SPARC bootable CDs??

 
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All,

I've been trying to create a basic SPARC bootable CD using the
information in Sun's "Building a Bootable Jumpstart Installation
CD-ROM" document [1]. My ultimate goal is to create a generic SPARC
boot-cd with my own tools on so I have a safe environment from which
to work (like all those generic x86 linux boot CDs that are floating
around these days) - but for now, I'm just trying to get to a point
where I can copy an existing boot CD to disk and burn it back out in
a bootable format. Once I've got that sorted I'll start worrying
about adding binaries/libraries/etc.

Oh, one (probably important) point - I've been using a Solaris 9
installation CD rather than 2.6. Although I could probably unearth
some 2.6 CDs - I happened to have 9 to hand.

My first problem was getting S1 into a state where I could manipulate
the contents. Instead of dd'ing the slice to a file (as [1]
suggests), I created a new disk partition (~300mb, to give me enough
space), newfs'd and mounted it, cpio'd the contents of
/cdrom/cdrom0/s1, made some basic modifications (just created a text
file as a proof of concept), umounted it and dd'd the raw disk device
to a file. Now - I don't even know if that'll work properly - or if
it's even the right approach to be taking (comments, anyone?) - but I
couldn't think of another way to build a UFS filesystem from an
existing working directory (at first I thought I could just use
mkisofs - till I realised that wouldn't work 'cause I need UFS rather
than HSFS).

Anyway - it's kind of academic at this point anyway - since I have a
bigger problem. I've followed the process as described in the
document to copy the contents of S0 to a local work directory on the
drive. I've not modified the contents at all - yet, when I get round
to using mkisofs to build the HSFS filesystem image I end up with an
image larger than the existing space in the VTOC allows.

My S0 HSFS image is 568639 sectors - but according to prtvtoc there
are only 568320 sectors actually allocated in the VTOC for S0. So, if
I follow their example using bc to work out how much padding I need -
I need -320, which I'm sure can't be right. ;-)

So - before I start banging my head against
/usr/include/sys/dklabel.h and trying to work out how I go about
manually creating my own VTOC - I just thought I'd ask if there's
anyone that has been looking at similar things and has any good
pointers? I've spent a good while searching Google but am yet to find
anything as simple and easy as I'd like it.

Are there any decent tools to help with the process? I know the
document briefly mentions Gear Pro and Young Minds - are there any
open source equivalents that would be worth looking at??

Cheers,

Steve.

[1] http://www.sun.com/blueprints/0301/BuildBoot.pdf

- -- 
Stephen Wilson
Senior Security Consultant
Security Health Check

WW/B109, QinetiQ, St Andrews Rd, Malvern, Worcs, WR14 3PS
Tel: 01684 894153  Fax: 01684 897417



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