Question - How to use "readonly-root"

[Jayakrishnan M]

Hi John,

> In /etc/sysconfig, there is a configuration file named "readonly-root", that
> would seem to allow mounting the root filesystem read-only with a writable
> partition in tmpfs. I'd really like to use this on a little box I've built
> that boots from flash memory. But, I don't know what I need to do to move
> /etc and /var into a tmpfs.

I have made a read only rootfs by giving readonlyroot as a command
line parameter to kernel. The changes to etc and var depends on the
applications you need. You might want to move /etc/mtab to tmpfs; one
easier way is to make it as a softlink to /proc/partitions (but this
makes output of mount command a bit too long). Most of the rw
locations will be mounted as tmpfs by init scripts. But a few
applications like dhcpd might fail. You can modify the init script to
move the temporary files needed by these applications to tmpfs.

Jayakrishnan