Reply: Mini-Freebsd system on ram, to reduce noise?

Lars Udo lars.udo at gmail.com
Sun Nov 26 11:36:13 PST 2006


Hello, fellow FreeBSD-users. I'm planning to build MiniBSD (from freebsd)
with, these instructions: https://neon1.net/misc/minibsd.html
i'v red it few times and came to realize, that if i could get that
small FreeBSD why wouldnt i run it in RAM?

I have Intel 333 Mhz / 256 sdram / 10Gb hd.. and few nics.

i could boot up system and then move it into ram, lets say that i'd create
128 Mb size of memorydisk in ram.

All data will be wiped during reboot, but i'll keep the original image on
harddisk, which will shutdown until all system-files are moved into RAM..

Is this anyway possible?

It would reduce noise-level here in my livingroom, so thats all i need,
beside NAT/Firewall :)

all suggestions are considered, but monowall or picobsd are no options,
because i need to learn it myself rather than "go'n buy & setup"

how do i create memorybased filesystem?

----------------------------------------
mdconfig -t malloc -s 128m -u 5
newfs -U /dev/md5
mount /dev/md5 /
dd if=/mnt/ad0 of=/
umount /mnt/ad0
(drop the harddisk)
--------------------------------------

something like that?

thanks, for reading :)

Greetings

Lars
-----------------------------------------------
| Anonymous said...
| so what.
| why is glory in the real world better than the glory in a fake one?
| evolution made us to survive, not to live.
-----------------------------------------------------

1...Firewall



Everything I have read tends to point to "roll your own" firewall as

a better alternative. In other words, learn to use it.

I know it's difficult, but it will be worth it. The

"go'n buy & setup" sound like M$-plug-and-play. It would create a

generic firewall. It may or may-not full protect your system. I would

recommend reading

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/firewalls.html

as well as reading the freebsd questions mail archives.



2...The following quote:

"which will shutdown until all system-files are moved into RAM"

maybe you ment to say move out of ram before shutdown.

If you have a "UPS", then good, otherwise consider getting one. You

could end up with a corrupt file system.



3...Do you have a cd-rom drive? You could run Freesbie:

www.freesbie.org



-- 

Alexander

FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE i386
 -----

Hello

Sorry, if this reply goes wrong..  but i meant, that i am not novice user..
i'v been reading this
http://www.ultradesic.com/index.php?section=125tutorial now, and it
applies better on Freebsd
6.0, so i have good startup.. my goals are following:

I'm trying to make MiniBSD from FreeBSD 6.0 that would fit on less than 128
Mb of ram, so i could run whole system in ram... i wouldnt need to run HD
either cd-rom 24/7 to keep noise... and i could save some electricity

Ram is fast and silent to run minibsd in it.. is there any disadvantage?
- Shutting down, clears ram.. but if i have static image on HD that never
corrupts.
- on every boot, i boot from HD and while booting i'd make a memory based
disk in ram, and copy that minibsd of mine into ram.. as long as computer is
on.. that minibsd has all the firewall-rules & nat etc..
and after, i have copied that minibsd image into the ram..

i could "umount /mnt/ad2; atacontrol detatch ad2"

this is almost as same setup than livecd. but cd-rom drive is big and slow.

damn, i cant explain this straight and easy...

i want to make a setup like livecd.. and copy whole system in to ram.. where
it is  on memorydisk and umount all harddrives and cd-rom-drives.. but when
needed, i can bring my HD up for some changes or just to save some data that
i'd like to keep safe.. (harddisk are hard to crash when they dont spin :)
 ((yes, its not cool to keep personal data on firewall-pc i know.. but i
hope you get the idea ))

i have now fully working firewall & nat & altq and i have used netbsd &
freebsd for several years.. i might look like stupid if i have used so many
years of these systems.. but the reason is that i have a job & girl & life
.. so i dont have time to spend 24/7 on researching how could i get it
working.. so i ask for you people.. just a little push, i'm not expecting
100% working advices.. just that is there any cons & pros and anything that
comes to your mind that would help me? :)

damn.. still didnt make any sense..

bootprosess, would be something like:

1. boot kernel from harddisk..
2. while booting, create memorybased disk that is 50% of my ram (128Mb)
3. apply all firewall rules & bring up sshd
4. mount memorydisk as / (root)
5. dd if=minibsd.image of=/
6. atacontrol detatch 'harddisk'

and the result would be that i have everything running in RAM and harddisk
is energysaving state.. like 'poweroff' or idle or something..

and if i need to make changes.. i log in as root and attach harddisk, and
get it up and running.. and mount it as under /mnt/ad2 with write flags so
that i can changes rules and they will be applied on next reboot.

(my girl uses to shutdown all computers at nighttime)

now i have acpi-button, and it shuts down properly.. but i would like to
shut down harddisk at daytimes if i dont need to use it.. and if i need, i
can bring it up..

did anyone get any sense out my eplainins?

Greetings

Lars


-- 
Anonymous said...

so what.

why is glory in the real world better than the glory in a fake one?

evolution made us to survive, not to live.


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