David Boyes writes: > You would need at least one non-root/swap address mounted as /config or > something for storing the configuration of what goes where, and you'd > have to move at least a few of the utilities (eg mount, ifconfig, etc) > from /usr to /sbin (generating statically linked versions) and include > /sbin in the root filesystem.
The basevol+guestvol environment I describe in the "...zSeries...Large Scale Linux Deployment" redbook (SG246824) (I really ought to bind that phrase to a single keystroke :-) lets you have a readonly root filesystem which is linked to (readonly) and booted by any number of clones. The boot process then mounts a (potentially very) small guest-specific readwrite volume (whatever disk is at devno 777) and binds all the necessary writable directories into the filesystem. Other parts of the redbook then describe how you can then bootstrap yourself to get other information (via a PROP guest and then via LDAP). We can do better than Sun since we have shared disks in known, manageable namespaces at boot time and since we have Al Viro's namespace support in Linux for bind mounts (again, described in the redbook for those unfamiliar with the concept). [Next is updates-in-place with CLONE_NEWNS and pivot_root() and/or immediate kernel-to-kernel reboots when kexec() is stable...] I'll set up the NSS stuff on my own VM system and get it to work nicely with basevol+guestvol (which I've just got working properly with SuSE SLES7; the original redbook environment having some dependencies on the RedHat boot scripts). --Malcolm -- Malcolm Beattie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Linux Technical Consultant IBM EMEA Enterprise Server Group... ...from home, speaking only for myself
