general

I had to clone a server to another server (1:1 copy using dd+netcat) but didn't want to stay at the customer's place until the task finished. So I executed 'Start ssh; passwd' to be able to login remotely. But how to reboot the server and get rid of the CD so the harddisk system boots instead of the grml-CD without manual interaction at customer's place? Server systems usually don't move in/re-insert an ejected CD on reboot - that's nice for what we need. So all I had to do was:

eject &>/dev/null
umount -l /cdrom
eject /dev/cdrom
echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger

Thanks to the infrastructure provided by IBM's x305 server donation and Jimmy's work I just finished a first prototype setup of an autobuild system for building grml-ISOs using grml-live. Currently I've a working system for building "grml-medium" ISOs based on etch/stable and sid/unstable on a daily base. Normal/full grml ISOs (the ~700MB version) of etch/stable and sid/unstable will follow soon. I plan to provide new develreleases as soon as I finished the autobuild setup. Hopefully we'll find ressources for a 64bit environment (so we can provide autobuilded ISOs of grml64) as well.

After the Froscon event took place we have a new develrelease. Quoting the main changelog for the new develreleases:

  * several updated configuration files, bugfixes and
    up2date Debian packages as of 20070905

  * atl2 kernel driver added

  * grml2hd: display '***' in password box so user gets feedback when
    typing the password

  * ctrl-alt-del triggers reboot instead of powerdown now

  * use of live-initramfs: the biggest change inside 1.0-3 and the
    one which will break everything. ;-) But: as a long-term
    side-effect it will dramatically simplify customizing grml and
    provide new options like including firmware for booting.
    'ls -la /' looks completely different now as you will notice.
    We have a new unionfs overlay layout. Let's see whether it's
    working for us.

    So please: test all the grml bootoptions and let us know what's
    broken!