LifeBoat Documentation
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LifeBoat
LifeBoat is a script program which can be used to create a Linux bootable rescue CD. LifeBoat is released under the GNU General Public License.
The current version is LifeBoat 0.4.
The LifeBoat rescue CD only uses memory. After you boot LifeBoat you can remove the CD and use your CD-ROM for other things such as mounting your backup CDs. You do not need working hard drives or clean file systems to run LifeBoat. You can repair your corrupt file systems from memory based LifeBoat.
LifeBoat has no security. It can be used to repair a broken or forgotten root password.
LifeBoat builds a rescue CD by copying some your Linux system components to a CD and making the CD bootable. LifeBoat uses your:
kernel - therefore LifeBoat has kernel support for your cpu, your
motherboard, your devices, and your file systems.
devices - so LifeBoat has your device symbolic links.
man pages - which are very handy when you are trying to repair a broken
system with commands you rarely use.
utilities - that way you do not run into version incompatibilities between
the broken Linux system and utilities on the LifeBoat CD
The LifeBoat download file is fairly small. You can download LifeBoat much more quickly than you can download a rescue sytem which is packaged as an iso image.
LifeBoat can be configured to your needs by adding utilities you need for your system. LifeBoat has an Addons function which you can use to add utilities which inspect and repair components specific to your system, such as RAID or a journaling file system.
LifeBoat will create either a CD-R or a CD-RW at whatever speed you choose.
Once you get LifeBoat configured to your system you can easily burn a new LifeBoat rescue CD. Whenever you make major changes to your Linux system you can quickly burn a new LifeBoat CD to match your latest system.
LifeBoat is distribution dependent. It currently supports Debian, Fedora, Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware, SuSE, and Yoper. If you are using a distribution that LifeBoat does not support then LifeBoat offers a generic suppport package which will work poorly on any distribution. With a little work you can probably create the LifeBoat support for your distribution by modifying the generic support package. If you do so, please send me your new distribution support and I will include it in a future release of LifeBoat.
Since LifeBoat runs entirely in memory it is a memory hog. It will easily work in 128M of memory. Below 64M of memory cramming LifeBoat into the small memory creates an almost unusable system. Between 64M and 96M of memory your experience will vary from one Linux box to the next depending on how big your kernel modules and man pages are and how much you try to cram into LifeBoat. If small memory is a problem for you then I recommend that you try knoppix or tomsrtbt.
LifeBoat cannot be installed after the fact. You cannot have a major failure, download LifeBoat, and LifeBoat save the day. You have to create the LifeBoat CD from a good, solid, working Linux system. Then you can have a major failure.
Download the LifeBoat tarball.
Unpack the tarball as root in a working directory.
Follow the instructions in the documentation. The install can be as easy or as complicated as you want it to be depending on how much you want to customize LifeBoat.
The LifeBoat script builds a LifeBoat CD system from your system components and then burns it to CD.
Boot the LifeBoat CD. Then remove the CD if you want to use the CD-ROM for other purposes.
LifeBoat uses memory only. It provides four directories that you can use as mountpoints to mount hard drive partitions, then inspect and repair them. You also have your normal Linux system mountpoints available.
LifeBoat runs as root without any security. LifeBoat can be used to repair a broken or forgotten root password.
The basic LifeBoat has no GUI, only the command line. You could add a GUI using the addons feature if you are willing to do the work.
LifeBoat shuts down nicely using the shutdown command so that you do not accidently leave any hard disks needing to run fsck.