Boot Whoppix CD image from HDD

**foamrotreturns** · 02-21-2005, 01:47 AM

I already have a Knoppix 3.7 install on my hdd (thanks for all the help, gurus!)
But I would like to put another distro on the machine. I'm starting a security auditing company, so I would like to be able to boot "Whoppix" from the HDD on occasion. I don't want to dedicate too much space to it, and I would really like to be able to update the distro to its latest specs whenever a new ISO comes out, so i would like to just store the CD image to a directory on my hdd and then add it to my LILO menu. I know it's probably a really simple set of commands, but I'm unfamiliar with the CD image boot function of Knoppix. Can someone help me? Thanks.

**foamrotreturns** · 02-22-2005, 07:01 PM

*bump*
any takers? I know I have seen this solution on here before but my searces haven't brought any answers. A simple link to a thread containing the answer would be more than sufficient

**ruymbeke** · 02-24-2005, 03:19 AM

Originally Posted by foamrotreturns

I already have a Knoppix 3.7 install on my hdd (thanks for all the help, gurus!)
But I would like to put another distro on the machine. I'm starting a security auditing company, so I would like to be able to boot "Whoppix" from the HDD on occasion. I don't want to dedicate too much space to it, and I would really like to be able to update the distro to its latest specs whenever a new ISO comes out, so i would like to just store the CD image to a directory on my hdd and then add it to my LILO menu. I know it's probably a really simple set of commands, but I'm unfamiliar with the CD image boot function of Knoppix. Can someone help me? Thanks.

Try grub to boot the iso files from dos,nt,xp,... cf: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11796
Cheers, Gilles

**CrashedAgain** · 02-24-2005, 05:28 AM

If the machine is not an NTFS system, the easiest way would be to do a Poormans install. Just boot the CD with 'knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1' to do the install. Boot with knoppix fromhd=/dev/hda1 tostart it. If it is an NTFS system , I think Kanotix has a 'toiso' command that will boot a straight copy of the CD iso file whcih can be copied onto the NTFS system from windows so check out kanotix. Linux can only write to NTFS systems using 'captive ntfs'.

**ruymbeke** · 02-24-2005, 06:38 AM

Originally Posted by CrashedAgain

If the machine is not an NTFS system, the easiest way would be to do a Poormans install. Just boot the CD with 'knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1' to do the install. Boot with knoppix fromhd=/dev/hda1 tostart it. If it is an NTFS system , I think Kanotix has a 'toiso' command that will boot a straight copy of the CD iso file whcih can be copied onto the NTFS system from windows so check out kanotix. Linux can only write to NTFS systems using 'captive ntfs'.

This forum: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11796 describe a very easy and clean way to boot from NTFS, but also from a fat 16/32, ext2/3, USB, floppy, ... using different grub binaries. Cheers, Gilles

**foamrotreturns** · 03-09-2005, 09:20 PM

So I guess I've got to make a spare partition roughly 2GB in size. after that, i'll copy the contents of the WHoppix cd into that partition. Then, I have to set that partition as bootable with qtparted, and then I have to find the correct parameters to put into the menu.lst file.
Am I going the right direction here?

**ruymbeke** · 03-09-2005, 10:49 PM

Originally Posted by foamrotreturns

So I guess I've got to make a spare partition roughly 2GB in size. after that, i'll copy the contents of the WHoppix cd into that partition. Then, I have to set that partition as bootable with qtparted, and then I have to find the correct parameters to put into the menu.lst file.
Am I going the right direction here?

No !
The whole point is that you DON'T need to change your hdd partitions / configuration.
Put the ISO file in one of your partition, whatever it is, NTFS, ext2/3, Fat16/32, ...
Copy the kernel and modified initrd (included grubd.zip) file into that partition.
If it ntfs, you will also need to add the grldr file and modify your boot.ini as described in the wiki pages
And then update the menu.lst to point grub to the kernel, initrd and iso files locations.
BTW, I successfully booted "Whoppix" (as well as other Knoppix flavours) from the ISO file on my NTFS partition.
(I used the same kernel and modified initrd as for knoppix 3.7)
And it should work as well from a ext2/3 or fat16/32, ... boot/partition.
Just use a different flavour of the grub bootloader executable:
grub.exe for dos, grldr for ntfs, stage1/2 for Linux via installer, ...
Hope this help.
Cheers,
Gilles

**foamrotreturns** · 03-10-2005, 01:20 AM

OK i think i'm getting the hang of this...
I'm going to run the ISO from an ext3 filesystem. it's located at /isos/whoppix on my (hd0,1) as well as the minirt26.gz and linux26 files. so here's what i've got in my menu.lst file for that entry:

title WHoppix Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /isos/whoppix/linux26
initrd /isos/whoppix/minirt26.gz

Is that all I need? i'd like to prevent writing to the HD at all costs - is there something I should be appending to the root line to make it mount the FS read only?

**ruymbeke** · 03-10-2005, 03:37 AM

Originally Posted by foamrotreturns

OK i think i'm getting the hang of this...
I'm going to run the ISO from an ext3 filesystem. it's located at /isos/whoppix on my (hd0,1) as well as the minirt26.gz and linux26 files. so here's what i've got in my menu.lst file for that entry:

title WHoppix Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /isos/whoppix/linux26
initrd /isos/whoppix/minirt26.gz

Is that all I need? i'd like to prevent writing to the HD at all costs - is there something I should be appending to the root line to make it mount the FS read only?

Yes, pretty close to that:
You need to add some "cheatcodes" after the kernel options and you probably want to use my minirt26_ntfs.gz even though you are not using the ntfs driver, because of the "bootfrom" cheatcode (required to boot from the iso file) which is not handled properly by the linuxrc file in the regular minirt26.gz.
So to summarize I will suggest something like this for your menu.lst:

title Whoppix 2.6-sp1 kernel 2.6 from hda2 ISO file
kernel (hd0,1)/isos/whoppix/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce bootfrom=/dev/hda2/isos/whoppix/*.iso quiet noprompt (all on a signle line from the kernel ...)
initrd (hd0,0)/isos/whoppix/minirt26_ntfs.gz
boot

And as far as I remember, all partitions are read only by default and it is actually not that obvious to grant write access to the boot partition, where the kernel, initrd and iso file are located.
Cheers, Gilles