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 If specified, an MD5 sum is calculated on the live media during boot and
66 compared to the value found in md5sum.txt found in the root directory of the
69 ip=**[CLIENT_IP]:[SERVER_IP]:[GATEWAY_IP]:[NETMASK]:[HOSTNAME]:[DEVICE]:[AUTOCONF] [,[CLIENT_IP]:[SERVER_IP]:[GATEWAY_IP]:[NETMASK]:[HOSTNAME]:[DEVICE]:[AUTOCONF]]***::
71 Let you specify the name(s) and the options of the interface(s) that should be
72 configured at boot time. Do not specify this if you want to use dhcp (default).
73 It will be changed in a future release to mimick official kernel boot param
74 specification (e.g. ip=10.0.0.1::10.0.0.254:255.255.255.0::eth0,:::::eth1:dhcp).
78 If this variable is set, dhcp and static configuration are just skipped and the
79 system will use the (must be) media-preconfigured /etc/network/interfaces
82 {keyb|kbd-chooser/method}=**KEYBOARD**, {klayout|console-setup/layoutcode}=**LAYOUT**, {kvariant|console-setup/variantcode}=**VARIANT**, {kmodel|console-setup/modelcode}=**CODE**, koptions=**OPTIONS**::
84 Configure the running keyboard as specified, if this one misses live-initramfs
85 behaves as if "keyb=us" was specified. It will be interfered from "locale=" if
86 locale is only 2 lowecase letters as a special case. You could also specify
87 console layout, variant, code, and options (no defaults).
91 This changes the auto-login on virtual terminals to use the (experimental)
92 live-getty code. With this option set the standard kernel argument "console=" is
93 parsed and if a serial console is specified then live-getty is used to autologin
94 on the serial console.
96 {live-media|bootfrom}=**DEVICE**::
98 If you specify one of this two equivalent forms, live-initramfs will first try
99 to find this device for the "/live" directory where the read-only root
100 filesystem should reside. If it did not find something usable, the normal scan
101 for block devices is performed.
103 {live-media-encryption|encryption}=**TYPE**::
105 live-initramfs will mount the encrypted rootfs TYPE, asking the passphrase,
106 useful to build paranoid live systems :-). TYPE supported so far are "aes" for
107 loop-aes encryption type.
109 live-media-offset=**BYTES**::
111 This way you could tell live-initramfs that your image starts at offset BYTES in
112 the above specified or autodiscovered device, this could be useful to hide the
113 Debian Live iso or image inside another iso or image, to create "clean" images.
115 live-media-path=**PATH**::
117 Sets the path to the live filesystem on the medium. By default, it is set to
118 '/live' and you should not change that unless you have customized your media
121 live-media-timeout=**SECONDS**::
123 Set the timeout in seconds for the device specified by "live-media=" to become
124 ready before giving up.
126 {locale|debian-installer/locale}=**LOCALE**::
128 Configure the running locale as specified, if not present the live-media rootfs
129 configured locale will be used and if also this one misses live-initramfs behave
130 as "locale=en_US.UTF-8" was specified. If only 2 lowercase letter are specified
131 (like "it"), the "maybe wanted" locale is generated (like en:EN.UTF-8), in this
132 case if also "keyb=" is unspecified is set with those 2 lowercase letters
133 (keyb=us). Beside that facility, only UTF8 locales are supported by
138 Instead of using the default optional file "filesystem.module" (see below)
139 another file could be specified without the extension ".module"; it should be
140 placed on "/live" directory of the live medium.
142 netboot[=**nfs**|**cifs**]::
144 This tells live-initramfs to perform a network mount. The parameter "nfsroot="
145 (with optional "nfsopts="), should specify where is the location of the root
146 filesystem. With no args, will try cifs first, and if it fails nfs.
150 This lets you specify custom nfs options.
154 This parameter disables the automatic terminal login only, not touching gdk/kdm.
158 This parameter disables the automatic login of gdm/kdm only, not touching
163 This parameter disables the default disabling of filesystem checks in
164 /etc/fstab. If you have static filesystems on your harddisk and you want them to
165 be checked at boot time, use this parameter, otherwise they are skipped.
169 disables the "persistent" feature, useful if the bootloader (like syslinux) has
170 been installed with persistent enabled.
174 This parameter disables the automatic configuration of sudo.
178 This parameter disables usage of local swap partitions.
182 This parameter disables the creation of the default user completely.
186 This parameter disables Xorg auto-reconfiguration at boot time. This is valuable
187 if you either do the detection on your own, or, if you want to ship a custom,
188 premade xorg.conf in your live system.
192 live-initramfs will look for persistent and snapshot partitions or files labeled
193 "live-rw", "home-rw", and files called "live-sn*", "home-sn*" and will try to,
194 in order: mount as /cow the first, mount the second in /home, and just copy the
195 contents of the latter in appropriate locations (snapshots). Snapshots will be
196 tried to be updated on reboot/shutdown. Look at live-snapshot(1) for more
199 {preseed/file|file}=**FILE**::
201 A path to a file present on the rootfs could be used to preseed debconf
204 package/question=**VALUE**::
206 All debian installed packages could be preseeded from command-line that way,
207 beware of blanks spaces, they will interfere with parsing, use a preseed file in
212 This option causes live-initramfs to reboot without attempting to eject the
213 media and without asking the user to remove the boot media.
217 This parameter will make live-initramfs to show on "/" the ro filesystems
218 (mostly compressed) on "/live". This is not enabled by default because could
219 lead to problems by applications like "mono" which store binary paths on
222 timezone=**TIMEZONE**::
224 By default, timezone is set to UTC. Using the timezone parameter, you can set it
225 to your local zone, e.g. Europe/Zurich.
229 Adding this parameter, live-initramfs will try to copy the entire read-only
230 media to the specified device before mounting the root filesystem. It probably
231 needs a lot of free space. Subsequent boots should then skip this step and just
232 specify the "live-media=DEVICE" boot parameter with the same DEVICE used this
237 Adding this parameter, live-initramfs will try to copy the whole read-only media
238 to the computer's RAM before mounting the root filesystem. This could need a lot
239 of ram, according to the space used by the read-only media.
241 union=**unionfs**|**aufs**::
243 By default, live-initramfs uses unionfs. With this parameter, you can switch to
248 By default, Debian systems do assume that the hardware clock is set to UTC. You
249 can change or explicitly set it with this parameter.
253 Uses xdebconfigurator, if present on the rootfs, to configure X instead of the
254 standard procedure (experimental).
256 xvideomode=**RESOLUTION**::
258 Doesn't do xorg autodetection, but enforces a given resolution.
265 Some variables can be configured via this config file (inside the live system).
267 /live/filesystem.module
269 This optional file (inside the live media) contains a list of white-space or
270 carriage-return-separated file names corresponding to disk images in the "/live"
271 directory. If this file exists, only images listed here will be merged into the
272 root unionfs, and they will be loaded in the order listed here. The first entry
273 in this file will be the "lowest" point in the unionfs, and the last file in
274 this list will be on the "top" of the unionfs, directly below /cow. Without
275 this file, any images in the "/live" directory are loaded in alphanumeric order.
280 live-snapshot(1), initramfs-tools(8), live-helper(7), live-initscripts(7),
286 Report bugs against live-initramfs
287 link:http://packages.qa.debian.org/live-initramfs[http://packages.qa.debian.org/live-initramfs].
292 More information about the Debian Live project can be found at
293 link:http://debian-live.alioth.debian.org/[http://debian-live.alioth.debian.org/] and
294 link:http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLive/[http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLive/].
299 live-initramfs is maintained by Daniel Baumann <daniel@debian.org>
300 for the Debian project.
302 live-initramfs is a fork of link:http://packages.ubuntu.com/casper/[casper].
303 casper was originally written by Tollef Fog Heen <tfheen@canonical.com>
304 and Matt Zimmerman <mdz@canonical.com>.