KBoot For Linux

KBoot project is a proof-of-concept implementation of a Linux boot loader based on kexec. KBoot uses a boot loader like LILO or GRUB to load a regular Linux kernel as its first stage. Then, the full capabilities of the kernel can be used to locate and to access the kernel to be booted.

KBoot integrates the various components needed for a fully featured boot loader, and demonstrates their use. While the main focus is on basic technical functionality, KBoot can serve as a starting point for customized boot environments offering additional features.

Here are some key features of "KBoot":

� supports most file systems and device drivers the Linux kernel supports � transparent navigation in the file system of the booted system, including auto-mounting guided by /etc/fstab � network configuration is either manual or with DHCP, including name resolution via /etc/hosts and DNS � access to file systems via NFS � access to files via HTTP, FTP, and TFTP � inbound and outbound SSH (to and from the boot loader)

What's New in This Release:

New features:

� pressing Ctrl-C before the KBoot prompt is shown now starts an emergency shell (based on suggestions by Brent Baude) � README: added a troubleshooting section explaining how to get a shell if things turn sour

Changes:

� upgraded to the 2.6.19.2 kernel � upgraded to Busybox 1.3.1 � patches/busybox-noshadow.patch: fix Busybox build without shadow passwords (from PLD Linux) � scripts/KBoot: start udhcpc with -n instead of --now, since the latter is no longer recognized � upgraded to udev 104 � Makefile: recent versions of udev aren't stripped, so we do this