readme.txt -- readme for Slackware 11.0 installation on Linode The two attached shell scripts can be used to build a slackware 11.0 root filesystem and tweak it to run on a linode. The resulting small distribution (96 MB) has networking support, e.g. ssh access and networking tools, a couple of editors, and basic unix utilities. The idea is that you will boot this small system and then add the packages you need for your linode. As of Tue Dec 12 13:55:52 EST 2006 the resulting root filesystem has been tested on a linode under the latest 2.4 and 2.6 kernels. Slackware 11.0 defaults to using a 2.4 kernel. The testing has not been extensive, but rather more proof-of-concept in order to get these scripts working. There have been no problems in about a week of using Slackware 11.0 on linode. The two scripts --------------- Both scripts must be run as root and have the potential to destroy things if the target directory for the root filesystem is misconfigured. Be careful. --------------- make_slackware_root.sh -- makes a slackware root filesystem This script expects a standard slackware distribution directory, i.e. with a/ ap/ ... /n etc. subdirectories, and it expects a directory of patches. It needs both in order to build the root filesystem, but they don't have to be fully populated. Between them they must have the packages you want to install. The locations of these two directories is hardwired into the script; edit these to suit your configuration. Comments in the script have pointers to downloadable sources. The location of the target root directory is also hardwired; again, edit the script to suit your configuration. The set of packages is also hardwired and editable. The script will gracefully fail if you specify packages which aren't available under either the distribution directory or the patches directory. As of this writing, the tar package in Slackware 11.0 has been patched to fix a serious security flaw. --------------- do_linode_fixes.sh -- adds files and tweaks a slackware root filesystem so that it works under a linode This script takes a single argument, the root directory name. It adds a couple of files and tweaks a couple of others in the etc/ subdirectory and it adds devices in dev/ in order to make the filesystem a useable root filesystem for linode. Notes ----- When the resulting distribution boots it will run the DHCP client to get its IP address, start the sshd daemon, and wait for a login on the tty0 console. On startup and shutdown you will see a few failures on the console, e.g. involving the hardware clock, power management, or modprobe. These are not problems; they reflect that fact that Slackware is not (yet) UML aware and makes assumptions about the available hardware and loadable modules. When you boot up for the first time, you will see that sshd generates various encryption keys. You should login to the console from your linode host screen account (lish) as root with no password. Once you set the root password on the linode you will be able to log in as root via ssh. It's recommened to set up a plain user account for downloading etc. and just use the root account for installation and configuration. You should set your timezone using the timeconfig command. (It doesn't matter which setting, UTC or local, you select for the hardware clock.) You should set up /etc/HOSTNAME with your fully qualified host name. Now add more packages and have fun.