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TITLE:          Bootable LFS CD using lilo
LFS VERSION:    LFS 4.0 onwards
AUTHOR:         Chris Lingard  chris@stockwith.co.uk
CREDITS         Thanks to Gerard Beekmans, Martin L. Pursche and many others`
LINKS:

My boot disk   www.stockwith.co.uk
The package    www.stockwith.uklinux.net Please do not use this until after
I have upgraded it.  Problems with ISP, since I took hosting away from them.

SYNOPSIS:

This hint involves using two LFS systems to build a third system on a CD.
It does not use any external packages, the boot method being LFS

Index

1.  Introduction
2.  How it boots
3.  What it boots
3.  The base system
4.  The image system
5.  Making the package
6.  Building the image
7.  Some uses for the boot CD

HINT:

1.  Introduction

This is my method of making a bootable CD
I started this project when I realised that I had no proper recovery system,
and it just grew from there.

I tried various other systems; the best being cd_template by Martin L. Pursche.
Extending this package, to boot a full Linux system, became my goal.

Here are the standard warnings.  You must be confident enough to build systems,
with various hacks and modifications.  You must be careful enough to avoid 
wrecking your systems;  many of the scripts will mess up your base system if
run wrongly.

2.  How it boots

First a few words on how to make a bootable CD, (using lilo). When you burn a
CD using mkisofs, you have the -b option to specify the boot image.
This boot image must be something that the hardware understands, therefore
you need to emulate a floppy.  Since we are only pretending that is a floppy,
we may choose any type,  so we choose the largest -- a 2.88Mb floppy.

We make a file using a loop device that is exactly 2.88Mb, copy files to
it, then run lilo on it.

Please note that it is the BIOS that reads this 2.88Mb image.  Once this is
read, then BIOS/lilo gives control to the kernel.  The kernel boots,
decompresses the initrd file, and mounts this as the root file system.

We need to run lilo on the 2.88Mb file.  Here is a lilo.conf:

cat > $TOPDIR/lilo.conf << EOF
disk=/dev/loop1
bios=0x00 # bios ID from drive A, we need that here because lilo
# need to know which boot device to use
sectors=36 # 2.88MB disk geometry
heads=2
cylinders=80
timeout=30
lba32

 boot=/dev/loop1
 message=/mnt/loop1/boot.msg
 install=/mnt/loop1/boot.b
 map=/mnt/loop1/map
 prompt

 image=/mnt/loop1/vmlinuz
   label=linux
   initrd=/mnt/loop1/initrd.gz
   append = "root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc rw"
   ramdisk=$ISIZE

EOF
# run lilo
/sbin/lilo -C $TOPDIR/lilo.conf


At the start of the above, you can see us telling lies to the hardware,
that this is a 2.88Mb floppy.

We have put a kernel and boot message into this file system.

The initrd.gz is a compressed file system.

linuxrc is an executable script in the root of this file system.

This must all fit inside 2.88Mb.

The initrd file system may be 6.5Mb, before compression,
and still be small enough.

linuxrc may be a symbolic link to bash

3. What it boots

The files in the base of this file are:
boot-menu.b  boot.b  boot.msg  initrd.gz  map  vmlinuz

boot.b is a symbolic link to boot-menu.b, and these together with map
are copied from /boot on your base system

boot.msg is a text file that gives the start of boot greeting

vmlinux is the kernel, and initrd.gz is a compressed file system that
will become the root partition.

The file system may contain anything you like, but this is all you will
have after booting the CD

You can make this system inside a directory; it will look something like:

/dev  #    Use devfsd
/bin  ->  sbin
/lib  # Needed if you are using dynamic programs
/lib/modules  #  See next paragraph`
/linuxrc  #  The script
/sbin     #  You selection of programs

The directory modules should be copied from your target system.  These
will be the modules available during the boot.  Once the boot is complete
then /lib/modules will be available from your target system via the CD.

Once you have made this;  you calculate its size, make a file system on
loop device,  copy the files, then compress it into initrd.gz.

During the linuxrc script you would mount the cdrom, giving you access to
whatever you put on the CD.

See the mount_cdrom script below that auto-detects the cdrom, and modify it
to do what you want.


4.  The base system

The base system's kernel will need loop devices enabled.  I use mkisofs and
cdrecord from package  cdrtools. You will also need directories for
the loop back devices to use;  /mnt/loop1 and /mnt/loop2 are what I use.

5.  The image system

This system must be running devfsd, as this is used for hardware detection
You should implement the pciutils package to get the lspci program.

You must decide if you just want a CD that will work on your machine, (and
any identical); or you want a CD that will work on any PC.

If you want a generic CD, then you must build a generic system to act as the
image;  follow the cross compile hint to build a generic 486 LFS system.

The system used for the image can be any working combination you choose.
Things that use many shared libraries, such as KDE, should be avoided,
because they will be too slow for any effective work on a CD.
I use a standard LFS plus a few extras such as gpm, X and lynx.

If you really want a large KDE type system, then get the cloop daemon
from Knoppix.  This allows you to make and mount  compressed partitions.

The kernel of the booting system must have been built with:
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM_SIZE=32768

6.  Making the package

You will need two LFS systems to generate a bootable CD.  One is the base
system that will be used for building.  The other is the system that provides
the image.

Here is how it works.

Let us first consider what we want.  We need a writable root partition,
so we will make one out of RAM.  We will want /proc and /cdrom mounted on
the root.

We also want /root and /etc writeable,  so these are unpacked from
tar files during the boot process. (How the image system is prepared is
described later).

The start up linuxrc will achieve this, then pass control to init. Here
is my linuxrc script:

#!/bin/sh

/sbin/devfsd  /dev

mount -t proc none /proc
modprobe -q  -s `cat /scsi`

dd if=/dev/zero  of=/dev/ram2  bs=1k  count=25000
mkdir  -p  ram
mke2fs -q /dev/ram2
mount  /dev/ram2  /ram
cd /ram
mkdir cdrom
/mount_cdrom
mkdir proc
mount  -t proc  none /ram/proc
cdrom/bin/ln -s  cdrom/bin  bin
bin/ln -s  cdrom/sbin  sbin
bin/ln -s  cdrom/lib  lib
bin/ln -s  cdrom/boot  boot
bin/ln -s  /cdrom/usr  usr
dd  if=/dev/zero  of=swapspace bs=1k  count=5000
sbin/mkswap  swapspace
bin/echo "Preparing file systems for pivot"
mkdir home
mkdir dev
mkdir tmp
mkdir mnt
mkdir mnt/lfs
mkdir var
cd var
mkdir lib lock log mail run spool tmp opt cache lib/misc local
cd /ram
bin/echo "Unpacking tar files for /etc and /root"
bin/tar xf /ram/cdrom/etc.tar
bin/tar xf /ram/cdrom/root.tar
mkdir initrd
sbin/pivot_root  .  initrd
# Get devices on the new root
/bin/killall  devfsd
mount  devfs  -t  devfs  /dev
exec /usr/sbin/chroot . /sbin/init <dev/console >dev/console 2>&1


The only non standard thing used here is mount_cdrom, this is it.

#!/bin/sh
for disk in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7; do
         if  mount -t iso9660 -o ro -n /dev/cdroms/cdrom$disk /ram/cdrom 2> /dev/null  ; then
           if [ -r /ram/cdrom/LFS-4.1 ]; then
            echo "Found the CD-ROM"
            exit
           else
             umount  /ram/cdrom;
           fi;
         fi
done
echo "No CD-ROM found"

The file LFS-4.1 is to make sure tha the right CD is mounted.

The file scsi is a list of scsi modules like:

3w-xxxx
53c7,8xx
AM53C974
BusLogic
.......
.......

Each is loaded in turn in case the machine has this scsi driver.  

From this is can be seen that the following programs are needed during the 
boot process:

bash  chroot  devfsd  insmod    ksyms  mkdir   modprobe  pivot_root  sh
cat   dd      echo    kallsyms  lsmod  mke2fs  mount     rmmod       umount

(kallsyms, ksyms, lsmod, modprobe and rmmod are symbolic links to insmod)
(sh is a symbolic link to bash)

Because shared libraries plus programs are smaller than static programs,
the following libraries are needed:

ld-2.3.1.so
ld-linux.so.2 -> ld-2.3.1.so
libc-2.3.1.so
libc.so.6 -> libc-2.3.1.so
libcom_err.so.2 -> libcom_err.so.2.0
libcom_err.so.2.0
libdl-2.3.1.so
libdl.so.2 -> libdl-2.3.1.so
libe2p.so.2 -> libe2p.so.2.3
libe2p.so.2.3
libext2fs.so.2 -> libext2fs.so.2.4
libext2fs.so.2.4
libuuid.so.1 -> libuuid.so.1.2
libuuid.so.1.2

We can therefore make a system like this in a directory called initrdtree

ls  initrdtree/
bin   dev  etc  initrd  lib linuxrc
mount_cdrom proc root sbin tmp usr var

Where bin a link to sbin, sbin contains the programs and lib the libraries.
linuxrc and mount_cdrom are the scripts, and dev has the devices.

This file system must be small enough, ( 6-7Mb ), so that its compressed size,
plus a kernel is less than 2.88Mb.

A file system can be made on a loop device, and the directory initrdtree
copied to it.   The file system is then compressed.

This put into a futher file system containing a kernel.
This file system must be exactly 2.88Mb, (it is a floppy to the hardware).

This is also mounted on a loop device and lilo is run on it.
This is then the boot image that mkisofs sees with the -b flag

The build directory looks like:

bootimagetree # Contains the kernel and the compressed file system
build.sh  # The script
initrdtree    # Contains the boot image system before compression
cdtree    #  The system providing the CD image is mounted here

Here is the script build.sh that builds the iso; note that the system
providing the CD image is mounted on cdtree/

#! /bin/sh 

if [ -z $TOPDIR ] ; then
  echo "you must define TOPDIR"
  exit
fi

oldpwd=`pwd`

cd $TOPDIR

# we need to set aside a few loop devices. I chose (in reverse order of their appearance)
# -- loop1 for the boot image
# -- loop2 for the ram disk image
# since the loop1 choice is reflected in the lilo.loopfix file, 
# you should not change that (or you need to change the file).
# I had used loop0 first, but I found that this is used by the Samba daemon.
# Also, I assume that the mount points are /mnt/loop{1,2}.
# In principle we could do with one, but it comes in handy to be able to
# leave one mounted, so I took two different ones. 

# we first assume that a proper directory tree of the later ramdisk 
# is in the initrdtree directory. Put everything in there what you think
# will be needed. We assume that this is the case.

echo -n "Creating the Initial Ramdisk image.... "

# first find out how much space we need. 
ISIZE=`du -s -k  $TOPDIR/initrdtree/ | awk '{print $1}'`

# is that true? Anyway, we are smaller than that.
if [ $ISIZE -gt 8192 ]; then
   echo "Initial Ramdisk max size exceeded ($ISIZE, max is 8192KB)"
   exit 1
fi

ISIZE=`expr $ISIZE + 1024`
ISIZE=8192
echo "Initial Ramdisk contents will be $ISIZE KB"

# delete the existing ramdisk image, if there is one
rm -f $TOPDIR/ramdisk

# create a file of $ISIZE Kb
dd if=/dev/zero of=$TOPDIR/ramdisk bs=1k count=$ISIZE

# associate it with /dev/loop2
losetup /dev/loop2 $TOPDIR/ramdisk

# make an ext2 filesystem on it. We set the amount of unused space to 0%
# and turn down the number of inodes to save space
#mkfs  -t ext2 -i 16384 -m 0 /dev/loop2
mke2fs  -F -m0 -b 1024 /dev/loop2

# we mount it...
mount /dev/loop2 /mnt/loop2 

# ... and delete the lost+found directory 
rm -rf /mnt/loop2/lost+found 

# then we copy the contents of our initrdtree to this filesystem
cp -dpR $TOPDIR/initrdtree/* /mnt/loop2/

# and unmount and divorce /dev/loop2
umount /mnt/loop2
losetup -d /dev/loop2 

echo "done"

# Now we have the image of the ramdisk in $TOPDIR/ramdisk. We
# compress this one and write the compressed image to the boot tree:

echo -n "Compressing the Ramdisk image.... "

# delete any existing one
rm -f $TOPDIR/bootimagetree/initrd.*

# and gzip our ramdisk image and put it in the right place.
gzip -9 -c $TOPDIR/ramdisk > $TOPDIR/bootimagetree/initrd.gz

# we are done with the uncompressed ramdisk image, delete it
rm  $TOPDIR/ramdisk

# how much is the contents of the bootimagetree?
ISIZE=`du -s -k  $TOPDIR/bootimagetree/ | awk '{print $1}'`
echo "Boot image size is $ISIZE KB"

echo "done"

# Part II. We work the boot tree (with the image of the ramdisk) now.
# we put that into yet another image which we put on the CD. 
# This image has to be 2.88 MB exactly, because we emulate a 2.88MB floppy.

echo -n "Creating the boot image.... "

# delete any leftover version
rm -f $TOPDIR/cdtree/Boot.img

# and make a file of the proper size (this time it's fixed at 2880 KB)
# note that the file gets created already in the right place to be the boot image.
dd if=/dev/zero of=$TOPDIR/cdtree/Boot.img bs=1k count=2880

# this one gets associated with loop1 and gets a ext2 file system
losetup /dev/loop1 $TOPDIR/cdtree/Boot.img
mke2fs -F -m0  -b 1024  /dev/loop1

# mount it...
mount /dev/loop1 /mnt/loop1
rm -rf /mnt/loop1/lost+found

# ... and copy the contents of our bootimagetree over
cp -dpR $TOPDIR/bootimagetree/* /mnt/loop1/ 

# now we calculate the ramdisk size for the lilo.conf
# Hard code the size we want; also see linuxrc for dd's count=
ISIZE=30000
echo "Ram disk size will be $ISIZE KB"

cat > $TOPDIR/lilo.conf <<EOF
disk=/dev/loop1
bios=0x00 # bios ID from drive A, we need that here because lilo
# need to know which boot device to use
sectors=36 # 2.88MB disk geometry
heads=2
cylinders=80
timeout=30
lba32
 boot=/dev/loop1
 message=/mnt/loop1/boot.msg
 install=/mnt/loop1/boot.b
 map=/mnt/loop1/map
 prompt
  
 image=/mnt/loop1/vmlinuz
   label=linux
   initrd=/mnt/loop1/initrd.gz
   append = "root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc rw"
   ramdisk=$ISIZE

EOF


# run lilo
chmod 600  $TOPDIR/lilo.conf
/sbin/lilo -v -v -v -C   $TOPDIR/lilo.conf

rm -f $TOPDIR/lilo.conf

# unmount and divorce from the loop device
umount /mnt/loop1
losetup -d /dev/loop1 

echo "done"

# note that after running lilo, we cannot mount the image back. That's why 
# we make it a throwaway.

# go to the top directory of the future CD
cd $TOPDIR/cdtree

# and create the CD image
# you can fill in the info below as follows if you like
# -p "preparer id" - that's your email, for example
# -P "publisher_id" - again you
# -A "Application_id"

echo -n "Creating the CD iso image, $TOPDIR/bootcd.iso... "
mkisofs -b Boot.img -c boot.catalog \
               -o $TOPDIR/bootcd.iso \
               -r \
               -J \
               -p "your email address" \
               -P "your name" \
               -A "LFS Disk" \
               .

echo "done"

# go back where we came from
cd $oldpwd

# now we can burn this image to a cd. 

Preparing the image system, before creating the iso

/etc/mtab must be a pointer to /proc/mounts

cd $LFS/etc
ls -l mtab
and if it is a file
mv mtab mtab.bak
ln -s /proc/mounts mtab

You need to replace the $LFS/etc/fstab
cd $LFS/etc
mv fstab fstab.bak
cat > fstab << EOF
/dev/ram2               /                       ext2    defaults        0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
/swapspace              swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
EOF

You need the script checkcd to replace checkfs and mountfs

cat > $LFS/etc/rc.d/init.d/checkcd << EOF
#!/bin/sh
# Begin /etc/rc.d/init.d/checkcd
#
# Include the functions declared in the /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions file
#
source /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions
#
# Activate all the swap partitions declared in the /etc/fstab file
#
echo -n "Activating swap..."
/sbin/swapon -a
evaluate_retval
echo -n "Remounting root file system in read-write mode..."
/bin/mount -n -o remount,rw /
evaluate_retval

echo "Making /tmp writeable"
chmod 1777 /tmp

umount  /initrd/proc
umount  /initrd/dev
echo "Goodbye to the RAMDISK"
umount /initrd
EOF

Note that the umount of /initrd releases the boot image,
it is no longer needed.

You need the Detect script
cat > $LFS/etc/rc.d/init.d/Detect << EOF
#!/bin/bash
# Begin $rc_base/init.d/

# Based on sysklogd script from LFS-3.1 and earlier.
# Rewritten by Gerard Beekmans  - gerard@linuxfromscratch.org

source /etc/sysconfig/rc
source $rc_functions

case "$1" in
        start)
                echo "Starting hardare detection"
                /sbin/lspci -v >& /tmp/t
                if grep OHCI /tmp/t >& /dev/null; then
                     modprobe -a usb-ohci;
                     modprobe -a hid;
                fi
                rm /tmp/t
                loadproc /sbin/Opendirs
                if [ -c /dev/input/mouse0 ]; then
                    ln  -s  /dev/input/mouse0  /dev/mouse;
                  else
                    if [ -c /dev/misc/psaux ]; then
                      ln  -s  /dev/misc/psaux  /dev/mouse;
                    fi
                fi
                evaluate_retval
                ;;

        stop)
                echo "Stopping..."
                killproc
                ;;

        reload)
                echo "Reloading..."
                reloadproc
                ;;

        restart)
                $0 stop
                sleep 1
                $0 start
                ;;

        status)
                statusproc
                ;;

        *)
                echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|reload|restart|status}"
                exit 1
                ;;
esac

# End $rc_base/init.d/

And here is the source of the Opendirs program, (please do not laugh)

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(void)
{
char  CD[12]     =  "/dev/cdroms";
char  IDEHD[12]  = "/dev/discs";
char  FLOPPY[12] = "/dev/floppy";
char  SCSIHD[12] = "/dev/scsi";
char  USB[12]    = "/dev/usb";

DIR  *D;

       printf("Detecting CDs\n");
       D = opendir(CD);
       closedir(D);
       printf("Detecting IDE HDs\n");
       D = opendir(IDEHD);
       closedir(D);
       printf("Detecting floppy\n");
       D = opendir(FLOPPY);
       closedir(D);
       printf("Detecting SCSI HDs\n");
       D = opendir(SCSIHD);
       closedir(D);
       printf("Detecting USB\n");
       D = opendir(USB);
       closedir(D);
       exit(0);

}

We need to disable some of the target system's start up scripts.

cd $LFS/etc/rc.d/rcsysinit.d
mv  S10swap      ZZZS10swap
mv  S20mountproc ZZZS20mountproc
mv  S30checkfs ZZZS30checkfs
mv  S40mountfs ZZZS40mountfs 

Check that your $LFS/etc/inittab will start up at level 3

Inspect your level 3 start up scripts and disable any that you think
are inappropriate.  Add the following links:

ln -s ../init.d/checkcd  S35checkcd
ln -s ../init.d/Detect   S40Detect

You need to tar $LFS/root and $LFS/etc

cd $LFS
tar cf root.tar root
tar cf etc.tar etc

Finally you need to put a marker file LFS-4.1 in the root; so
that the boot mechanism chooses the right CD.

touch  $LFS/LFS-4.1

7.  Building the image

Return to the build directory and set TOPDIR

cd where_ever_it_is/cd_builder
export TOPDIR=`pwd`

The directory cdtree must have the LFS root directory mounted.
On my system it is /dev/hdb6 so:

mount  /dev/hdb6  cdtree

If you have a separate partition for usr then mount this too

mount  /dev/hdxx  cdtree/usr

If you have a partition containing source you may also mount this.
Mine is /dev/hdb5 so:

mount  /dev/hdb5  cdtree/usr/src

You can now build the image:

bash  build.sh >& Build &

Check the output for any warning or any "file system full". 
A warning from lilo about lilo.conf not having the correct permissions is normal; the latest lilo will also warn about lba32 and compact.

If you have both the LFS and the LFS/usr/src mounted the image in bootcd.iso
will be about 300Mb.

Write this to a CD and try the system.


Restoration of the LFS system
There are two changes to be made before the image LFS system will reboot:

$LFS/etc/fstab
$LFS/etc/rc.d/rcsysinit.d

The fstab
cd $LFS/etc
cp fstab  fstab.cd
cp fstab.bak  fstab

The links
cd $LFS/etc/rc.d/rcsysinit.d
mv  ZZZS10swap    S10swap
mv  ZZZS20mountproc S20mountproc
mv  ZZZS30checkfs S30checkfs
mv  ZZZS40mountfs S40mountfs 
cd ../rc3.d
mv  S35checkcd ZZZS35checkcd
mv  S40Detect  ZZZS40Detect 

Your LFS system should now boot; enabling you to change and tune it.
Then add more software before building a better CD.

7.  Some uses for the boot CD

Broken files

Any partition can be mounted; files edited or replaced by those on the CD.
Mending a broken lilo

Suppose that the machine just does LILILILI on boot up.

Boot from the CD and mount your root partition to /disk;
if your not sure which partition; then test the partitions listed in
/proc/partition until you get the right one.

Once you have the broken root partition mounted do:

chroot /disk
export PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
cd /etc
vi lilo.conf and fix what is wrong
then
lilo -C lilo.conf

Exit (from the chroot), unmount the disk and reboot.

What I have is an automated build of LFS on my CD.  I build LFS
systems onto empty machines.