Re: [cobalt-developers] Can the RaQ boot from floppy or CD?

[Norbert Bollow <nb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I'll be happy to hear your scenario and try to find a workable
> solution for you.

Tim,
  thank you so much for your kind offer!

The context of my questions is that I'm in Switzerland and one
of my clients has purchased a RaQ4r which is now co-located at a
professional colocation service in the US. This server will
contain confidential data and it will be important to keep any
downtime to a minimum.

Because of the security requirements I must modify some parts of
the OS to close some security holes that are well-known to
everyone who subscribes to Bugtraq. So we're not going to be
running a standard system that one can easily restore from the
OS Restore CD. And then I will be making potantially dangerous
modifications every time that a new Linux security problem is
discovered which could affect this server. Once the system is in
'production mode', downtime must be kept to a minimum. For this
reason I feel it is necessary to practice with the colocation
service a procedure for recovering from the kind of problem
where remote logins are impossible and a normal reboot won't help.

> > What options are there for booting around a serious problem on
> > the root filesystem? Suppose e.g. libc.so is corrupted.
> 
> The standard answer is to OS Restore it - you do make backups, right?

Yes, we make backups. However, we need a recovery procedure that
does not erase all clues about what went wrong (e.g. was there a
root compromise?)

> If you attach a SCSI device (such as a CD), you can boot from it using
> the ROM menu.

Great! - This is the kind of procedure that I'm looking for.

How do we come into the possession of a suitable boot CD?

Can you provide instructions for connecting an external CD drive
to the RaQ and using the ROM menu to boot from it?

Warm greetings, Norbert.


-- 
Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet (near Zurich, Switzerland)
Tel +41 1 972 20 59     Fax +41 1 972 20 69      http://thinkcoach.com