Free boot disk software for linux

boot-dvd project contains a couple of Perl-scripts that can be used to create a custom DVD-ISO image (to be burned), that contains user selected Linux boot/live-CD images (only ISOLINUX boot loader supported) in a handy GRUB menu.
Enhancements:
- Many updates and bugfixes were made.

BootRoot creates a boot disk with lilo, a kernel and an initrd image. The initrd script mounts another root disk with a compressed (gzip or bzip2) filesystem.

The root filesystem isnt made by this program, but there lots of compressed filesytems out there to use.

You can use a bzip2 compressed filesystem, this program is easy to use, and it provides a framework showing a simple initrd method which you can freely modify.

The four steps to making a Boot Root set.

1). Grab the Perl Script right here .. boot_root give it a name .. umm .. boot_root.

2). Make sure the bang line points to the right place:

$ which perl
/usr/bin/perl
$ grep "perl -w" boot_root
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

3). Make it executable:

$ chmod 755 boot_root

4). Put it in one of your LIB PATHS:

$ echo $PATH /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:.:
$ mv boot_root /usr/bin

5). Run it, and have lots of fun! More directions can be found at the beginning of the script.

Bootchart is a software for performance analysis and visualization of the GNU/Linux boot process. Resource utilization and process information are collected during the boot process and can later be displayed in a PNG, SVG or EPS-encoded chart.

The boot process is modified to start the boot logger (/sbin/bootchartd) instead of /sbin/init. The boot logger will run in background and collect information from the proc file system (/proc/[PID]/stat, /proc/stat and /proc/diskstats).

The statistics are logged to a virtual memory file system (tmpfs). Once the boot process completes (denoted by the existence of specific processes), the log files are packaged to /var/log/bootchart.tgz.

The log package can later be processed using a Java application which builds the process tree and renders a performance chart. The chart may then be analyzed to examine process dependency and overall resource utilization. A renderer web form is also available on the project web site.

The chart can then be analyzed to examine process dependency and overall resource utilization.

Runing:

1. Install bootchartd and the bootchart renderer. See INSTALL for details.

2. Modify your boot loader (GRUB/LILO) if necessary. Alternatively, change the kernel command line interactively upon reboot.
Reboot.

3. Verify that /var/log/bootchart.tgz was created and contains the log files.

4. Render the chart by running:

$ java -jar bootchart.jar

Alternatively (if no Java Development Kit is installed to build the JAR package), the web renderer may be used.

To use the web renderer from a script, run:
curl --form format=svg --form log=@/var/log/bootchart.tgz
http://bootchart.klika.si:8080/bootchart/render > bootchart.svgz

(optionally replacing the svg/bootchart.svgz pair with png/bootchart.png or eps/bootchart.eps.gz)

5. View the generated image and analyze the chart.
SVG images may be viewed using any of the following programs:
- rsvg-view (librsvg; GNOME)
- svgdisplay (ksvg; KDE)
- Gimp (using the gimp-svg plugin)
- Inkscape
- Squiggle (Batik; http://xml.apache.org/batik/)

To get help for additional options, run:

$ java -jar bootchart -h

How it works:

Logger Startup

The boot logger (/sbin/bootchartd) is run by the kernel instead of /sbin/init. This can be achieved by modifying the GRUB or LILO kernel command line, e.g.:

/boot/grub/menu.lst
[...]
title Fedora Core (2.6.10) - bootchart
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.10 ro root=/dev/hda1 init=/sbin/bootchartd
initrd /initrd-2.6.10.img

The installation script and RPM package will try to add the boot loader entry automatically.

The boot logger will start itself in the background and immediately run the default init process, /sbin/init. The boot process will then continue as usual.

Data Collection

Since the root partition is mounted read-only during boot, the logger needs to store data in memory, using a virtual memory file system (tmpfs).

As soon as the /proc file system is mounted — usually early in the sysinit script — the logger will start collecting output from various files:
/proc/stat system-wide CPU statistics: user, system, IO and idle times
/proc/diskstats system-wide disk statistics: disk utilization and throughput
(only available in 2.6 kernels)
/proc/[PID]/stat information about the running processes: start time, parent PID, process state, CPU usage, etc.

The contents of these files are periodically appended to corresponding log files, every 0.2 seconds by default.

The logger will try to detect the end of the boot process by looking for specific processes. For example, when in runlevel 5 (multi-user graphical mode), it will look for gdmgreeter, kdm_greet, etc. As soon as one of these processes is found running, the logger will stop collecting data, package the log files and store them to /var/log/bootchart.tgz.

Optional Process Accounting

In most cases, the output from /proc/[PID]/stat files suffices to recreate the process tree. It is possible however, that a short-lived process will not get picked up by the logger. If that process also forks new processes, the logger will lack dependency information for these "orphaned" processes — meaning that they might get incorrectly grouped by the chart renderer.

When truly accurate dependency information is required, process accounting may be utilized. If configured, the kernel will keep a log file with detailed information about processes. BSD process accounting v3 includes information about the process PID and parent PID (PPID) — effectively enabling an accurate reconstruction of the process tree.

To enable process accounting, the kernel needs to be configured to include CONFIG_BSD_PROCESS_ACCT_V3, under:

[ ] General setup
[ ] BSD Process Accounting
[ ] BSD Process Accounting version 3 file format

The GNU accounting utilities (package psacct or acct) also need to be installed. The boot logger will use the accton command to enable process accounting; it will include the accounting log in the tarball.

Visualization

The log tarball is later passed to the Java application for parsing and rendering the data. The CPU and disk statistics are used to render stacked area and line charts. The process information is used to create a Gantt chart showing process dependency, states and CPU usage.

A typical boot sequence consists of several hundred processes. Since it is difficult to visualize such amount of data in a comprehensible way, tree pruning is utilized. Idle background processes and short-lived processes are removed. Similar processes running in parallel are also merged together.

Finally, the performance and dependency charts are renderer as a single image in either PNG, SVG or EPS format.

disktypes purpose of disktype is to detect the content format of a disk or disk image. It knows about common file systems, partition tables, and boot codes.
The program is written in C and is designed to compile on any modern Unix flavour1. It is self-contained and in general works without special libraries or headers. Some system-dependent features can be used to gather additional information.
As of version 8, disktype knows about the following formats:
File systems:
- FAT12/FAT16/FAT32
- NTFS
- HPFS
- MFS, HFS, HFS Plus
- ISO9660
- UDF
- ext2/ext3
- Minix
- ReiserFS
- Reiser4
- Linux romfs
- Linux cramfs
- Linux squashfs
- UFS (some variations)
- SysV FS (some variations)
- JFS
- XFS
- Amiga FS/FFS
- BeOS BFS
- QNX4 FS
- 3DO CD-ROM FS
- Veritas VxFS
- Xbox DVD file system
Partitioning:
- DOS/PC style
- Apple
- Amiga "Rigid Disk"
- ATARI ST (AHDI3)
- BSD disklabel
- Linux RAID physical disks
- Linux LVM1 physical volumes
- Linux LVM2 physical volumes
- Solaris SPARC disklabel
- Solaris x86 disklabel (vtoc)
Other structures:
- Debian split floppy header
- Linux swap
Disk images:
- Raw CD image (.bin)
- Virtual PC hard disk image
- Apple UDIF disk image (limited)
Boot codes:
- LILO
- GRUB
- SYSLINUX
- ISOLINUX
- Linux kernel
- FreeBSD loader
- Sega Dreamcast (?)
Compression formats:
- gzip
- compress
- bzip2
Archive formats:
- tar
- cpio
- bar
- dump/restore
Enhancements:
- Added file systems: Amiga SFS.
- Added other structures: Linux cloop (detection only), EFI GPT, Windows/MS-DOS boot loader, BeOS boot loader.
- Improved file systems: Amiga FS/FFS, Amiga PFS, Linux squashfs.
- Improved other structures: Amiga "Rigid Disk" partitioning, LILO, ISO9660 El Torito.

Etherboot project is a software package for creating ROM images that can download code over an Ethernet network to be executed on an x86 computer.
Many network adapters have a socket where a ROM chip can be installed. Etherboot is code that can be put in such a ROM. Etherboot is normally used for for booting PCs diskless. This is useful in various situations, for example:
- An X-terminal.
- Clusters of compute servers.
- Routers.
- Various kinds of remote servers, e.g. a tape drive server that can be accessed with the RMT protocol.
- Machines doing tasks in environments unfriendly to disks.
- A user platform where remote partitions are mounted over the network and you are willing to accept the lower speed compared to disk.
- Maintaining software for a cluster of equally configured workstations centrally.
Etherboot can boot computers faster than from a disk because there are no delays in spinning up disks, etc. A moments calculation will show that even with a 10Mbit Ethernet, sending a 500kB kernel will take only a couple of seconds typically. With 100Mbit Ethernet it gets even better.
Compared to booting from solid-state devices, e.g. Flash disks, Etherboot has the advantage of centralising software adminstration, the tradeoff being the dependence on a server. This can be partly alleviated by providing redundant servers.
Etherboot can work with RAM disks, NFS filesystems, or even local disks, if desired. Its a component technology and can be combined with other technologies to do things the way you want.
Etherboot is usually used to load Linux, FreeBSD or DOS. However the protocol and boot file formats are general, so there is no reason why it could not be used to load arbitrary images to a PC, including other OSes.
Etherboot is Open Source under the GNU General Public License Version 2 (GPL2).
The components needed by Etherboot are:
- A bootstrap loader, usually in an EPROM on a network card, or installed in the flash BIOS, but could be put anywhere in the address space the BIOS probes in. For testing this could be put on a floppy disk or a hard disk partition. Some configurations may even be always run from a floppy disk (e.g. temporary testing setups or pedagogic uses).
- A DHCP or bootp server, for returning an IP address and other information when sent a MAC (Ethernet card) address.
- A tftp server, for sending the kernel images and other files required in the boot process. Alternatively, Etherboot can boot from an NFS mount.
- A Linux or FreeBSD kernel.
- Optionally, a NFS server, for providing the disk partitions that will be mounted if Linux or FreeBSD is being booted.
- Optionally, a RAM disk contained in the loaded image. This can be the initial RAM disk if desired.
- Software tools for building the download image, and tools for debugging.
Enhancements:
- This production release should now compile with gcc 4.x.
- In addition, a number of drivers have been updated, including e1000, MCP51 and MCP55 (nvidia), pcnet32, natsemi, sis900, and tg3.
- NetXtreme II cards are now supported.

Super Grub Disk is a bootable floppy or CDROM that is oriented towards system rescue, specifically for repairing the booting process.

Super Grub Disk is simply a Grub Disk with a lot of useful menus.

It can activate partitions, boot partitions, boot MBRs, boot your former OS (Linux or another one) by loading menu.lst from your hard disk, automatically restore Grub on your MBR, swap hard disks in the BIOS, and boot from any available disk device.

Super Grub Disk project has multi-language support, and allows you to change the keyboard layout of your shell.

ADIOSKIDS is a Fedora-based live and installation CD with support for User Mode Linux (UML) virtual machines, further enhanced by Linux Intrusion Detection System (LIDS) and SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux). The live CD, which includes the KDE desktop environment, uses a compressed loopback filesystem.

The objective of the ADIOS project is to quickly and easily download a consistent operating system environment onto laboratory PCs. The ADIOS environment provides students with administrative privileges required to perform advanced exercises in Network and Systems Administration.

We needed a way to download a pre-installed version of the operating system onto the PC in the laboratory. There are many tools available to do this, but the ADIOS project uses a web server to deliver the Operating System images.

The ADIOS setup image is used to install operating systems onto disk partitions. It also copies the OS images from disk to disk to reduce network traffic. The ADIOS image was ported onto CDROM for students to use at home.

ADIOS-SELinux is a separate boot CD for running NSA Security Enhanced Linux. Additional software is available on the DVD version of ADIOS.