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updatedb, snapshot from live session, other stuff

Tue Sep 03, 2013 8:41 am

FYI, when booting to a live session, pressing F1 for help at the boot screen this dead-end:
busybox
/bin/sh can't access tty; jobcontrol turned off


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During live session updatedb does not work (throws a "permission denied" error).
After the fact, I searched/found/read: post640.html?hilit=updatedb#p640
but I'm suggesting it should be documented in the release notes
and, in the interim, I'll mention that during the live session I was able to "fix" by reinstalling the "mlocate" package.

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question (after reading inline script comments)
is refractasnapshot, or initramfs, or live-build or... still unusable with debian sid ?

Yeah, I read in the release notes "after installation you can... snapshot" but, for grins, I ran it from live session.
Maybe it should it be modded to detect the live environment and halt, displaying an explanatory dialog box (for the gui version)?

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question:
Does the roadmap for refractasnapshot include ability to create a snapshot (iso) from a live session?
(mkisofs wrapper? growisofs?)

Re: New website, new isos

Tue Sep 03, 2013 3:45 pm

I tried F1 at the boot screen, and all it did was make the countdown message go away. If you want to get into the help pages, use the arrow keys to highlight Help, and then press ENTER.

Yes, updatedb is disabled for the live session. Making it non-executable was the only way I could think of to turn it off. If you can suggest a better way, I'll listen. I suppose if you're running with persistence, you might want to run updatedb, but for a live-CD, it makes no sense.

Refractasnapshot works in sid, and I'm pretty sure it also works in a live session, as long as you have a writable partition that's big enough. (Pretty sure I've done it.) It's the installer that needs to be changed for sid. That's explained in another thread, but briefly, you need to remove the --root-directory=/target option from the grub-install command. Here's the modified version of refractainstaller-yad that I used when testing it -
https://gist.github.com/fsmithred/5717881
See this post - refracta-installer-not-working-t285-10.html#p2671

And for finding the real update-iniramfs, see this one - encrypted-install-won-t-boot-t308.html#p2810

Re: New website, new isos

Tue Sep 03, 2013 4:04 pm

The updatedb issue will be fixed in the 9.1.0 version of refractainstaller, along with the changes needed for use with sid (and probably jessie). I think I just need to copy the mlocate database in place after rsync runs.

Edit: Regarding making a snapshot during a live session, I have to ask what you're planning to do with the resulting iso. If you want to put it on a usb thumb drive, you don't need to run refractasnapshot. Use refracta2usb for that. It has an option for running it from a live session.

Re: updatedb, snapshot from live session, other stuff

Thu Sep 05, 2013 2:20 pm

Here's the temporary fix for the updatedb issue. In refractasnapshot-gui-9.0.9-2 around line 417 you'll see the section that disables updatedb. Don't change this part:
Code:
# Disable updatedb for the live-CD
if [[ $disable_updatedb = "yes" ]] ; then
   if [[ -x "$work_dir"/myfs/usr/bin/updatedb.mlocate ]]; then
      chmod -x "$work_dir"/myfs/usr/bin/updatedb.mlocate
   fi
fi

Add the following code right after the section above:
Code:
if [[ -e /var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db ]]; then
    mkdir -p "$work_dir"/myfs/var/lib/mlocate/
    cp /var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db "$work_dir"/myfs/var/lib/mlocate/
fi


And you must edit /etc/refractasnapshot.conf and set disable_updatedb="no"

Re: updatedb, snapshot from live session, other stuff

Fri Oct 25, 2013 4:17 pm

Two things:

1. Today I confirmed that it's possible to create a snapshot during a live session. Obviously, you need someplace where you can write the work and snapshot directories. In my case, I was running on live usb with persistence, so I didn't have to change those settings in the config file.

2. In refractasnapshot 9.0.9-5, updatedb runs before copying the filesystem, it no longer gets disabled, and nothing special is done with the mlocate database, since it gets copied along with the rest of the system. Also, it's possible to prevent updatedb from running inside refractasnapshot by changing update_mlocate="yes" to "no" in refractasnapshot.conf.
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