live-boot.en.7 (3.x)
LIVE-BOOT(7) Debian Live Project LIVE-BOOT(7)
NAME
live-boot - System Boot Scripts
DESCRIPTION
live-boot contains the scripts that configure a Debian Live system dur‐
ing the boot process (early userspace).
live-boot is a hook for the initramfs-tools, used to generate a
initramfs capable to boot live systems, such as those created by
live-helper(7). This includes the Debian Live isos, netboot tarballs,
and usb stick images.
At boot time it will look for a (read-only) media containing a "/live"
directory where a root filesystems (often a compressed filesystem image
like squashfs) is stored. If found, it will create a writable environ‐
ment, using aufs, for Debian like systems to boot from.
CONFIGURATION
live-boot can be configured through a boot parameter or a configuration
file.
To configure the live-boot parameters used by default in a live image,
see the --bootappend-live option in the lb_config(1) manual page.
Kernel Parameters
live-boot is only activated if 'boot=live' was used as a kernel parame‐
ter.
In addition, there are some more boot parameters to influence the be‐
haviour, see below.
Configuration Files
live-boot can be configured (but not activated) through configuration
files. Those files can be placed either in the root filesystem itself
(/etc/live/boot.conf, /etc/live/boot/*), or on the live media
(live/boot.conf, live/boot/*).
OPTIONS
live-boot currently features the following parameters.
access=ACCESS
Set the accessibility level for physically or visually impaired
users. ACCESS must be one of v1, v2, v3, m1, or m2. v1=lesser vis‐
ual impairment, v2=moderate visual impairment, v3=blindness,
m1=minor motor difficulties, m2=moderate motor difficulties.
console=TTY,SPEED
Set the default console to be used with the "live-getty" option.
Example: "console=ttyS0,115200"
debug
Makes initramfs boot process more verbose.
Use: debug=1
Without setting debug to a value the messages may not be shown.
fetch=URL
httpfs=URL
Another form of netboot by downloading a squashfs image from a
given url. The fetch method copies the image to ram and the httpfs
method uses fuse and httpfs2 to mount the image in place. Copying
to ram requires more memory and might take a long time for large
images. However, it is more likely to work correctly because it
does not require networking afterwards and the system operates
faster once booted because it does not require to contact the
server anymore.
Due to current limitations in busybox's wget and DNS resolution, an
URL can not contain a hostname but an IP only.
Not working: http://example.com/path/to/your_filesystem.squashfs
Working: http://1.2.3.4/path/to/your_filesystem.squashfs
Also note that therefore it's currently not possible to fetch an
image from a namebased virtualhost of an httpd if it is sharing the
ip with the main httpd instance.
You may also use the live iso image in place of the squashfs image.
iscsi=server-ip[,server-port];target-name
Boot from an iSCSI target that has an iso or disk live image as one
of its LUNs. The specified target is searched for a LUN which looks
like a live media. If you use the iscsitarget software iSCSI target
solution which is packaged in Debian your ietd.conf might look like
this:
# The target-name you specify in the iscsi= parameter
Target <target-name>
Lun 0 Path=<path-to-your-live-image.iso>,Type=fileio,IOMode=ro
# If you want to boot multiple machines you might want to look at
tuning some parameters like
# Wthreads or MaxConnections
findiso=/PATH/TO/IMAGE
Look for the specified ISO file on all disks where it usually looks
for the .squashfs file (so you don't have to know the device name
as in fromiso=....).
fromiso=/PATH/TO/IMAGE
Allows to use a filesystem from within an iso image that's avail‐
able on live-media.
ignore_uuid
Do not check that any UUID embedded in the initramfs matches the
discovered medium. live-boot may be told to generate a UUID by set‐
ting LIVE_GENERATE_UUID=1 when building the initramfs.
verify-checksums
If specified, an MD5 sum is calculated on the live media during
boot and compared to the value found in md5sum.txt found in the
root directory of the live media.
ip=[DEVICE]:[CLIENT_IP]:[NETMASK]:[GATEWAY_IP]:[NAMESERVER]
[,[DEVICE]:[CLIENT_IP]:[NETMASK]:[GATEWAY_IP]:[NAMESERVER]]
Let you specify the name(s) and the options of the interface(s)
that should be configured at boot time. Do not specify this if you
want to use dhcp (default). It will be changed in a future release
to mimick official kernel boot param specification (e.g.
ip=10.0.0.1::10.0.0.254:255.255.255.0::eth0,:::::eth1:dhcp).
ip=[frommedia]
If this variable is set, dhcp and static configuration are just
skipped and the system will use the (must be) media-preconfigured
/etc/network/interfaces instead.
{live-media|bootfrom}=DEVICE
If you specify one of this two equivalent forms, live-boot will
first try to find this device for the "/live" directory where the
read-only root filesystem should reside. If it did not find some‐
thing usable, the normal scan for block devices is performed.
Instead of specifing an actual device name, the keyword 'removable'
can be used to limit the search of acceptable live media to remov‐
able type only. Note that if you want to further restrict the media
to usb mass storage only, you can use the 'removable-usb' keyword.
{live-media-encryption|encryption}=TYPE
live-boot will mount the encrypted rootfs TYPE, asking the
passphrase, useful to build paranoid live systems :-). TYPE sup‐
ported so far are "aes" for loop-aes encryption type.
live-media-offset=BYTES
This way you could tell live-boot that your image starts at offset
BYTES in the above specified or autodiscovered device, this could
be useful to hide the Debian Live iso or image inside another iso
or image, to create "clean" images.
live-media-path=PATH
Sets the path to the live filesystem on the medium. By default, it
is set to '/live' and you should not change that unless you have
customized your media accordingly.
live-media-timeout=SECONDS
Set the timeout in seconds for the device specified by
"live-media=" to become ready before giving up.
module=NAME
Instead of using the default optional file "filesystem.module" (see
below) another file could be specified without the extension ".mod‐
ule"; it should be placed on "/live" directory of the live medium.
netboot[=nfs|cifs]
This tells live-boot to perform a network mount. The parameter
"nfsroot=" (with optional "nfsopts="), should specify where is the
location of the root filesystem. With no args, will try cifs
first, and if it fails nfs.
nfsopts=
This lets you specify custom nfs options.
nofastboot
This parameter disables the default disabling of filesystem checks
in /etc/fstab. If you have static filesystems on your harddisk and
you want them to be checked at boot time, use this parameter, oth‐
erwise they are skipped.
nopersistence
disables the "persistence" feature, useful if the bootloader (like
syslinux) has been installed with persistence enabled.
noeject
Do not prompt to eject the live medium.
ramdisk-size
This parameters allows to set a custom ramdisk size (it's the '-o
size' option of tmpfs mount). By default, there is no ramdisk size
set, so the default of mount applies (currently 50% of available
RAM). Note that this option has no currently no effect when booting
with toram.
swapon
This parameter enables usage of local swap partitions.
persistence
live-boot will probe devices for persistence media. These can be
partitions (with the correct GPT name), filesystems (with the cor‐
rect label) or image files (with the correct file name). Overlays
are labeled/named "persistence" (see persistence.conf(5)). Overlay
image files have extensions which determines their filesystem, e.g.
"persistence.ext4".
persistence-encryption=TYPE1,TYPE2 ... TYPEn
This option determines which types of encryption that we allow to
be used when probing devices for persistence media. If "none" is in
the list, we allow unencrypted media; if "luks" is in the list, we
allow LUKS-encrypted media. Whenever a device containing encrypted
media is probed the user will be prompted for the passphrase. The
default value is "none".
persistence-media={removable|removable-usb}
If you specify the keyword 'removable', live-boot will try to find
persistence partitions on removable media only. Note that if you
want to further restrict the media to usb mass storage only, you
can use the 'removable-usb' keyword.
persistence-method=TYPE1,TYPE2 ... TYPEn
This option determines which types of persistence media we allow.
If "overlay" is in the list, we consider overlays (i.e. "live-rw"
and "home-rw"). The default is "overlay".
persistence-path=PATH
live-boot will look for persistency files in the root directory of
a partition, with this parameter, the path can be configured so
that you can have multiple directories on the same partition to
store persistency files.
persistence-read-only
Filesystem changes are not saved back to persistence media. In par‐
ticular, overlays and netboot NFS mounts are mounted read-only.
persistence-storage=TYPE1,TYPE2 ... TYPEn
This option determines which types of persistence storage to con‐
sider when probing for persistence media. If "filesystem" is in the
list, filesystems with matching labels will be used; if "file" is
in the list, all filesystems will be probed for archives and image
files with matching filenames. The default is "file,filesystem".
persistence-label=LABEL
live-boot will use the name "LABEL" instead of "persistence" when
searching for persistent storage. LABEL can be any valid filename,
partition label, or GPT name. This option replaces the less flexi‐
ble persistent-subtext option from version 2 of live-boot. If you
wish to continue using legacy names for persistent storage, use the
full name with this option, e.g. persistence-label=live-rw-foo
quickreboot
This option causes live-boot to reboot without attempting to eject
the media and without asking the user to remove the boot media.
showmounts
This parameter will make live-boot to show on "/" the ro filesys‐
tems (mostly compressed) on "/lib/live". This is not enabled by
default because could lead to problems by applications like "mono"
which store binary paths on installation.
silent
If you boot with the normal quiet parameter, live-boot hides most
messages of its own. When adding silent, it hides all.
todisk=DEVICE
Adding this parameter, live-boot will try to copy the entire
read-only media to the specified device before mounting the root
filesystem. It probably needs a lot of free space. Subsequent boots
should then skip this step and just specify the "live-media=DEVICE"
boot parameter with the same DEVICE used this time.
toram
Adding this parameter, live-boot will try to copy the whole
read-only media to the computer's RAM before mounting the root
filesystem. This could need a lot of ram, according to the space
used by the read-only media.
union=aufs|unionfs
By default, live-boot uses aufs. With this parameter, you can
switch to unionfs.
FILES (old)
/etc/live.conf
Some variables can be configured via this config file (inside the
live system).
live/filesystem.module
This optional file (inside the live media) contains a list of
white-space or carriage-return-separated file names corresponding
to disk images in the "/live" directory. If this file exists, only
images listed here will be merged into the root aufs, and they will
be loaded in the order listed here. The first entry in this file
will be the "lowest" point in the aufs, and the last file in this
list will be on the "top" of the aufs, directly below /overlay.
Without this file, any images in the "/live" directory are loaded
in alphanumeric order.
FILES
/etc/live/boot.conf
/etc/live/boot/*
live/boot.conf
live/boot/*
persistence.conf
SEE ALSO
persistence.conf(5)
live-build(7)
live-config(7)
live-tools(7)
HOMEPAGE
More information about live-boot and the Debian Live project can be
found on the homepage at <http://live.debian.net/> and in the manual at
<http://live.debian.net/manual/>.
BUGS
Bugs can be reported by submitting a bugreport for the live-boot pack‐
age in the Debian Bug Tracking System at <http://bugs.debian.org/> or
by writing a mail to the Debian Live mailing list at <debian-
live@lists.debian.org>.
AUTHOR
live-boot was written by Daniel Baumann <daniel@debian.org> for the
Debian project.
3.0.1-1 2013-02-14 LIVE-BOOT(7)
