Feasible Concept? Booting to local RAM Filesystem

[robinsmidsrod]

If there is a requirement to be totally without network connectivity once the ramdisk/OS is loaded, then I'd go with the approach SystemRescueCD uses. They have a kernel+initrd that is loaded via normal means, and then they have a squashfs that can be loaded via http, nfs or other network method. If you use http I believe it is completely held in ram, if you use NFS then I think it's just mounted directly.

If you just need a stability test tool, there is already one called "Breakin" which runs completely from an initrd, so once it's booted it doesn't require any local storage or network access.

I am in the process of trying to make custom kernel+initrd myself for a specific purpose, and I'm trying to figure out the easiest way to make one for a specific purpose. So far the suggestions I've found focus on either copying what OpenELEC has done (bash-scripting based approach) or using buildroot (make-based approach) or genkernel, from gentoo (which is what systemrescuecd uses, I think). Please do tell me if you find a simpler way to build a custom ramdisk-based solution. I'm primarily a Ubuntu fan myself.

What I had in mind was the ability to run from my local linux workstation some commands to debootstrap a minimal system, install the interesting .debs into this chroot, add whatever config and other files on top of this, and package it all into a kernel+initrd you can netboot straight into memory. Overall that should mean building a completely custom system to run in memory is just a matter of tweaking this script and you should have it.