NAME¶
live-boot - System Boot Scripts
DESCRIPTION¶
live-boot contains the scripts that configure a Debian Live system during
the boot process (early userspace).
live-boot is a hook for the initramfs-tools, used to generate a initramfs
capable to boot live systems, such as those created by
live-helper(7).
This includes the Debian Live isos, netboot tarballs, and usb stick images.
At boot time it will look for a (read-only) media containing a "/live"
directory where a root filesystems (often a compressed filesystem image like
squashfs) is stored. If found, it will create a writable environment, using
aufs, for Debian like systems to boot from.
CONFIGURATION¶
live-boot can be configured through a boot parameter or a configuration
file.
To configure the live-boot parameters used by default in a live image, see the
--bootappend-live option in the
lb_config(1) manual page.
Kernel Parameters¶
live-boot is only activated if 'boot=live' was used as a kernel
parameter.
In addition, there are some more boot parameters to influence the behaviour, see
below.
Configuration Files¶
live-boot can be configured (but not activated) through configuration
files. Those files can be placed either in the root filesystem itself
(/etc/live/boot.conf, /etc/live/boot/*), or on the live media (live/boot.conf,
live/boot/*).
OPTIONS¶
live-boot currently features the following parameters.
- access=ACCESS
- Set the accessibility level for physically or visually
impaired users. ACCESS must be one of v1, v2, v3, m1, or m2. v1=lesser
visual impairment, v2=moderate visual impairment, v3=blindness, m1=minor
motor difficulties, m2=moderate motor difficulties.
- console=TTY,SPEED
- Set the default console to be used with the
"live-getty" option. Example:
"console=ttyS0,115200"
- debug
- Makes initramfs boot process more verbose.
Use: debug=1
Without setting debug to a value the messages may not be shown.
- fetch=URL
- httpfs=URL
- Another form of netboot by downloading a squashfs image
from a given url. The fetch method copies the image to ram and the httpfs
method uses fuse and httpfs2 to mount the image in place. Copying to ram
requires more memory and might take a long time for large images. However,
it is more likely to work correctly because it does not require networking
afterwards and the system operates faster once booted because it does not
require to contact the server anymore.
Due to current limitations in busybox's wget and DNS resolution, an URL can
not contain a hostname but an IP only.
Not working: http://example.com/path/to/your_filesystem.squashfs
Working: http://1.2.3.4/path/to/your_filesystem.squashfs
Also note that therefore it's currently not possible to fetch an image from
a namebased virtualhost of an httpd if it is sharing the ip with the main
httpd instance.
You may also use the live iso image in place of the squashfs image.
- iscsi=server-ip[,server-port];target-name
- Boot from an iSCSI target that has an iso or disk live
image as one of its LUNs. The specified target is searched for a LUN which
looks like a live media. If you use the iscsitarget software iSCSI
target solution which is packaged in Debian your ietd.conf might look like
this:
# The target-name you specify in the iscsi= parameter
Target <target-name>
Lun 0 Path=<path-to-your-live-image.iso>,Type=fileio,IOMode=ro
# If you want to boot multiple machines you might want to look at tuning
some parameters like
# Wthreads or MaxConnections
- findiso=/PATH/TO/IMAGE
- Look for the specified ISO file on all disks where it
usually looks for the .squashfs file (so you don't have to know the device
name as in fromiso=....).
- fromiso=/PATH/TO/IMAGE
- Allows to use a filesystem from within an iso image that's
available on live-media.
- ignore_uuid
- Do not check that any UUID embedded in the initramfs
matches the discovered medium. live-boot may be told to generate a UUID by
setting LIVE_GENERATE_UUID=1 when building the initramfs.
- verify-checksums
- If specified, an MD5 sum is calculated on the live media
during boot and compared to the value found in md5sum.txt found in the
root directory of the live media.
- ip=[DEVICE]:[CLIENT_IP]:[NETMASK]:[GATEWAY_IP]:[NAMESERVER]
[,[
DEVICE]:[CLIENT_IP]:[NETMASK]:[GATEWAY_IP]:[NAMESERVER]]
- Let you specify the name(s) and the options of the
interface(s) that should be configured at boot time. Do not specify this
if you want to use dhcp (default). It will be changed in a future release
to mimick official kernel boot param specification (e.g.
ip=10.0.0.1::10.0.0.254:255.255.255.0::eth0,:::::eth1:dhcp).
- ip=[frommedia]
- If this variable is set, dhcp and static configuration are
just skipped and the system will use the (must be) media-preconfigured
/etc/network/interfaces instead.
- {live-media|bootfrom}=DEVICE
- If you specify one of this two equivalent forms, live-boot
will first try to find this device for the "/live" directory
where the read-only root filesystem should reside. If it did not find
something usable, the normal scan for block devices is performed.
Instead of specifing an actual device name, the keyword 'removable' can be
used to limit the search of acceptable live media to removable type only.
Note that if you want to further restrict the media to usb mass storage
only, you can use the 'removable-usb' keyword.
- {live-media-encryption|encryption}=TYPE
- live-boot will mount the encrypted rootfs TYPE, asking the
passphrase, useful to build paranoid live systems :-). TYPE supported so
far are "aes" for loop-aes encryption type.
- live-media-offset=BYTES
- This way you could tell live-boot that your image starts at
offset BYTES in the above specified or autodiscovered device, this could
be useful to hide the Debian Live iso or image inside another iso or
image, to create "clean" images.
- live-media-path=PATH
- Sets the path to the live filesystem on the medium. By
default, it is set to '/live' and you should not change that unless you
have customized your media accordingly.
- live-media-timeout=SECONDS
- Set the timeout in seconds for the device specified by
"live-media=" to become ready before giving up.
- module=NAME
- Instead of using the default optional file
"filesystem.module" (see below) another file could be specified
without the extension ".module"; it should be placed on
"/live" directory of the live medium.
- netboot[=nfs|cifs]
- This tells live-boot to perform a network mount. The
parameter "nfsroot=" (with optional "nfsopts="),
should specify where is the location of the root filesystem. With no args,
will try cifs first, and if it fails nfs.
- nfsopts=
- This lets you specify custom nfs options.
- nofastboot
- This parameter disables the default disabling of filesystem
checks in /etc/fstab. If you have static filesystems on your harddisk and
you want them to be checked at boot time, use this parameter, otherwise
they are skipped.
- nopersistence
- disables the "persistence" feature, useful if the
bootloader (like syslinux) has been installed with persistence
enabled.
- noeject
- Do not prompt to eject the live medium.
- ramdisk-size
- This parameters allows to set a custom ramdisk size (it's
the '-o size' option of tmpfs mount). By default, there is no ramdisk size
set, so the default of mount applies (currently 50% of available RAM).
Note that this option has no currently no effect when booting with
toram.
- swapon
- This parameter enables usage of local swap partitions.
- persistence
- live-boot will probe devices for persistence media. These
can be partitions (with the correct GPT name), filesystems (with the
correct label) or image files (with the correct file name). Overlays are
labeled/named "persistence" (see persistence.conf(5)).
Overlay image files have extensions which determines their filesystem,
e.g. "persistence.ext4".
- persistence-encryption=TYPE1,TYPE2 ...
TYPEn
- This option determines which types of encryption that we
allow to be used when probing devices for persistence media. If
"none" is in the list, we allow unencrypted media; if
"luks" is in the list, we allow LUKS-encrypted media. Whenever a
device containing encrypted media is probed the user will be prompted for
the passphrase. The default value is "none".
- persistence-media={removable|removable-usb}
- If you specify the keyword 'removable', live-boot will try
to find persistence partitions on removable media only. Note that if you
want to further restrict the media to usb mass storage only, you can use
the 'removable-usb' keyword.
- persistence-method=TYPE1,TYPE2 ...
TYPEn
- This option determines which types of persistence media we
allow. If "overlay" is in the list, we consider overlays (i.e.
"live-rw" and "home-rw"). The default is
"overlay".
- persistence-path=PATH
- live-boot will look for persistency files in the root
directory of a partition, with this parameter, the path can be configured
so that you can have multiple directories on the same partition to store
persistency files.
- persistence-read-only
- Filesystem changes are not saved back to persistence media.
In particular, overlays and netboot NFS mounts are mounted read-only.
- persistence-storage=TYPE1,TYPE2 ...
TYPEn
- This option determines which types of persistence storage
to consider when probing for persistence media. If "filesystem"
is in the list, filesystems with matching labels will be used; if
"file" is in the list, all filesystems will be probed for
archives and image files with matching filenames. The default is
"file,filesystem".
- persistence-label=LABEL
- live-boot will use the name "LABEL" instead of
"persistence" when searching for persistent storage. LABEL can
be any valid filename, partition label, or GPT name. This option replaces
the less flexible persistent-subtext option from version 2 of live-boot.
If you wish to continue using legacy names for persistent storage, use the
full name with this option, e.g. persistence-label=live-rw-foo
- quickreboot
- This option causes live-boot to reboot without attempting
to eject the media and without asking the user to remove the boot
media.
- showmounts
- This parameter will make live-boot to show on "/"
the ro filesystems (mostly compressed) on "/lib/live". This is
not enabled by default because could lead to problems by applications like
"mono" which store binary paths on installation.
- silent
- If you boot with the normal quiet parameter, live-boot
hides most messages of its own. When adding silent, it hides all.
- todisk=DEVICE
- Adding this parameter, live-boot will try to copy the
entire read-only media to the specified device before mounting the root
filesystem. It probably needs a lot of free space. Subsequent boots should
then skip this step and just specify the "live-media=DEVICE"
boot parameter with the same DEVICE used this time.
- toram
- Adding this parameter, live-boot will try to copy the whole
read-only media to the computer's RAM before mounting the root filesystem.
This could need a lot of ram, according to the space used by the read-only
media.
- union=aufs|unionfs
- By default, live-boot uses aufs. With this parameter, you
can switch to unionfs.
FILES (old)¶
- /etc/live.conf
- Some variables can be configured via this config file
(inside the live system).
- live/filesystem.module
- This optional file (inside the live media) contains a list
of white-space or carriage-return-separated file names corresponding to
disk images in the "/live" directory. If this file exists, only
images listed here will be merged into the root aufs, and they will be
loaded in the order listed here. The first entry in this file will be the
"lowest" point in the aufs, and the last file in this list will
be on the "top" of the aufs, directly below /overlay. Without
this file, any images in the "/live" directory are loaded in
alphanumeric order.
FILES¶
- /etc/live/boot.conf
- /etc/live/boot/*
- live/boot.conf
- live/boot/*
- persistence.conf
-
SEE ALSO¶
persistence.conf(5)
live-build(7)
live-config(7)
live-tools(7)
HOMEPAGE¶
More information about live-boot and the Debian Live project can be found on the
homepage at <
http://live.debian.net/> and in the manual at
<
http://live.debian.net/manual/>.
BUGS¶
Bugs can be reported by submitting a bugreport for the live-boot package in the
Debian Bug Tracking System at <
http://bugs.debian.org/> or by
writing a mail to the Debian Live mailing list at <
debian-live@lists.debian.org>.
AUTHOR¶
live-boot was written by Daniel Baumann <
daniel@debian.org> for
the Debian project.