Sunday, November 15, 2009

Linux: Creating a Rescue Ramdisk Image

Here I write about a very simple and crude method of creating a rescue initrd image for the purpose of fixing or restoring Linux systems. I use this method when it's inconvenient to creating a sophisticated Rescue CD or when the CD-ROM is inaccessible. In short, this method involves creating a ramdisk image, saving it on a hard disk partition, and using a boot loader like GRUB to boot Linux into a Ramdisk system.



  1. Let's create an initrd image first. Create a text file that lists the contents of the ramdisk image. For example, my rescue.txt file has the following contents:

    /bin/bzip2
    /bin/cat
    /bin/chattr
    /bin/cp
    /bin/dash
    /bin/dd
    /bin/dmesg
    /bin/gzip
    /bin/ls
    /bin/lsattr
    /bin/mkdir
    /bin/mount
    /bin/mv
    /bin/rm
    /bin/tar
    /bin/umount
    /etc/modprobe.d
    /lib/ld-linux.so.2
    /lib/libacl.so.1
    /lib/libattr.so.1
    /lib/libblkid.so.1
    /lib/libbz2.so.1.0
    /lib/libc.so.6
    /lib/libcom_err.so.2
    /lib/libdevmapper.so.1.02.1
    /lib/libdl.so.2
    /lib/libe2p.so.2
    /lib/libext2fs.so.2
    /lib/libncurses.so.5
    /lib/libpthread.so.0
    /lib/librt.so.1
    /lib/libselinux.so.1
    /lib/libsepol.so.1
    /lib/libuuid.so.1
    /lib/modules/2.6.18.8/kernel/drivers/ide/ide-disk.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.18.8/kernel/drivers/ide/ide-generic.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.18.8/kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_mod.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.18.8/kernel/drivers/scsi/sd_mod.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.18.8/kernel/drivers/usb/host/ehci-hcd.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.18.8/kernel/drivers/usb/host/ohci-hcd.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.18.8/kernel/drivers/usb/host/uhci-hcd.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.18.8/kernel/drivers/usb/storage/usb-storage.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.18.8/modules.dep
    /lib/terminfo/l/linux
    /sbin/fdisk
    /sbin/losetup
    /sbin/mke2fs
    /sbin/mkswap
    /sbin/modprobe
    /usr/bin/less
    /usr/lib/libz.so.1
    /usr/sbin/mkcramfs

    Save this file as, for example, rescue.txt.


  2. Create a temporary directory, for example, /tmp/rescue.

    mkdir /tmp/rescue

  3. Use tar to copy files specified in rescue.txt.

    cd /
    tar cvhf - -T /home/jocelyn/rescue.txt | (cd /tmp/rescue; tar xf -)

  4. Create device files.

    cd /tmp/rescue
    mkdir dev mnt tmp
    cd dev
    MAKEDEV std hda sda consoleonly

    Create an InitRD image. I like to use mkcramfs for this purpose.

    mkcramfs /tmp/rescue /boot/rescue.bin

  5. When you start your computer, use GRUB commands like the following to boot Linux into the ramdisk system.

    kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18.8 root=/dev/ram0 init=/bin/dash
    initrd (hd0,5)/boot/rescue.bin

    You'll arrive at a very simple rescue console.


Examples of Possible Commands in Rescue Console



  • Edit the partition table with fdisk.

    fdisk /dev/hda

  • Display the partition table.

    fdisk -l -u /dev/hda

  • Format a partition as Linux EXT2.

    mke2fs -L LINUX -I 128 /dev/hda6

  • Mount a Linux partition on /mnt.

    mount -n -t ext2 /dev/hda6 /mnt

  • Change the current directory and then display the current path.

    cd /mnt
    pwd

  • Display the contents of the current directory.

    ls

  • Mount a FAT32 partition on /tmp.

    mount -n -t vfat -o codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=winnt /dev/hda7 /tmp

  • Restore a backup from a tarball onto the current folder.

    tar xzf /tmp/backup-072499.tgz

  • Unmount a partition.

    umount /mnt

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