astlinux-users

[Astlinux-users] new image format

[Terry M. <tm...@be...>]

Kristian,

Are you still working on the "new image format" using
kexec/syslinux/loopback/union?

I'm working on an Astlinux appliance, and am very interested in easier
upgrade methods in the field.

Terry Markovich

Re: [Astlinux-users] new image format

[Kristian K. <kri...@gm...>]

On 1/12/07, Terry Markovich <tm...@be...> wrote:
> Kristian,
>
> Are you still working on the "new image format" using
> kexec/syslinux/loopback/union?
>
> I'm working on an Astlinux appliance, and am very interested in easier
> upgrade methods in the field.
>
> Terry Markovich
>

Terry,

  Yes I am.  I'm struggling with how it can be done best.  Any ideas?
What are you looking for?


-- 
Kristian Kielhofner

Re: [Astlinux-users] new image format

[Terry M. <tm...@be...>]

On Mon, 2007-01-15 at 16:43 -0500, Kristian Kielhofner wrote:
> On 1/12/07, Terry Markovich <tm...@be...> wrote:
> > Kristian,
> >
> > Are you still working on the "new image format" using
> > kexec/syslinux/loopback/union?
> >
> > I'm working on an Astlinux appliance, and am very interested in easier
> > upgrade methods in the field.
> >
> > Terry Markovich
> >
> 
> Terry,
> 
>   Yes I am.  I'm struggling with how it can be done best.  Any ideas?
> What are you looking for?
> 
> 

Kristian,

Really just wondering if you had something imminent.  For upgrading my
appliance, I think I will have a boot partition with a kernel (with all
needed drivers builtin) and a filesystem in an initrd, which will
immediately execute an upgrade script.  That way I can then overwrite my
CF disk with a new partition image (leaving the boot partition in
place).

Terry 

Re: [Astlinux-users] new image format

[Kristian K. <kri...@gm...>]

On 1/15/07, Terry Markovich <tm...@be...> wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-01-15 at 16:43 -0500, Kristian Kielhofner wrote:
> > On 1/12/07, Terry Markovich <tm...@be...> wrote:
> > > Kristian,
> > >
> > > Are you still working on the "new image format" using
> > > kexec/syslinux/loopback/union?
> > >
> > > I'm working on an Astlinux appliance, and am very interested in easier
> > > upgrade methods in the field.
> > >
> > > Terry Markovich
> > >
> >
> > Terry,
> >
> >   Yes I am.  I'm struggling with how it can be done best.  Any ideas?
> > What are you looking for?
> >
> >
>
> Kristian,
>
> Really just wondering if you had something imminent.  For upgrading my
> appliance, I think I will have a boot partition with a kernel (with all
> needed drivers builtin) and a filesystem in an initrd, which will
> immediately execute an upgrade script.  That way I can then overwrite my
> CF disk with a new partition image (leaving the boot partition in
> place).
>
> Terry
>

Terry,

  I also forget to mention that once AstLinux is loaded, it can
upgrade runnix itself :).


-- 
Kristian Kielhofner

Re: [Astlinux-users] new image format

[Kristian K. <kri...@gm...>]

On 1/15/07, Terry Markovich <tm...@be...> wrote:
>
> Kristian,
>
> Really just wondering if you had something imminent.  For upgrading my
> appliance, I think I will have a boot partition with a kernel (with all
> needed drivers builtin) and a filesystem in an initrd, which will
> immediately execute an upgrade script.  That way I can then overwrite my
> CF disk with a new partition image (leaving the boot partition in
> place).
>
> Terry
>

Terry,

  Star2Star is (and has been using) a runnix/astlinux/syslinux/kexec
based bootloader for quite some time.  However, I haven't made the
specific configuration available because a) I want to make some
improvments first and b) because we control the entire appliance and
network, I can be much more certain that I'm not forgetting something
and someone's data might go missing, etc.

  It's been working quite well.

  Here is what we are doing:

- Partition CF card with one 128mb FAT16 partition.  This holds
syslinux, runnix, and full ext2 AstLinux disk images (actually more
than that - they are identical to the .img files already created)

- CF boots, syslinux boots runnix

- runnix looks for a "good" AstLinux image and boots it.  If none is
found, it connects to our provisioning server (runnix supports
dhcp/ssh/wget/etc/etc) and downloads, verifies, installs and boots the
new AstLinux image.  It oarses a config file for this info.

  Runnix has been at 0.1 since I created it in August last year.  I
need some more time to work on it!  Maybe you'd like to help? :)

-- 
Kristian Kielhofner

Re: [Astlinux-users] new image format

[Lonnie A. <li...@lo...>]

On Jan 15, 2007, at 4:29 PM, Kristian Kielhofner wrote:

> On 1/15/07, Terry Markovich <tm...@be...> wrote:
>>
>> Kristian,
>>
>> Really just wondering if you had something imminent.  For  
>> upgrading my
>> appliance, I think I will have a boot partition with a kernel  
>> (with all
>> needed drivers builtin) and a filesystem in an initrd, which will
>> immediately execute an upgrade script.  That way I can then  
>> overwrite my
>> CF disk with a new partition image (leaving the boot partition in
>> place).
>>
>> Terry
>>
>
> Terry,
>
>   Star2Star is (and has been using) a runnix/astlinux/syslinux/kexec
> based bootloader for quite some time.  However, I haven't made the
> specific configuration available because a) I want to make some
> improvments first and b) because we control the entire appliance and
> network, I can be much more certain that I'm not forgetting something
> and someone's data might go missing, etc.
>
>   It's been working quite well.
>
>   Here is what we are doing:
>
> - Partition CF card with one 128mb FAT16 partition.  This holds
> syslinux, runnix, and full ext2 AstLinux disk images (actually more
> than that - they are identical to the .img files already created)
>
> - CF boots, syslinux boots runnix
>
> - runnix looks for a "good" AstLinux image and boots it.  If none is
> found, it connects to our provisioning server (runnix supports
> dhcp/ssh/wget/etc/etc) and downloads, verifies, installs and boots the
> new AstLinux image.  It oarses a config file for this info.
>
>   Runnix has been at 0.1 since I created it in August last year.  I
> need some more time to work on it!  Maybe you'd like to help? :)
>
> -- 
Kristian,

In this environment...

1) Where does VoiceMail get stored?  The FAT16 partition?

2) How would a person install an AGI?

Lonnie

Re: [Astlinux-users] new image format

[Terry M. <tm...@be...>]

On Mon, 2007-01-15 at 17:29 -0500, Kristian Kielhofner wrote:
> On 1/15/07, Terry Markovich <tm...@be...> wrote:
> >
> > Kristian,
> >
> > Really just wondering if you had something imminent.  For upgrading my
> > appliance, I think I will have a boot partition with a kernel (with all
> > needed drivers builtin) and a filesystem in an initrd, which will
> > immediately execute an upgrade script.  That way I can then overwrite my
> > CF disk with a new partition image (leaving the boot partition in
> > place).
> >
> > Terry
> >
> 
> Terry,
> 
>   Star2Star is (and has been using) a runnix/astlinux/syslinux/kexec
> based bootloader for quite some time.  However, I haven't made the
> specific configuration available because a) I want to make some
> improvments first and b) because we control the entire appliance and
> network, I can be much more certain that I'm not forgetting something
> and someone's data might go missing, etc.
> 
>   It's been working quite well.
> 
>   Here is what we are doing:
> 
> - Partition CF card with one 128mb FAT16 partition.  This holds
> syslinux, runnix, and full ext2 AstLinux disk images (actually more
> than that - they are identical to the .img files already created)
> 
> - CF boots, syslinux boots runnix
> 
> - runnix looks for a "good" AstLinux image and boots it.  If none is
> found, it connects to our provisioning server (runnix supports
> dhcp/ssh/wget/etc/etc) and downloads, verifies, installs and boots the
> new AstLinux image.  It oarses a config file for this info.
> 
>   Runnix has been at 0.1 since I created it in August last year.  I
> need some more time to work on it!  Maybe you'd like to help? :)
> 

Kristian,

It sounds pretty interesting.  I took a look at the SF site, it looks
similar to what I did for my initrd image, just configure buildroot2 for
a minimal set of packages and then build the image.  Are the files in
SF's svn repository the latest you are using?

So does the AstLinux image that gets loaded by runnix get loop mounted?

Terry

Re: [Astlinux-users] new image format

[Kristian K. <kri...@gm...>]

On 1/15/07, Terry Markovich <tm...@be...> wrote:
>
> Kristian,
>
> It sounds pretty interesting.  I took a look at the SF site, it looks
> similar to what I did for my initrd image, just configure buildroot2 for
> a minimal set of packages and then build the image.  Are the files in
> SF's svn repository the latest you are using?
>
> So does the AstLinux image that gets loaded by runnix get loop mounted?
>
> Terry
>

Terry,

  Yes, they are the "latest", which like I said, isn't saying much
because I haven't worked on it in quite some time.

  I used a slightly modified initrd.img from the AstLinux live CD to
make this work.  I use losetup and then I copy the entire image to
RAM, then I switch to the new root.  I didn't like the idea of having
the FAT fs mounted all of the time just for the loop image...

  What do you think?

-- 
Kristian Kielhofner