mindi8

Usage

Overview

mindi creates a set of boot/root floppy disk images and/or a bootable ISO image using files from the system it runs on. mindi will try hard to reproduce the environment of its host system including loaded modules to ensure that the system can be booted properly from the created rescue media. mindi is used by monodarchive(8) to produce the required boot/root floppy or CD images but can also be used stand-alone.

For stand-alone usage, mindi is called without any parameters or switches. It will then interactively ask the user for all information required to create a set of boot/root media.

The probably more frequent way of calling mindi is non-interactively from mondoarchive(8) using the --custom switch. All required information is then provided via command line parameters. The sequence of these parameters is listed below.

Options

-v| --version| -V| -version

Prints the version of mindi.

--findkernel

Finds the image of the running kernel in the file system.

--makemountlist file

Creates a mount list and writes it to file file.

--max-compressed-size max

Maximum size for disk image in KB.

--custom parameters

Provide all required parameters to mindi for non-interactive calling. This usually means a call from mondoarchive(8). The following parameters are used:
01) directory to use for temporary files
02) directory to put disk images in
03) path to kernel image
04) tape device
05) tape size [MB]
06) total number of files in file list
07) use LZO [yes|no]
08) CD recovery media [yes|no]
09) devices to include
10) conservative LiLo settings [yes|no]
11) number of last file list
12) estimated total number of slices
13) devices to exclude
14) compare mode [yes|no]
15) use lilo [yes|no]
16) use star (rather than tar) [yes|no]
17) internal tape block size [bytes]
18) number of diffenrential backup
19) make non-bootable [yes|no]
(Blank parameters must be specified as "" on the command line.)

Diagnostics

mindi writes some output to the console and extensive information to log file /var/log/mindi.log. When seeking technical support for mindi, please attach this file to your email.

Files

/var/log/mindi.log

Log file of mindi run. Contains important information to analyze mindi problem reports.

/etc/mindi/deplist.txt

List of files to be included on boot/root disks.

/root/images/mindi/N.tar.gz

Number N of multiple tar balls together containing root file system for rescue media.

/root/images/mindi/all.tar.gz

Single tar ball of root file system for rescue media.

/root/images/mindi/initrd.img

initrd image for bootable ISO image.

/root/images/mindi/mindi-boot.F.img

mindi boot floppy of size F [KB].

/root/images/mindi/mindi-root.F.img

mindi root floppy of size F [KB].

/root/images/mindi/mindi-data.N.img

mindi data floppy number N for boot/root floppies.

/root/images/mindi/mindi.iso

mindi bootable ISO image.

Original authors

Hugo Rabson (original author) hugo.rabson_at_mondorescue.org
Jesse Keating (packaging) hosting_at_j2solutions.net
Stan Benoit (testing) troff_at_nakedsoul.org
Mikael Hultgren (docs) mikael_hultgren_at_gmx.net