 227 ram disk on the floppy thus leave <i>initrd=initrd</i> as it
 228 is.</p>
 229
 230
 231 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>KBD=</b><i>keyboard-layout-name</i></p>
 232
 233 <p style="margin-left:22%;">This allows you to select the
 234 keyboard layout. <i>keyboard-layout-name</i> is usually the
 235 ISO 3166-1 (top level domain) code for a country. A list of
 236 valid <i>keyboard-layout-name</i>s can be accessed via the
 237 menu system on /dev/tty8 (press ALT-F8). Note, that this is
 238 a keyboard driver only. There is no Unicode font support in
 239 <b>floppy144.vfd</b> (due to the fact that the kernel uses a
 240 generic VESA framebuffer device only). Characters beyond
 241 ASCII work for Western European languages only but not
 242 Eastern European, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, CJK and
 243 other languages. There is no need in <b>floppy144.vfd</b> to
 244 enter any characters outside ASCII. The purpose of the
 245 keyboard maps are that you will find characters like dash,
 246 backslash, brackets, braces, etc. at the usual place on your
 247 keyboard.</p>
 248
 249
 250 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>LISTEN=</b>PRIVATE[:<i>tcp-port</i>]
 251 | <i><br>
 252
 253 ip-address</i>[:<i>tcp-port</i>][,<i>ip-address</i>[:<i>tcp-port</i>]][,...]</p>
 254
 255 <p style="margin-left:22%;">One or more combinations of IP
 256 addresses and optional TCP port seperated by commas that
 257 <b>vlmcsd</b>(8) should listen on or PRIVATE to listen on
 258 all private IP addresses only. The default port is 1688. If
 259 you use an explicit port number, append it to the IP address
 260 seperated by a colon. If you use a port number and the IP
 261 address contains colons, you must enclose the IP address in
 262 brackets. For example
 263 <i>192.168.0.2,[fd00::dead:beef]:5678</i> causes
 264 <b>vlmcsd</b>(8) to listen on 192.168.0.2 port 1688 and
 265 fd00::dead:beef port 5678.</p>
 266
 267 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>WINDOWS=</b><i>epid</i></p>
 268
 269 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Defines the ePID that is used
 270 for Windows activations. If you ommit this parameter, vlmcsd
 271 generates a random ePID when it is started.</p>
 272
 273
 274 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>OFFICE2010=</b><i>epid</i></p>
 275
 276 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Defines the ePID that is used
 277 for Office 2010 activations. If you ommit this parameter,
 278 <b>vlmcsd</b>(8) generates a random ePID when it is
 279 started.</p>
 280
 281
 282 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>OFFICE2013=</b><i>epid</i></p>
 283
 284 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Defines the ePID that is used
 285 for Office (versions 2013 and greater) activations. If you
 286 ommit this parameter, <b>vlmcsd</b>(8) generates a random
 287 ePID when it is started.</p>
 288
 289 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>HWID=</b><i>hwid</i></p>
 290
 291 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Defines the HwId that is sent
 292 to clients. <i>hwid</i> must be specified as 16 hex digits
 293 that are interpreted as a series of 8 bytes (big endian).
 294 Any character that is not a hex digit will be ignored. This
 295 is for better readability.</p>
 296
 297
 298 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>TZ=</b><i>posix-time-zone-string</i></p>
 299
 300 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Set the time zone to
 301 <i>posix-time-zone-string</i>. It must conform to the
 302 <a href="http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/basedefs/xbd_chap08.html">POSIX</a>
 303 specification. Simplified time zone strings like
 304 &quot;Europe/London&quot; or &quot;America/Detroit&quot; are
 305 not allowed. This has the very simple reason that there is
 306 no space on the floppy to store the time zone database.</p>
 307
 308 <p style="margin-left:22%; margin-top: 1em">The string
 309 <i>CET-1CEST,M3.5.0,M10.5.0/3</i> (most countries in Europe)
 310 reads as follows:</p>
 311
 312 <table width="100%" border="0" rules="none" frame="void"
 313        cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
 314 <tr valign="top" align="left">
 315 <td width="22%"></td>
 316 <td width="13%">
 317
 318
 319 <p><i>CET</i></p></td>
 320 <td width="2%"></td>
 321 <td width="63%">
 322
 323
 324 <p>The standard (winter) time zone has the name CET.</p></td></tr>
 325 <tr valign="top" align="left">
 326 <td width="22%"></td>
 327 <td width="13%">
 328
 329
 330 <p><i>-1</i></p></td>
 331 <td width="2%"></td>
 332 <td width="63%">
 333
 334
 335 <p>The standard time zone is one hour east of UTC. Negative
 336 numbers are east of UTC. Positive numbers are west of
 337 UTC.</p> </td></tr>
 338 <tr valign="top" align="left">
 339 <td width="22%"></td>
 340 <td width="13%">
 341
 342
 343 <p><i>CEST</i></p></td>
 344 <td width="2%"></td>
 345 <td width="63%">
 346
 347
 348 <p>The daylight saving (summer) time zone has the name
 349 CEST.</p> </td></tr>
 350 <tr valign="top" align="left">
 351 <td width="22%"></td>
 352 <td width="13%">
 353
 354
 355 <p><i>M3.5.0</i></p></td>
 356 <td width="2%"></td>
 357 <td width="63%">
 358
 359
 360 <p>Daylight saving time starts in the 3rd month (March) on
 361 the 5th (=last) occurence of weekday 0 (Sunday) at 2
 362 o&rsquo;clock (2 o&rsquo;clock is a default value).</p></td></tr>
 363 <tr valign="top" align="left">
 364 <td width="22%"></td>
 365 <td width="13%">
 366
 367
 368 <p><i>M10.5.0/3</i></p></td>
 369 <td width="2%"></td>
 370 <td width="63%">
 371
 372
 373 <p>Daylight saving time ends in the 10th month (October) on
 374 the 5th (=last) occurence of weekday 0 (Sunday) at 3
 375 o&rsquo;clock.</p> </td></tr>
 376 </table>
 377
 378 <p style="margin-left:22%; margin-top: 1em">If you
 379 don&rsquo;t have daylight saving time, things are easier.
 380 For Chinese Standard Time for example, just use <i>CST-8</i>
 381 as the time zone string.</p>
 382
 383 <p style="margin-left:22%; margin-top: 1em">On a Linux
 384 desktop system, you can use a command like
 385 <b>strings&nbsp;/usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York&nbsp;|&nbsp;tail&nbsp;-n1</b>.
 386 This should return <i>EST5EDT,M3.2.0,M11.1.0</i>. You can
 387 use the returned string for the
 388 <b>TZ=</b><i>posix-time-zone-string</i> parameter.</p>
 389
 390 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>IPV4_CONFIG=</b>DHCP |
 391 STATIC</p>
 392
 393 <p style="margin-left:22%;">This determines how you want to
 394 configure IPv4 networking. If you use
 395 <b>IPV4_CONFIG=</b>STATIC, you must supply additional
 396 paramaters to the APPEND command line.</p>
 397
 398
 399 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>IPV4_ADDRESS=</b><i>ipv4-address</i>/<i>CIDR-mask</i></p>
 400
 401 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Use <i>ipv4-address</i> with
 402 netmask <i>CIDR-mask</i> for static IPv4 configuration. The
 403 netmask must not be ommitted. For IPv4 address 192.168.12.17
 404 with a netmask of 255.255.255.0 use <i>192.168.12.17/24</i>.
 405 For IPv4 address 10.4.0.8 with a netmask of 255.255.0.0 use
 406 10.4.0.8/16. This paramater is ignored, if you used
 407 <b>IPV4_CONFIG=</b>DHCP.</p>
 408
 409
 410 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>IPV4_GATEWAY=</b><i>ipv4-address</i>
 411 | NONE</p>
 412
 413 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Use <i>ipv4-address</i> as the
 414 default gateway. This is usually the IPv4 address of your
 415 router. You may specify NONE explicitly for no gateway. In
 416 this case your virtual machine is only visible on its local
 417 LAN. This paramater is ignored, if you used
 418 <b>IPV4_CONFIG=</b>DHCP.</p>
 419
 420
 421 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>IPV4_DNS1=</b><i>ipv4-address</i>
 422 | NONE</p>
 423
 424 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Use <i>ipv4-address</i> as the
 425 primary name server. In home networks this is often the IPv4
 426 address of your router. You may specify NONE explicitly. If
 427 you specified NONE for both <b>IPV4_DNS1=</b> and
 428 <b>IPV4_DNS2=</b>, your virtual machine cannot resolve host
 429 names to IP addresses. While <b>vlmcsd</b>(8) works
 430 perfectly without DNS servers, you must use IP addresses
 431 when referring to a host, e.g. for specifying an NTP server.
 432 This paramater is ignored, if you used
 433 <b>IPV4_CONFIG=</b>DHCP.</p>
 434
 435
 436 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>IPV4_DNS2=</b><i>ipv4-address</i>
 437 | NONE</p>
 438
 439 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Use <i>ipv4-address</i> as the
 440 secondary name server. It serves as a backup if the primary
 441 name server is not available. Home networks often
 442 don&rsquo;t have a secondary name server. In this case set
 443 this to NONE. This paramater is ignored, if you used
 444 <b>IPV4_CONFIG=</b>DHCP.</p>
 445
 446
 447 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>NTP_SERVER=</b><i>host-name</i>
 448 | <i>ipv4-address</i> | NONE</p>
 449
 450 <p style="margin-left:22%;">This sets the name of a time
 451 server using the NTP protocol. If your virtualization
 452 environment reliably provides time, you can set this to
 453 NONE. Don&rsquo;t use a public time service like
 454 pool.ntp.org or time.nist.gov if you have a (at least
 455 somewhat reliable) NTP server in your LAN.</p>
 456
 457
 458 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>HOST_NAME=</b><i>host-name</i></p>
 459
 460 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Sets the local host name for
 461 your virtual machine. It can be a single name or a
 462 fully-qualified domain name FQDN. If you used
 463 <b>IPV4_CONFIG=</b>DHCP and your DHCP server returns a
 464 domain name, the domain part of an FQDN will be replaced by
 465 that name. This host name or host part of an FQDN will not
 466 replaced by a host name returned via DHCP. The host name is
 467 not important for the operation of <b>floppy144.vfd</b>.</p>
 468
 469
 470 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>ROOT_PASSWORD=</b><i>password</i></p>
 471
 472 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Sets the password of the root
 473 user.</p>
 474
 475
 476 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>USER_NAME=</b><i>username</i></p>
 477
 478 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Sets the name of for a general
 479 user with no special privileges. This user can login but
 480 can&rsquo;t do much.</p>
 481
 482
 483 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>USER_PASSWORD=</b><i>password</i></p>
 484
 485 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Sets the password for the user
 486 defined by <b>USER_NAME=</b><i>username</i>.</p>
 487
 488
 489 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>GUEST_PASSWORD=</b><i>password</i></p>
 490
 491 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Sets the password for the
 492 pre-defined guest user. This user has the same priviliges
 493 (none) as the user defined by
 494 <b>USER_NAME=</b><i>username</i>.</p>
 495
 496 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>INETD=</b>Y | N</p>
 497
 498 <p style="margin-left:22%;"><b>INETD=</b>Y specifies that
 499 <b>inetd</b>(8) should automatically be started. That means
 500 you can telnet and ftp to your virtual machine.</p>
 501
 502
 503 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>VLMCSD_EXTRA_ARGS=</b><i>comma-seperated-argument-list</i></p>
 504
 505 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Allows you to specify
 506 additional command line options that will be passed to
 507 <b>vlmcsd</b>(8). Instead of spaces you use commas between
 508 arguments. Example: <b>VLMCSD_EXTRA_ARGS=</b>-c1,-K3,-M1</p>
 509
 510 <h2>OPERATION
 511 <a name="OPERATION"></a>
 512 </h2>
 513
 514
 515 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em"><b>Diskless
 516 System</b> <br>
 517 The <b>floppy144.vfd</b> virtual machine is a diskless
 518 system that works entirely from RAM. The file system is
 519 actually a RAM disk that is created from the
 520 <b>initrd</b>(4) file on the floppy image.</p>
 521
 522 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">Anything
 523 you&rsquo;ll do from inside the virtual machine, for
 524 instance editing a config file, will be lost when you reboot
 525 the machine. So, if you ever asked yourself if <b>rm -fr
 526 /</b> (root privileges required) really deletes all files
 527 from all mounted partitions, the <b>floppy144.vfd</b> VM is
 528 the right place to test it (Yes, it does).</p>
 529
 530 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">The VM uses a
 531 RAM disk, because the Linux kernel had to be stripped down
 532 to essential features to fit on a 1.44 MB floppy. It has no
 533 floppy driver, no disk file system drivers and no block
 534 layer (cannot use disks of any type).</p>
 535
 536 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em"><b>System
 537 startup</b> <br>
 538 The kernel boots up very quickly and the init script
 539 (/sbin/init) waits 5 seconds. In these 5 seconds you
 540 can:</p>
 541
 542 <p style="margin-left:22%; margin-top: 1em">Press
 543 &rsquo;m&rsquo; to manually enter the time zone and the IPv4
 544 parameters. These will be queried interactively. <br>
 545 Press &rsquo;t&rsquo; to manually enter the time zone only.
 546 <br>
 547 Press &rsquo;s&rsquo; to escape to a shell.</p>
 548
 549 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">If you
 550 don&rsquo;t want to 5 seconds for continuing the init
 551 process, you can press any other key to speed things up. At
 552 the end of the init script you should see
 553 that<b>vlmcsd</b>(8) has started. You should also see the IP
 554 addresses and all user names and passwords.</p>
 555
 556 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em"><b>Logging into
 557 the system</b> <br>
 558 There are 5 local logins provided on /dev/tty2 to /dev/tty6.
 559 To switch to these logins, simply press ALT-F2 to ALT-F6. To
 560 return to the console on /dev/tty1, press ALT-F1. If
 561 <b>inetd</b>(8) is running you can also use
 562 <b>telnet</b>(1). This allows you use a terminal program
 563 (e.g. putty) that can utilize your keyboard layout, can be
 564 resized and has full UTF-8 support. The local terminals
 565 support US keyboard layout only. Please be aware that
 566 <b>telnet</b>(1) is unencrypted and everything including
 567 passwords is transmitted in clear text. There is not enough
 568 space for an ssh server like <b>sshd</b>(8) or
 569 <b>dropbear</b>(8).</p>
 570
 571 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">The floppy
 572 image only provides basic Unix commands. Type <i>busybox</i>
 573 or <i>ll /bin</i> to get a list. The only editor available
 574 is <b>vi</b>(1). If you don&rsquo;t like vi, you may
 575 transfer config files via <b>ftp</b>(1) edit them with the
 576 editor of your choice and transfer them back to the
 577 <b>floppy144.vfd</b> VM.</p>
 578
 579 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em"><b>The menu
 580 system</b> <br>
 581 You&rsquo;ll find a menu system on /dev/tty8 (press ALT-F8
 582 to see it). It allows you performing some administrative
 583 tasks and to view various system information. It is mainly
 584 for users that do not have much experience with Unix
 585 commands. <b><br>
 586 1) (Re)start vlmcsd</b></p>
 587
 588 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Starts or restarts
 589 <b>vlmcsd</b>(8). This is useful if you changed
 590 <b>/etc/vlmcsd.ini</b>(5).</p>
 591
 592 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>2) Stop vlmcsd</b></p>
 593
 594 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Stops <b>vlmcsd</b>(8).</p>
 595
 596 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>3) (Re)start inetd</b></p>
 597
 598 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Starts or restarts
 599 <b>inetd</b>(8). If <b>inetd</b>(8) is restarted, current
 600 clients connected via <b>telnet</b>(1) or <b>ftp</b>(1) will
 601 <b>not</b> be dropped. They can continue their sessions.
 602 This is useful if you changed <b>/etc/inetd.conf</b>(5).</p>
 603
 604 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>4) Stop inet</b></p>
 605
 606 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Stops <b>inetd</b>(8). All
 607 clients connected via <b>telnet</b>(1) or <b>ftp</b>(1) will
 608 be dropped immediately.</p>
 609
 610 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>5) Change the time
 611 zone</b></p>
 612
 613 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Just in case you missed
 614 pressing &rsquo;t&rsquo; during system startup. This also
 615 restarts <b>vlmcsd</b>(8) if it was running to notify it
 616 that the time zone has changed. Restarting <b>vlmcsd</b>(8)
 617 allows currently connected clients to finish their
 618 activation.</p>
 619
 620 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>k) Change keyboard
 621 layout</b></p>
 622
 623 <p style="margin-left:22%;">This allows you to select a
 624 different keyboard layout.</p>
 625
 626 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>6) Show all kernel boot
 627 parameters</b></p>
 628
 629 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Shows all parameters passed to
 630 the kernel via syslinux.cfg. If you experience any
 631 unexpected behavior, you can use this to check if your
 632 APPEND line in syslinux.cfg is correct. The output is piped
 633 through <b>less(1)</b>. So press &rsquo;q&rsquo; to return
 634 to the menu.</p>
 635
 636 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>7) Show boot log
 637 (dmesg)</b></p>
 638
 639 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Shows the boot log of the
 640 kernel. The output is piped through <b>less(1)</b>. So press
 641 &rsquo;q&rsquo; to return to the menu.</p>
 642
 643 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>8) Show TCP/IP
 644 configuration</b></p>
 645
 646 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Shows the TCP/IP configuration,
 647 listening sockets and current TCP and UDP connections.
 648 Useful, if you problems with net connectivity. The output is
 649 piped through <b>less(1)</b>. So press &rsquo;q&rsquo; to
 650 return to the menu.</p>
 651
 652 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>9) Show running
 653 processes</b></p>
 654
 655 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Shows all processes including
 656 memory and CPU usage. Display will updated every second.
 657 Press &rsquo;q&rsquo; or CTRL-C to return to the menu.</p>
 658
 659 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>s) Shutdown</b></p>
 660
 661 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Shuts down the
 662 <b>floppy144.vfd</b> virtual machine. Proper shutdown is not
 663 required. It is ok to use a hard power off in your
 664 virtualization program.</p>
 665
 666 <p style="margin-left:11%;"><b>r) Reboot</b></p>
 667
 668 <p style="margin-left:22%;">Reboots the
 669 <b>floppy144.vfd</b> virtual machine. Proper reboot is not
 670 required. It is ok to use a hard reset in your
 671 virtualization program.</p>
 672
 673 <h2>PERMANENT CHANGES OF INITRD
 674 <a name="PERMANENT CHANGES OF INITRD"></a>
 675 </h2>
 676
 677
 678 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">If you want to
 679 change any file or script of the file system (e.g. the init
 680 script /sbin/init or /etc/vlmcsd.ini), you&rsquo;ll need to
 681 mount the floppy image, unpack the <b>initrd</b>(4) file,
 682 make any modfications you like, create a new
 683 <b>initrd</b>(4) file and copy it to the mounted floppy.</p>
 684
 685 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">To unpack the
 686 <b>initrd</b>(4) file you&rsquo;ll need <b>xz</b>(1) (or
 687 <b>lzma</b>(1) on older unix-like OSses) and <b>cpio</b>(1).
 688 These can be installed using your package manager on all
 689 major distros. It is ok to use the BSD version of
 690 <b>cpio</b>(1). No need to get the GNU version for BSD
 691 users. Provided the floppy is mounted in /mnt/floppy do the
 692 following: <br>
 693 Create an empty directory</p>
 694
 695 <p style="margin-left:22%;">mkdir
 696 ~/vlmcsd-floppy-initrd</p>
 697
 698 <p style="margin-left:11%;">cd into that directory</p>
 699
 700 <p style="margin-left:22%;">cd ~/vlmcsd-floppy-initrd</p>
 701
 702 <p style="margin-left:11%;">Unpack initrd</p>
 703
 704 <p style="margin-left:22%;">cat /mnt/floppy/initrd | unlzma
 705 | cpio -i</p>
 706
 707 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">After applying
 708 your changes build a new <b>initrd</b>(4) file: <br>
 709 cd into your directory</p>
 710
 711 <p style="margin-left:22%;">cd ~/vlmcsd-floppy-initrd</p>
 712
 713 <p style="margin-left:11%;">Create the packed file</p>
 714
 715 <p style="margin-left:22%;">find . | cpio -o -H newc | lzma
 716 &gt; /mnt/floppy/initrd</p>
 717
 718 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">Do not try to
 719 use &rsquo;lzma -9&rsquo; to achive better compression. The
 720 kernel can&rsquo;t read the resulting file. While
 721 customizing the <b>initrd</b>(4) file works on almost any
 722 unix-like OS, it does not work on Windows even not with
 723 Cygwin. The reason is that the NTFS file system can&rsquo;t
 724 handle uids and gids. These cannot be preserved when
 725 unpacking the <b>cpio</b>(1) archive to NTFS. If you use the
 726 WSL subsystem of Windows 10 Redstone (Anniversary Update)
 727 and later, you must make sure to unpack the <b>initrd</b>(4)
 728 file to a directory on VolFs (normally everything that is
 729 <b>not</b> mounted under /mnt). The <b>initrd</b>(4) file
 730 can be on a VolFs or DriveFs.</p>
 731
 732 <h2>FAQ
 733 <a name="FAQ"></a>
 734 </h2>
 735
 736
 737 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em"><b>On what
 738 distro is the floppy image based?</b> <br>
 739 None. Besides the boot loader <b>ldlinux.sys</b>, there are
 740 only three binaries: The Linux kernel <b>bzImage</b>,
 741 <b>busybox</b>(1) and <b>vlmcsdmulti-x86-musl-static</b>.
 742 <b>bzImage</b> and <b>busybox</b>(1) have been compiled with
 743 carefully selected configuration parameters not found in any
 744 distro. This was neccesary to fit everything on a 1.44 MB
 745 floppy.</p>
 746
 747 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em"><b>Why is a
 748 rather old Linux kernel (3.12) used?</b> <br>
 749 Linux 3.12 is the last kernel that can be booted with 16 MB
 750 of RAM. Beginning with Linux 3.13 it requires much more
 751 memory (about 80 MB) to boot. The floppy image is regularly
 752 tested with newer kernels. Everything works except that you
 753 need to assign much more main memory to the virtual
 754 machine.</p>
 755
 756 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em"><b>Can the
 757 floppy be booted on bare metal?</b> <br>
 758 Basically yes. However, only Intel Pro/1000 and AMD PCNET32
 759 ethernet cards are supported by the kernel. In addition
 760 there is no USB support compiled into the kernel. That means
 761 you can only use an IBM AT or IBM PS/2 keyboard which are
 762 not available on newer hardware.</p>
 763
 764 <h2>FILES
 765 <a name="FILES"></a>
 766 </h2>
 767
 768
 769
 770 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em"><b>syslinux.cfg</b>,
 771 <b>vlmcsd.ini</b>(5)</p>
 772
 773 <h2>BUGS
 774 <a name="BUGS"></a>
 775 </h2>
 776
 777
 778 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">IPv6 cannot be
 779 configured with static or manual parameters. <br>
 780 DHCPv6 is not supported. <br>
 781 &acute;ip route add ...&rsquo; does not work. Use
 782 &rsquo;route add ...&rsquo; instead.</p>
 783
 784 <h2>AUTHOR
 785 <a name="AUTHOR"></a>
 786 </h2>
 787
 788
 789
 790 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em"><b>floppy144.vfd</b>
 791 has been created by Hotbird64</p>
 792
 793 <h2>CREDITS
 794 <a name="CREDITS"></a>
 795 </h2>
 796
 797
 798 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em">Linus Torvalds
 799 et al. for the Linux kernel <br>
 800 Erik Andersen et al. for the original uClibc <br>
 801 Waldemar Brodkorb et al. for uClibc-ng <br>
 802 Denys Vlasenko et al. for BusyBox <br>
 803 H. Peter Anvin et al. for SYSLINUX</p>
 804
 805 <h2>SEE ALSO
 806 <a name="SEE ALSO"></a>
 807 </h2>
 808
 809
 810
 811 <p style="margin-left:11%; margin-top: 1em"><b>vlmcsd</b>(8),
 812 <b>vlmcsd.ini</b>(5), <b>initrd</b>(4), <b>busybox</b>(1),
 813 <b>syslinux(1)</b></p>
 814 <hr>
 815 </body>
 816 </html>