Saving/loading configuration to/from ftp or www

[kriko]

Hey again.

This is a idea what a friend of mine asked me about. Would it be possible to save the Knoppix configuration to the internet, and when booting, load it again from there, you just specify a url or a ftp addr.

I am sorry if this has been covered before, but, still, I didn't find much about it in a quick search.

So, basically, when you boot, you type something like:
"knoppix conf=ftp://user[email protected]/knoppixconf/"
you may add the other usual tags to the end aswell, such as "desktop=kde wheelmouse" and so on.

Why?
Because, I don't know about the rest of you. But we use Knoppix in our school, because all computers have keyloggers in Windows, what are installed by other mean students. So we use Knoppix to avoid our precious data get out. But, since mostly we use computer during our break times, what last for 15-20min, we don't have much time to configure it all. So, if we could save the data to a website, then it would be faster to load it all up again. Also, we have pretty good internet connections in our school. And today, many people have acess to a webserver of a ftp server

Wouldn't it be cool if you could do the following. Boot, then change your keyboard layout, then change the way KDE looks and save some documents, then exit Knoppix and it will save the data to a ftp or web server. Then, when you reboot, you will just type the url of it, and knoppix will download the data and you will continue your work.

This would most likely be a major addition to Knoppix.

The reasons I can think it can't be possible are, that the config is loaded before internet connection is established, I am not so sure about it anyway.

So yeah, what do you think of my idea?

[true1ever]

Hi there,

I like this idea. I suggested it myself a couple of days ago but I think it might take a while to have it officially incorporated into the official knoppix. In any case, in the meantime, you can accomplish some of the same functionality by using these scripts:

#!/bin/bash
# Save this script as file savehome in the knoppix directory
# This script takes the contents of the knoppix home directory and
# saves it to a file
tar -cvvf /ramdisk/knxhome.tar /home/knoppix
gzip /ramdisk/knxhome.tar
scp /ramdisk/knxhome.tar.gz [email protected]:/home/username/knxhome.tar.gz
# end of savehome script


#!/bin/bash
# Save this script as file restorehome in the knoppix directory
# This script restores the knoppix home directory from a remote file
scp [email protected]:/home/username/knxhome.tar.gz /ramdisk
cd /
tar xfvz /ramdisk/knxhome.tar.gz
# end of restorehome script


I used scp instead of ftp because it is secure but you should be able to use ftp if security is not a consideration. After you save these files in the knoppix directory, make a copy of the restorehome script on your website also. (scp ~knoppix/restorehome [email protected]:/home/username/restorehome).

How to use these scripts:
1) before ending your knoppix session run the ~knoppix/savehome script from a console

That's it. Everything should now be saved, including all settings for the knoppix user. You can turn off the PC now.

2) Next time you use knoppix, boot in text-mode (knoppix 2)
3) at the # prompt, type "wget mysite.org/~username/restorehome" , you may need to adjust the path depending on how your website is set up.
4) at the # prompt type "./restorehome"
5) at the # prompt type "init 5"
Voila, you are back in your Xwindows session where you left off.

[kriko]

wonderful, it would be even better, for a temporary fix, if we could possibly tweak the official iso file so, that it would contain all these features, would it be possible?

[paradocs]

Hello kriko & true1ever
This is a great I idea to keep your work safe.
My plan is somewhat similar. I boot from a
floppy, have knoppix in CD drive 1, and
no hard drive. I have a second CDRW on usb.
It will burn a read-write CD if it has been
erased. (Packet mode to read and write
as a mounted hard drive is not now possible.)

KNOPPIX Configure will not let me burn
to the CDRW or restore from it. If
I burn /home/knoppix from the root shell
and restore it will this be equal to
using KNOPPIX Configure to make and
then restore persistant home?

In other words does persistent home
restoration effect any files or links
outside of /home/knoppix?

Best Wishes
paradocs

[Henk Poley]

There's also something like 'webfolders', though I haven't tried to get it working. It's some kind of HTTP transfer protoco, that uses SSL for security. Could this be of any use? (I've got acces to ~38MB of remote diskspace via my mail-provider)

[kriko]

I am still talking about thing what is more important here. You define your keyboard type, your desktop, your KDE config specifically and then save and load it to/from a server.

Also, I have now another idea, basically, if in the webconfig, there is saved the boot variable "desktop=kde", and when you boot, you just enter:
knoppix ftp://me[email protected]/myknoppixfolder

and then it loads the boot variables from there and boots using them, but when during the boot, I type this:
knoppix desktop=icewm ftp://me[email protected]/myknoppixfolder

then it will not count what the web config has to say about what desktop are you going to load, it is going to load IceWM as this is defined in the boot properties.