From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Date: Sat,  2 Jan 2016 12:55:15 +0100
From: tlaronde@polynum.com
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
Message-ID: <20160102115515.GA498@polynum.com>
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Subject: [9fans] Install: root file system
Topicbox-Message-UUID: 7d2ab84a-ead9-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025

Hello,

As explained in a previous message, I try to install Plan9 on a new node
(previous one defunct).

I have tried the usb Bell Labs and 9 atom flavours, and none works on my
node.

The Bell Labs iso works (I mean it boots and the install starts) but
9pcflop doesn't recognize my disks (while 9load lists them correctly).

So I'm back to what I had already done: I sketch a Plan9 partition from
NetBSD, setting a bootable FAT and populate it. 9pcdisk recognizes my
disk but there is the problem of the root file system---an initial one,
so that I can make the install from 9pcdisk and not 9pcflop.

I have populated the 9fat with what is indicated in the proto. But there
are binaries not in the iso image (bargraph, tailfsrv and a few others).

So I have extracted the embedded root.bz2 from 9pcflop (found in
bootdisk.img on the ISO) with the help of grep, od (because there are
nulls to have the correct offset) and dd.

The problem is that this is not only bzip2'ed, but previously bflz'ed. I
can even not add the bflz binary to the FAT, since there is no such
binary on the  ISO.

The questions are the following:

1) Is it possible to specify as bootargs the 9fat as the root
filesystem? If yes, what is the plan9.ini syntax (I tried
local!#S/sdE2/9fat, but this is not it...);

2) Is it possible to give the root.bz2 as a filesystem to a vanilla
kernel (here 9pcdisk)? Does it have the code to load it in memory, or
can I cat 9pcdisk with the root.bz2 (with the sentry "bzfilesystem")
like what is done with 9pcflop?

3) Can such a root file be served, if nothing local work, as a root file
system for a DHCP request?

TIA
--
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                     http://www.kergis.com/
                     http://www.arts-po.fr/
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