[ale] CRISIS -> boot/root floppy needed..........

[Courtney Thomas]

Bob,

Thank you for writing.

I have your book and have not needed it in so long that I mislaid it but 
thanks to your message have taken the time to dig it out and will heed 
your advice.

I have the 2001 edition. Has much changed ?

Cordially,
Courtney



Transam wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 03, 2003 at 08:27:14AM -0500, Courtney Thomas wrote:
> 
>>Good Morning !
>>
> 
>>I am running RH6.1 because of an Oracle installation and need to leave 
>>it alone for now, however, any guidance regarding SPECIFICS of upgrading 
>>the OS and Oracle would be appreciated.
>>
> 
>>Setup:
>>	bootup uses dpt_i2o		<- OS hard drive scsi driver
>>	oracle uses eata		<- scsi raid driver for oracle
>>	tape drive uses dc390x_ncr	<- scsi tape driver
>>
> 
>>Dilemma:
>>	no boot/root floppy, other than a custom one, is going to have the 
>>dpt_i2o & dc390x_ncr drivers, since they are non-standard scsi drivers. 
>>So, the boot floppy must afford the opportunity to install dpt_i2o at 
>>bootup, which is done by mkbootdisk under RH6.1.
>>
> 
>>And, once the OS hard drive is up, the eata & dc390x_ncr modules must be 
>>installed before unmounting the OS hard drive, to provide quiescent OS 
>>and raid hard drives for tape backup. This assumes, of course, these 
>>modules would remain available after OS hard drive unmounting.
>>
> 
>>But, the aforedescribed boot floppy asks for a root floppy, which is not 
>>provided AFAIK by RH6.1. I have more pressing needs than spending 
>>unknown hours whittling away on such a root floppy.
>>
> 
>>Is there a 'downloadable' root floppy that can meet these requirements ?
>>
> 
>>If not, please precisely summarize the most efficient way to create said 
>>root floppy.
>>
> 
> Keep in mind that your Rescue boot floppy or Rescue boot and root floppies
> or Rescue CD does NOT have to be the same distribution as what is on disk
> nor does it need to be the same version nor even close.
> 
> The only requirement is that it has the drivers for the devices and
> file systems you need to access (e.g., disk, tape if tape restore is needed,
> ext2 and/or ext3, etc).
> 
> There are a few ways to deal with this:
> 
> 1. Build a kernel with these devices built-in (not as loadable modules).
>    Be sure to include the RAMDISK file system type.  If you are building
>    for a Rescue boot and root floppy pair, be sure to include:
> 
>         rdev -r /dev/fd0 49152
> 
>    so that a RAMDISK will be set up and the process will prompt you
>    to change floppies.
> 
>    Copy that kernel to a floppy to be your boot kernel.
> 
> 2. Use tar to write the device drivers to a separate floppy, boot from
>    Rescue media, use tar to load the device drivers to RAMDISK and
>    use insmod to load to memory.
> 
> 3. Build a custom Rescue root floppy that contains the device driver modules
>    and a rc.local to load them.  Building a custom Rescue root floppy
>    is explained in "Real World Linux Security"; check the index under
>    "Rescue Disks, custom".
> 
> 
>>Else, what do you recommend ?
>>
> 
>>Appreciatively,
>>Courtney
>>
> 
> Bob Toxen
> bob at verysecurelinux.com               [Please use for email to me]
> http://www.verysecurelinux.com        [Network&Linux/Unix security consulting]
> http://www.realworldlinuxsecurity.com [My book:"Real World Linux Security 2/e"]
> Quality Linux & UNIX security and SysAdmin & software consulting since 1990.
> 
> "Microsoft: Unsafe at any clock speed!"
>    -- Bob Toxen 10/03/2002
> _______________________________________________
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> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> 
> 


-- 
In response to an article in The Economist entitled Marx After Communism 
dated 12/21/02,

".....we have a president purchased by corporations in a sham election 
who has put those corporations in charge of their own regulation. A 
string of corporate scandals has exposed the myth of shareholder 
control....."

Mark Spohr	Tahoe City, Ca. [1/18/03]

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