--- /dev/null
+live-initramfs(7)
+=================
+
+Name
+----
+live-initramfs - Debian Live initramfs hook
+
+Synopsis
+--------
+BOOT=live
+
+as kernel parameter at boot prompt.
+
+Description
+-----------
+
+live-initramfs 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 environment, using
+unionfs, for Debian like systems to boot from.
+
+You probably do not want to install this package onto a non-live system,
+although it will do no harm.
+
+live-initramfs is a fork of link:http://packages.ubuntu.com/casper/[casper].
+casper was originally written by Tollef Fog Heen <tfheen@canonical.com>
+and Matt Zimmerman <mdz@canonical.com>.
+
+Boot options
+------------
+
+Here is the complete list of recognized boot parameters by live-initramfs.
+
+ access=*ACCESS*::
+
+Set the accessibility level for physically or visually impared users. ACCESS
+must be one of v1, v2, v3, m1, or m2. v1=lesser visual 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.
+
+ fetch=*URL*::
+
+Another form of netboot by downloading a squashfs image from a given url,
+copying to ram and booting it.
+
+ hostname=*HOSTNAME*, username=*USER*, userfullname=*USERFULLNAME*::
+
+Those parameters lets you override values read from the config file.
+
+ integrity-check::
+
+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=**[CLIENT_IP]:[SERVER_IP]:[GATEWAY_IP]:[NETMASK]:[HOSTNAME]:[DEVICE]:[AUTOCONF] [,[CLIENT_IP]:[SERVER_IP]:[GATEWAY_IP]:[NETMASK]:[HOSTNAME]:[DEVICE]:[AUTOCONF]]***::
+
+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.
+
+ {keyb|kbd-chooser/method}=**KEYBOARD**, {klayout|console-setup/layoutcode}=**LAYOUT**, {kvariant|console-setup/variantcode}=**VARIANT**, {kmodel|console-setup/modelcode}=**CODE**, koptions=**OPTIONS**::
+
+Configure the running keyboard as specified, if this one misses live-initramfs
+behaves as if "keyb=us" was specified. It will be interfered from "locale=" if
+locale is only 2 lowecase letters as a special case. You could also specify
+console layout, variant, code, and options (no defaults).
+
+ live-getty::
+
+This changes the auto-login on virtual terminals to use the (experimental)
+live-getty code. With this option set the standard kernel argument "console=" is
+parsed and if a serial console is specified then live-getty is used to autologin
+on the serial console.
+
+ {live-media|bootfrom}=**DEVICE**::
+
+If you specify one of this two equivalent forms, live-initramfs will first try
+to find this device for the "/live" directory where the read-only root
+filesystem should reside. If it did not find something usable, the normal scan
+for block devices is performed.
+
+ {live-media-encryption|encryption}=**TYPE**::
+
+live-initramfs will mount the encrypted rootfs TYPE, asking the passphrase,
+useful to build paranoid live systems :-). TYPE supported so far are "aes" for
+loop-aes encryption type.
+
+ live-media-offset=**BYTES**::
+
+This way you could tell live-initramfs 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.
+
+ {locale|debian-installer/locale}=**LOCALE**::
+
+Configure the running locale as specified, if not present the live-media rootfs
+configured locale will be used and if also this one misses live-initramfs behave
+as "locale=en_US.UTF-8" was specified. If only 2 lowercase letter are specified
+(like "it"), the "maybe wanted" locale is generated (like en:EN.UTF-8), in this
+case if also "keyb=" is unspecified is set with those 2 lowercase letters
+(keyb=us). Beside that facility, only UTF8 locales are supported by
+live-initramfs.
+
+ module=**NAME**::
+
+Instead of using the default optional file "filesystem.module" (see below)
+another file could be specified without the extension ".module"; it should be
+placed on "/live" directory of the live medium.
+
+ netboot[=**nfs**|**cifs**]::
+
+This tells live-initramfs 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.
+
+ noautologin::
+
+This parameter disables the automatic terminal login only, not touching gdk/kdm.
+
+ noxautologin::
+
+This parameter disables the automatic login of gdm/kdm only, not touching
+terminals.
+
+ 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, otherwise they are skipped.
+
+ nopersistent::
+
+disables the "persistent" feature, useful if the bootloader (like syslinux) has
+been installed with persistent enabled.
+
+ nosudo::
+
+This parameter disables the automatic configuration of sudo.
+
+ noswap::
+
+This parameter disables usage of local swap partitions.
+
+ nouser::
+
+This parameter disables the creation of the default user completely.
+
+ noxautoconfig::
+
+This parameter disables Xorg auto-reconfiguration at boot time. This is valuable
+if you either do the detection on your own, or, if you want to ship a custom,
+premade xorg.conf in your live system.
+
+ persistent::
+
+live-initramfs will look for persistent and snapshot partitions or files labeled
+"live-rw", "home-rw", and files called "live-sn*", "home-sn*" and will try to,
+in order: mount as /cow the first, mount the second in /home, and just copy the
+contents of the latter in appropriate locations (snapshots). Snapshots will be
+tried to be updated on reboot/shutdown. Look at live-snapshot(1) for more
+informations.
+
+ {preseed/file|file}=**FILE**::
+
+A path to a file present on the rootfs could be used to preseed debconf
+database.
+
+ package/question=**VALUE**::
+
+All debian installed packages could be preseeded from command-line that way,
+beware of blanks spaces, they will interfere with parsing, use a preseed file in
+this case.
+
+ quickreboot::
+
+This option causes live-initramfs to reboot without attempting to eject the
+media and without asking the user to remove the boot media.
+
+ showmounts::
+
+This parameter will make live-initramfs to show on "/" the ro filesystems
+(mostly compressed) on "/live". This is not enabled by default because could
+lead to problems by applications like "mono" which store binary paths on
+installation.
+
+ timezone=**TIMEZONE**::
+
+By default, timezone is set to UTC. Using the timezone parameter, you can set it
+to your local zone, e.g. Europe/Zurich.
+
+ todisk=**DEVICE**::
+
+Adding this parameter, live-initramfs 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-initramfs 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=**unionfs**|**aufs**::
+
+By default, live-initramfs uses unionfs. With this parameter, you can switch to
+aufs.
+
+ utc=**yes**|**no**::
+
+By default, Debian systems do assume that the hardware clock is set to UTC. You
+can change or explicitly set it with this parameter.
+
+ xdebconf::
+
+Uses xdebconfigurator, if present on the rootfs, to configure X instead of the
+standard procedure (experimental).
+
+ xvideomode=**RESOLUTION**::
+
+Doesn't do xorg autodetection, but enforces a given resolution.
+
+Files
+-----
+
+ /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 unionfs, and they will be loaded in the order listed here. The first entry
+in this file will be the "lowest" point in the unionfs, and the last file in
+this list will be on the "top" of the unionfs, directly below /cow. Without
+this file, any images in the "/live" directory are loaded in alphanumeric order.
+
+See also
+--------
+
+live-snapshot(1), initramfs-tools(8), live-helper(7), live-initscripts(7),
+live-webhelper(7)
+
+Bugs
+----
+
+Report bugs against live-initramfs
+link:http://packages.qa.debian.org/live-initramfs[http://packages.qa.debian.org/live-initramfs].
+
+Homepage
+--------
+
+More information about the Debian Live project can be found at
+link:http://debian-live.alioth.debian.org/[http://debian-live.alioth.debian.org/] and
+link:http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLive/[http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLive/].
+
+Authors
+-------
+
+live-initramfs is maintained by Daniel Baumann <daniel@debian.org>
+for the Debian project.
+
+live-initramfs is a fork of link:http://packages.ubuntu.com/casper/[casper].
+casper was originally written by Tollef Fog Heen <tfheen@canonical.com>
+and Matt Zimmerman <mdz@canonical.com>.
projects / live-boot-grml.git / commitdiff