yard-prefabs-1
ALPHA VERSION 
Tom Fawcett (fawcett@nynexst.com)
July 1996


Yard-prefabs is a set of prefabricated specification files for rescue
disks.  When used with Yard, these files will reproduce, more or less,
the standard rescue disks for popular distributions.  Currently only
the Slackware distribution has been done; Redhat and Debian should follow.

WHAT'S THE POINT?

These files can be used as starting points for customized rescue disks
for specific distribution.  For example, say you have the Slackware
distribution and you use their rescue disk, but wish it included
utilities X, Y and Z.  Grab the Slackware specification files, add X,
Y and Z to the Bootdisk_Contents, and run the Yard scripts on them.
In a few minutes you should be able to produce a tweaked rescue disk.


WHY DO YOU NEED DIFFERENT RESCUE DISKS FOR DIFFERENT DISTRIBUTIONS?

Technically, you don't.  Rescue disks are self-contained so any rescue
disk should boot with any distribution.  However, rescue disks usually
contain special utilities (eg, Redhat's rpm and Slackware's pkgtool)
that are useful or necessary for individual distributions.  Also,
rescue disks often provide symbolic links into the distribution's
CD-ROM to provide additional capabilities.


OK, HOW DO I USE THESE YARD-PREFAB FILES?

First, install the yard package if you haven't already.  Make sure you
have version 1.5 or later.  Run "make copies" to create a customized
fstab and lilo.conf.  If you've never used Yard before, read its
documentation (00_README in particular).

Next, cd to the yard-prefab directory.  Each subtree in yard-prefab
goes with a distribution.  If you want the Slackware files, copy the
Slackware subtree into your Yard directory with a command like:

	cp -ir Slackware/*  YOUR_YARD_DIRECTORY

Note that this will overwrite any existing Bootdisk_Contents, Config.pl
and Replacements files.  The -i switch with cp gives you a second chance.

Then cd into your Yard directory, su to root, and run:
	make_root_fs
	check_root_fs
	write_rescue_disk

Refer to Yard's 00_README file for details.


WHAT SHOULD I DO ABOUT ALL THOSE WARNING MESSAGES FROM YARD?

When you run make_root_fs and check_root_fs on these files, you'll get
warning messages from Yard about missing files, misplaced links, etc.
Some of these messages are due to errors/shortcomings in Yard that
I'll fix eventually.  Some are caused because Bootdisk_Contents
specifies symbolic links to files that don't exist at the moment (for
example, to /cdrom).

Most of these you can ignore.  If you get an error that looks
important (eg, "Didn't find getty anywhere in PATH") it probably is.


CAN'T I JUST DO "MAKE INSTALL" OR SOMETHING?

Not yet.  Someday I'll figure out where everything with Yard should go
and the whole process will be automatic.  At that point, a command like
"make install DIST=Slackware" will do everything for you.


FINAL NOTES

Yard works by copying files from your hard disk; if you've tweaked
your system substantially or you've upgraded packages too far beyond
the intended versions, these contents files will no longer work.
C'est la vie.  However, it shouldn't take much effort to make them
work again.

I don't guarantee that these scripts will exactly replicate the
distributed rescue disks.  I constructed these prefabs by examining
disassembled images of supplied rescue disks and designing
Bootdisk_Contents files to assemble the same components in
approximately the same places.  However, in some cases the
distribution authors did things that were overly complex and/or
pointless, which I haven't reproduced.

Many files are provided in the ./Replacements subdirectory.  In
general, if there's a chance that you won't have the proper file on
your hard disk, I've provided it in the Replacements subdirectory.
You can, of course, change the Bootdisk_Contents to use your own
(for /etc/passwd and /etc/group you should probably do this).

If you have any corrections or suggestions, please let me know.

-Tom Fawcett (fawcett@nynexst.com)
