Is this possible?, how?

**joselb** · 03-05-2016, 06:58 PM

I don't know if this is possible or not but I wanted to ask if you can help me:

1.- Booting from cd/dvd
2.- After booting from it, then: Loading from hard drive or pendrive some configurations (network, programs, etc).
3.- When I shutdown the computer only what I want will be saved in this hard drive or pen drive configuration (only browser updates and add-ons updates)

I know I could use a pen drive with persistence, but I don't want my knoppix to be changed in any way when I am using it (to avoid virus, malware or who knows what). That's why I need to boot with cd/dvd and load some minimal configurations.

Ideas?
Thanks a lot.

**knp** · 03-05-2016, 07:25 PM

Hi

Also I am an almost newbie.

I think that the best way to avoid "viruses, malwares etc.." is to work with he Knoppix_CD/DVD...It is intended ESSENTIALLY for this kind of working.

I repeat that I am an almost newbie.

So do'nt worry anymore with my reply...

I hope that some senior members will give a good solution.

Regards

knp

**joselb** · 03-05-2016, 08:00 PM

Thank you for the answer knp, the problem is that I don't want to configure the network, install firefox browser, add-ons, etc... everytime I load Knoppix with the cd/dvd. So, I thought that maybe there is a solution if we can save some configurations in another place and load them when we want.

**Capricorny** · 03-05-2016, 08:11 PM

I don't see why you should have to boot from CD/DVD. Even if you have a persistent image on a USB stick, you can run from the stick without mounting it. Just start with knoppix(64) noimage. You can mount a volume where you have work files, config files etc, read them in and save - just be careful with modifications of browser function. One way is to keep a "pristine" copy of /home/knoppix, and return to that whenever you have a suspicion of something.
The most flexible way of doing this, is updating/installing all software to a persistent image, do all modifications to setup (e.g. auto-mounting data volume(s) ) and then remaster. Running with the remastered image should then give you what(ever) you want.
You can also have several persistent images, and keep them more or less pristine. The simplest is to make a separate Knoppix directory for each of them, though. Then starting with the cheatcode knoppix_dir=....

**joselb** · 03-05-2016, 08:38 PM

That's very interesting Capricorny, but I don't know how to do it, maybe some examples?.
Thanks

Originally Posted by Capricorny

I don't see why you should have to boot from CD/DVD. Even if you have a persistent image on a USB stick, you can run from the stick without mounting it. Just start with knoppix(64) noimage. You can mount a volume where you have work files, config files etc, read them in and save - just be careful with modifications of browser function. One way is to keep a "pristine" copy of /home/knoppix, and return to that whenever you have a suspicion of something.
The most flexible way of doing this, is updating/installing all software to a persistent image, do all modifications to setup (e.g. auto-mounting data volume(s) ) and then remaster. Running with the remastered image should then give you what(ever) you want.
You can also have several persistent images, and keep them more or less pristine. The simplest is to make a separate Knoppix directory for each of them, though. Then starting with the cheatcode knoppix_dir=....

**joselb** · 03-05-2016, 08:41 PM

I normally use only a VPN program, network configuration, firefox browser, tor browser and some add-ons. I don't know how can I mount only these configurations once I boot with "noimage", and if some day I update the browser or add-ons then how to save them to mount them in the next reboot.

**Capricorny** · 03-05-2016, 08:47 PM

You simply prepare a USB stick, boot Knoppix from the ISO in some way (for 7.6.1 I used kvm, booted it as a virtual machine, see my posting about that) and run the flash-install utility. Then you can have it set up a persistent image, but whenever you don't want to use it, you use the noimage cheatcode on startup. If you don't do any remastering, you will have to manually issue a command like mount /media/sda3 (if your config files are on /dev/sda3) and copy them to their right place, for example using the rsync -axu command.

**Capricorny** · 03-05-2016, 09:03 PM

Your approach will not allow program updates, but there is a way around that. You should look at posting from user utu, who has worked with (I think a series of) cloop images (overlays to the original KNOPPIX cloop image) created from ramdisk. That way, Knoppix is incrementally modifiable, but still used "read-only". Personally, I find it a hassle to handle the multiple overlays I will soon get with that method, but if you concentrate on doing all modifications in one session, then save that, you may be able to use only one overlay.
For config data, I would think the easiest way to proceed is to have a few copies of /home/knoppix on the USB stick, and save/restore to/from one of them. Then you don't have to do any extra mounting, and you could set up scripts to do the house-keeping tasks for you.