The Linux Bootkit
Testing your boot/root/utility Diskettes
B. Scott Burkett, scottb@intnet.net

TRIAL AND ERROR
---------------

Creating a reliable emergency loadset is, to be quite honest, an experiment
in trial and error.  It will probably take a few tries to get everything
functional.  If you get errors during the testing phase, simply make a note
of the error, remove the floppy, and reboot normally.  Then, check your
bootkit configuration to see what can be done.

  COMMON PROBLEMS
  ---------------
  1) getty wasn't installed!  You can't log in without it.
  2) The /etc/passwd and/or /etc/shadow files were not installed.
  3) You forgot to edit the sample ./root_skel/etc/inittab, etc.  These
     files need to be edited in order to find the tools it needs (getty,
     et al).
  4) The system can't find utmp/wtmp.  The stock configuration has them
     in ./root_skel/var/adm.  If your system expects them somewhere else,
     such as "/etc", make it so.

TESTING
-------

To test your new emergency services diskettes, perform your normal system
shutdown procedures (shutdown, reboot, halt, etc).

Once the system has been shut down, simply insert your boot diskette (the
one created by the "BOOTABLE" selection from the main menu), and reboot
the machine.

Once the kernel is loaded, one of two things will happen.  

1) If you enabled the RAMDISK option, the kernel will ask you to insert
   your "ramdisk" into the floppy drive.  This is simply your root
   diskette (the one created by the "ROOTSYS" option from the main menu).

2) If you did not enable the RAMDISK option, the kernel will prompt you to
   insert your "root" filesystem into the floppy drive.  Once again, this
   is simply your root diskette.

Once the root filesystem is either mounted normally, or loaded into RAM,
you can then log into the system as normal.

If you created a utility diskette (i.e. you used the RAMDISK option), you
can remove the root filesystem, and insert the utility diskette into the
floppy drive.  It can then be mounted as a normal filesystem.  For
example:

	mount -t ext2 /dev/fd0 /mnt

If you experience problems during booting, check the Bootdisk-HOWTO for
to see if you are experiencing a common problem.  If not, then feel free to 
contact me via e-mail, or try a posting on one of the Linux newsgroups.  

