DaemonForums  

Go Back   DaemonForums > OpenBSD > OpenBSD Installation and Upgrading

OpenBSD Installation and Upgrading Installing and upgrading OpenBSD.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1   (View Single Post)  
Old 1st April 2014
IronForge IronForge is offline
Fdisk Soldier
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: SoCal - "have skills, will travel for projects"
Posts: 55
Default Booting to RAM

Greetings, Folks - been awhile.

I've been off OBSD for awhile now - couldn't get OBSD to boot up on my "now a year old" Laptop. I stuck with Win8 until I was royally hacked to the point my system went down hard. I've a backup; but I'm thinking of giving OBSD another shot - Linux Distros seem to be working well; and figure my plaform's been around awhile for all the issues to be worked out here in BSD-Land.

Once question that I have: Is there an option to boot an Instance to RAM nowadays? I've 8GB of RAM; and have looked into the security aspects of Linux Distros (Ubuntu, TAILS, Fedora) that allow for that option. Being regularly hacked, cyberstalked, and having business prospects interfered (recently with one large software provider) gets one a bit more cautious.

I've glossed over a few diskless OBSD and LiveCD/USB sites here and there after a quick search; but am interested in the RAM loading option for speed (no need to wait for the Live CD/DVD to spin). Until I decide to install my next semi-permanent OS to my HDD, I'd like to try out a Live_on_RAM session (figure I can mount an USB to save files during the session) in OBSD, if possible.

I know Jggimi hasn't updated is LiveDVDs ISOs in awhile - IIRC, don't think they had boot to ram capabilities.

Are 8GBs of RAM enough? I appreciate your feedback in advance.

Regards,

Last edited by IronForge; 3rd April 2014 at 02:48 AM.
Reply With Quote
  #2   (View Single Post)  
Old 1st April 2014
jggimi's Avatar
jggimi jggimi is offline
More noise than signal
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 7,975
Default

You're correct, my live media is out of date.

To be clear, the boot process used CD9660 filesystems (one or two, depending upon the particular system) and loaded six filesystems into RAM: /etc, /var, /tmp, /dev, /root, and /home. It used mfs(8) for these.

I'd begun looking at mass storage based live media, but ended up abandoning this due to the impossibility of integrating these with optical configurations and the inability to "fit" a reasonable toolset into a small USB device. That was several years ago; these days USB devices are larger and I may revisit this.

The only major change I would make is to replace mfs(8) with mount_tmpfs(8), which will be available with OpenBSD 5.5.

---

The only boot-to-RAM OpenBSD system that I'm aware of is bsd.rd, the RAMDISK kernel used for install, upgrade, and rescue, since it does not depend on any backing store. It uses rd(4) rather than mfs(8). This requires the filesystem to be located inside the kernel image.

Last edited by jggimi; 1st April 2014 at 11:47 AM. Reason: tmpfs availability
Reply With Quote
  #3   (View Single Post)  
Old 1st April 2014
shep shep is offline
Real Name: Scott
Arp Constable
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Dry and Dusty
Posts: 1,503
Default

Quote:
I've glossed over a few diskless OBSD and LiveCD/USB sites here and there after a quick search; but am interested in the RAM loading option for speed (no need to wait for the Live CD/DVD to spin). Until I decide to install my next semi-permanent OS to my HDD, I'd like to try out a Live_on_RAM session (figure I can mount an USB to save files during the session) in OBSD, if possible.
I would recommend starting with the hardware that was used in your particular laptop and then looking at the supported hardware list for the OS you want to install.

You can go at this in several ways:
- Run a livecd/usb image and pull the dmesg list
- For OpenBSD you can install to a usb thumb drive and then boot from that drive
- Search the internet for your particular laptop name and model + OpenBSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD/linux.
- Current issues with OpenBSD are UEFI bootloaders, hybrid video cards and some wireless cards
Reply With Quote
  #4   (View Single Post)  
Old 2nd April 2014
IronForge IronForge is offline
Fdisk Soldier
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: SoCal - "have skills, will travel for projects"
Posts: 55
Default Thanks; and nice to hear from you, Shep

I'm looking for ways to do a complete RAM held Instance of the OS, similar to what Fedora does in live_ram, Ubuntu in toram, and how other Linux Distros have that option in their initial Boot Script.

I know, someone will say, "then use the Linux Distro"; but hey, I'm looking to see what can be done with OBSD, since I think my Platform's been around long enough for User Base to adapt the OS for the hardware.

I like the RAM instance - beats waiting for the DVDs to spin up every so often. So, whether it's for a persistent or non-persistent base (I can always mount another USB Drive for storing files), I'd like to see if there is such an option available. If not, would this be a suggestable feature?

Thanks.
Reply With Quote
  #5   (View Single Post)  
Old 2nd April 2014
jggimi's Avatar
jggimi jggimi is offline
More noise than signal
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 7,975
Default

Culturally, suggestions are unwelcome, but developed code will be considered.
Reply With Quote
  #6   (View Single Post)  
Old 3rd April 2014
IronForge IronForge is offline
Fdisk Soldier
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: SoCal - "have skills, will travel for projects"
Posts: 55
Default Cool!

Thanks, Jggimi:

Pardon me for not responding to your first response - I scrolled down to the "End" first; and looked up.

I guess I may take a quick look at the Process.
I'm a Front End Project Mgr // ERP/Finance Systems/Database/DWH Analyst by trade. Don't do much System Programming (save some Unix scripts to tinker w/some Oracle Apps).

I know some of you are shaking your head at this (ROTFL!); but I'll take a quick look around a bit for some references (probably may post a request for some "remedial" guidance) later on where to look) on the Functions as well as its location in Source Code for examples - in the hopes of seeing if certain processes can be mapped out.

Thanks to all!!

Last edited by IronForge; 3rd April 2014 at 03:12 AM. Reason: grammar
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Booting install.iso from grub. tls OpenBSD Installation and Upgrading 6 5th April 2012 12:12 PM
Problem booting on i386 Blinker OpenBSD Installation and Upgrading 4 13th September 2011 05:34 PM
Dual Booting Questions sepuku OpenBSD Installation and Upgrading 3 8th September 2011 09:24 PM
different booting bsd.rd & bsd Hihihi OpenBSD General 3 15th July 2008 10:34 PM
Intermitant fault upon booting Johnny2Bad FreeBSD Installation and Upgrading 7 17th May 2008 07:43 PM


All times are GMT. The time now is 09:12 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Content copyright © 2007-2010, the authors
Daemon image copyright ©1988, Marshall Kirk McKusick