6 live-initramfs - Debian Live initramfs hook
12 as kernel parameter at boot prompt.
17 live-initramfs is a hook for the initramfs-tools, used to generate a initramfs
18 capable to boot live systems, such as those created by *live-helper*(7).
19 This includes the Debian Live isos, netboot tarballs, and usb stick images.
21 At boot time it will look for a (read-only) media containing a "/live"
22 directory where a root filesystems (often a compressed filesystem image like
23 squashfs) is stored. If found, it will create a writable environment, using
24 unionfs, for Debian like systems to boot from.
26 You probably do not want to install this package onto a non-live system,
27 although it will do no harm.
29 live-initramfs is a fork of link:http://packages.ubuntu.com/casper/[casper].
30 casper was originally written by Tollef Fog Heen <tfheen@canonical.com>
31 and Matt Zimmerman <mdz@canonical.com>.
36 Here is the complete list of recognized boot parameters by live-initramfs.
40 Set the accessibility level for physically or visually impared users. ACCESS
41 must be one of v1, v2, v3, m1, or m2. v1=lesser visual impairment, v2=moderate
42 visual impairment, v3=blindness, m1=minor motor difficulties, m2=moderate motor
47 Set the default console to be used with the "live-getty" option. Example:
48 "console=ttyS0,115200"
52 Makes initramfs boot process more verbose.
56 Another form of netboot by downloading a squashfs image from a given url,
57 copying to ram and booting it.
59 hostname=*HOSTNAME*, username=*USER*, userfullname=*USERFULLNAME*::
61 Those parameters lets you override values read from the config file.
65 Do not check that any UUID embedded in the initramfs matches the discovered
66 medium. live-initramfs may be told to generate a UUID by setting
67 LIVE_GENERATE_UUID=1 when building the initramfs.
71 If specified, an MD5 sum is calculated on the live media during boot and
72 compared to the value found in md5sum.txt found in the root directory of the
75 ip=**[CLIENT_IP]:[SERVER_IP]:[GATEWAY_IP]:[NETMASK]:[HOSTNAME]:[DEVICE]:[AUTOCONF] [,[CLIENT_IP]:[SERVER_IP]:[GATEWAY_IP]:[NETMASK]:[HOSTNAME]:[DEVICE]:[AUTOCONF]]***::
77 Let you specify the name(s) and the options of the interface(s) that should be
78 configured at boot time. Do not specify this if you want to use dhcp (default).
79 It will be changed in a future release to mimick official kernel boot param
80 specification (e.g. ip=10.0.0.1::10.0.0.254:255.255.255.0::eth0,:::::eth1:dhcp).
84 If this variable is set, dhcp and static configuration are just skipped and the
85 system will use the (must be) media-preconfigured /etc/network/interfaces
88 {keyb|kbd-chooser/method}=**KEYBOARD**, {klayout|console-setup/layoutcode}=**LAYOUT**, {kvariant|console-setup/variantcode}=**VARIANT**, {kmodel|console-setup/modelcode}=**CODE**, koptions=**OPTIONS**::
90 Configure the running keyboard as specified, if this one misses live-initramfs
91 behaves as if "keyb=us" was specified. It will be interfered from "locale=" if
92 locale is only 2 lowecase letters as a special case. You could also specify
93 console layout, variant, code, and options (no defaults).
97 This changes the auto-login on virtual terminals to use the (experimental)
98 live-getty code. With this option set the standard kernel argument "console=" is
99 parsed and if a serial console is specified then live-getty is used to autologin
100 on the serial console.
102 {live-media|bootfrom}=**DEVICE**::
104 If you specify one of this two equivalent forms, live-initramfs will first try
105 to find this device for the "/live" directory where the read-only root
106 filesystem should reside. If it did not find something usable, the normal scan
107 for block devices is performed.
109 {live-media-encryption|encryption}=**TYPE**::
111 live-initramfs will mount the encrypted rootfs TYPE, asking the passphrase,
112 useful to build paranoid live systems :-). TYPE supported so far are "aes" for
113 loop-aes encryption type.
115 live-media-offset=**BYTES**::
117 This way you could tell live-initramfs that your image starts at offset BYTES in
118 the above specified or autodiscovered device, this could be useful to hide the
119 Debian Live iso or image inside another iso or image, to create "clean" images.
121 live-media-path=**PATH**::
123 Sets the path to the live filesystem on the medium. By default, it is set to
124 '/live' and you should not change that unless you have customized your media
127 live-media-timeout=**SECONDS**::
129 Set the timeout in seconds for the device specified by "live-media=" to become
130 ready before giving up.
132 {locale|debian-installer/locale}=**LOCALE**::
134 Configure the running locale as specified, if not present the live-media rootfs
135 configured locale will be used and if also this one misses live-initramfs behave
136 as "locale=en_US.UTF-8" was specified. If only 2 lowercase letter are specified
137 (like "it"), the "maybe wanted" locale is generated (like en:EN.UTF-8), in this
138 case if also "keyb=" is unspecified is set with those 2 lowercase letters
139 (keyb=us). Beside that facility, only UTF8 locales are supported by
144 Instead of using the default optional file "filesystem.module" (see below)
145 another file could be specified without the extension ".module"; it should be
146 placed on "/live" directory of the live medium.
148 netboot[=**nfs**|**cifs**]::
150 This tells live-initramfs to perform a network mount. The parameter "nfsroot="
151 (with optional "nfsopts="), should specify where is the location of the root
152 filesystem. With no args, will try cifs first, and if it fails nfs.
156 This lets you specify custom nfs options.
160 This parameter disables the automatic terminal login only, not touching gdk/kdm.
164 This parameter disables the automatic login of gdm/kdm only, not touching
169 This parameter disables the default disabling of filesystem checks in
170 /etc/fstab. If you have static filesystems on your harddisk and you want them to
171 be checked at boot time, use this parameter, otherwise they are skipped.
175 disables the "persistent" feature, useful if the bootloader (like syslinux) has
176 been installed with persistent enabled.
180 Do not prompt to eject the CD on reboot.
184 This parameter disables the automatic configuration of sudo.
188 This parameter disables usage of local swap partitions.
192 This parameter disables the creation of the default user completely.
196 This parameter disables Xorg auto-reconfiguration at boot time. This is valuable
197 if you either do the detection on your own, or, if you want to ship a custom,
198 premade xorg.conf in your live system.
202 live-initramfs will look for persistent and snapshot partitions or files labeled
203 "live-rw", "home-rw", and files called "live-sn*", "home-sn*" and will try to,
204 in order: mount as /cow the first, mount the second in /home, and just copy the
205 contents of the latter in appropriate locations (snapshots). Snapshots will be
206 tried to be updated on reboot/shutdown. Look at live-snapshot(1) for more
209 {preseed/file|file}=**FILE**::
211 A path to a file present on the rootfs could be used to preseed debconf
214 package/question=**VALUE**::
216 All debian installed packages could be preseeded from command-line that way,
217 beware of blanks spaces, they will interfere with parsing, use a preseed file in
222 This option causes live-initramfs to reboot without attempting to eject the
223 media and without asking the user to remove the boot media.
227 This parameter will make live-initramfs to show on "/" the ro filesystems
228 (mostly compressed) on "/live". This is not enabled by default because could
229 lead to problems by applications like "mono" which store binary paths on
234 Start up to text-mode shell prompts, disabling the graphical user interface.
236 timezone=**TIMEZONE**::
238 By default, timezone is set to UTC. Using the timezone parameter, you can set it
239 to your local zone, e.g. Europe/Zurich.
243 Adding this parameter, live-initramfs will try to copy the entire read-only
244 media to the specified device before mounting the root filesystem. It probably
245 needs a lot of free space. Subsequent boots should then skip this step and just
246 specify the "live-media=DEVICE" boot parameter with the same DEVICE used this
251 Adding this parameter, live-initramfs will try to copy the whole read-only media
252 to the computer's RAM before mounting the root filesystem. This could need a lot
253 of ram, according to the space used by the read-only media.
255 union=**unionfs**|**aufs**::
257 By default, live-initramfs uses unionfs. With this parameter, you can switch to
262 By default, Debian systems do assume that the hardware clock is set to UTC. You
263 can change or explicitly set it with this parameter.
267 Uses xdebconfigurator, if present on the rootfs, to configure X instead of the
268 standard procedure (experimental).
270 xvideomode=**RESOLUTION**::
272 Doesn't do xorg autodetection, but enforces a given resolution.
279 Some variables can be configured via this config file (inside the live system).
281 /live/filesystem.module
283 This optional file (inside the live media) contains a list of white-space or
284 carriage-return-separated file names corresponding to disk images in the "/live"
285 directory. If this file exists, only images listed here will be merged into the
286 root unionfs, and they will be loaded in the order listed here. The first entry
287 in this file will be the "lowest" point in the unionfs, and the last file in
288 this list will be on the "top" of the unionfs, directly below /cow. Without
289 this file, any images in the "/live" directory are loaded in alphanumeric order.
294 live-snapshot(1), initramfs-tools(8), live-helper(7), live-initscripts(7),
300 Report bugs against live-initramfs
301 link:http://packages.qa.debian.org/live-initramfs[http://packages.qa.debian.org/live-initramfs].
306 More information about the Debian Live project can be found at
307 link:http://debian-live.alioth.debian.org/[http://debian-live.alioth.debian.org/] and
308 link:http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLive/[http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLive/].
313 live-initramfs is maintained by Daniel Baumann <daniel@debian.org>
314 for the Debian project.
316 live-initramfs is a fork of link:http://packages.ubuntu.com/casper/[casper].
317 casper was originally written by Tollef Fog Heen <tfheen@canonical.com>
318 and Matt Zimmerman <mdz@canonical.com>.