The GUI CD images

prep: Partition the hard disk, create appropriate filesystems and setup parameters (e.g. hostname,IP,...) so that OS installation can proceed uninterrupted.

winstall: Automatically install windows using the information gathered in the prep stage

linstall: Automatically install linux using the information gathered in the prep stage

winresc: Boot into windows recovery console

dosresc: Boot into a network aware DOS shell

linresc: Boot into a network aware linux shell

wipe: Print basic system information and wipes all the hard disks.

memtest: Test the machine to see if the memory is flaky. This is basically a floppy image which I downloaded off the net.

remote image=<script>: Execute an arbitrary script located at a network location named <script>

readker.c32 <default kernel with arguments>: This is a COM32 code which automates the image selection process. For more information see Autobooting.

Current choice of remote scripts

clonerh: Create a redhat install which clones another existing redhat installation and then configures this machine.

debian: Install debian 3.0 (woody) on the machine.

debian-test: Install a test version of debian on the machine.

Boot time arguments for Linux based images

All the linux based images, i.e. all except winresc, dosresc and winstall take boot time arguments. They accept the standard boot time arguments accepted by the linux kernel and then some. Some of the additional arguments honored by our system are given below:

• mountcd=yes/no: Should the CDROM be mounted at /cdrom?
• network=dhcp/static/no: How should the network interface be initialised? If set to static, then should specify ipaddr=PPP.QQQ.RRR.SSS as well. Assumed we are in a class C network.
• hostname=<value>: If not present will generate a random hostname of the form "install-NNNNN". Useful in conjuction with static IP addressing.
• image=<imagescript>: Name of the script to execute after system is up. Searches for this script on BASEURL, /cdrom/scripts/ and /scripts/. A special value "bash" will drop you to a shell
• baseurl=http://servername/somedir: The network location where the script will be located. Ignored if the network card is not initialised.
• utils=<utilscript>: Name of an additional script to be executed before processing the image argument. This is used to download any additional binaries (if needed) for the imagescript to work. This is the same as prepending the contents of utilscript to imagescript. Mainly used for debugging purposes.

Boot time arguments for DOS based images

All DOS based images, i.e. dosresc and winstall, honour these boot time arguments:

• mountcd=yes/no: Should the CDROM be mounted at X:?
• network=yes/no: Should the network interface be initialised? If so, uses DHCP.

Notes

Before downloading a script, a 16MB ramdisk is mounted at $DOWNLOAD (set to /mnt/download) and the specified script is downloaded there and executed. The scripts may download additional scripts. $DOWNLOAD is recommended place to download them to, since /tmp, will have only 1MB or so space available. If necessary these scripts may create additional ramdisks using /dev/ram{2..7}. /dev/ram0 is used for / and /dev/ram1 is used for $DOWNLOAD. Alternately, a utils script can be created which downloads required binaries into /usr/bin after mounting a ramdisk there.

Logging

When the system is booted into a linux image, three consoles are opened. In the first console, a script depending on the image selected is automatically run, if no such script is found, you are dropped to a shell. The second and third consoles have two shells running, for your convenience. The fourth console, contains extensive information regarding what the script running in the first console, is trying to do. This can be used for debugging the scripts themselves. The fifth console, contains system log messages. This is basically a copy of /var/log/syslog.log. The remaining consoles are not used.