Read Write access to a iso9660 filesystem..mount a .iso image as read write
 

Hi Guys,

I have made a boot-able iso image which mounts vmlinuz and initrd.img into the RAM using initramfs. The initrd.img mounts a basic file system that takes me to a busybox shell.

From this shell, I run a small shell scripts that is as follows:

#!/bin/sh

echo Creating a mount point
mkdir /mnt
echo Mounting the Root File System
mount /dev/hdc /mnt ==> this mounts the iso image in the cd-rom to /mnt
echo changing Root
mount -o bind /proc /mnt/boot/proc/
mount -o bind /sys /mnt/boot/mnt/
export HOME=/root
chroot /mnt/boot

After this it boots fine, and I can see my file system that is loaded on my cd (.iso image). However, this is a read-only file system and I am not able to do anything.

I have already tried mounting a directory as tmpfs and binding a few directories to it, however it does not server my purpose.

So, I am stuck with a read only file system. Please can anyone point me to the right direction of create a read write on the file system.

Thanks and Regards,
-=Srijan

What is it you want to do?

What is your purpose?

If you want to edit files in the .iso, or if you want to add files, you would have to mount the .iso, copy the files to a directory and make the directory read/write (recursively), then do your edits/file additions. After all that, remake the .iso.

Hi bigrigdriver,

Actually I have a CentOS Server, running 2.6.29. I have configured a small firewall, with iptables, snort_inline, zebra, keepalived etc. I wanted to make an iso image of my own distro, so that I can give it to my friends so that they can use a ready made Firewall.

To accomplish this, I created an initrd image using busybox that has an init file. The contents of the init file is:

#!/bin/nash

mount -t proc /proc /proc
setquiet
echo Mounting proc filesystem
echo Mounting sysfs filesystem
mount -t sysfs /sys /sys
echo Creating /dev
mkdir /dev/shm
mount -o mode=0755 -t tmpfs /dev/shm /dev/shm
mkdir /dev/pts
mount -t devpts -o gid=5,mode=620 /dev/pts /dev/pts
echo Creating initial device nodes
mknod /dev/null c 1 3
mknod /dev/zero c 1 5
mknod /dev/urandom c 1 9
mknod /dev/systty c 4 0
mknod /dev/tty c 5 0
mknod /dev/console c 5 1
mknod /dev/ptmx c 5 2
mknod /dev/rtc c 10 135
mknod /dev/tty0 c 4 0
mknod /dev/tty1 c 4 1
mknod /dev/tty2 c 4 2
mknod /dev/tty3 c 4 3
mknod /dev/ttyS0 c 4 64
mknod /dev/ttyS1 c 4 65
mknod /dev/ttyS2 c 4 66
mknod /dev/root c 3 1
mknod /dev/hdc b 22 0
mknod /dev/sda b 8 0
mknod /dev/sda1 b 8 1
mknod /dev/root b 8 1
echo Setting up hotplug.
hotplug
echo Creating block device nodes.
mkblkdevs
echo "Loading ehci-hcd.ko module"
insmod /lib/ehci-hcd.ko
echo "Loading ohci-hcd.ko module"
insmod /lib/ohci-hcd.ko
echo "Loading uhci-hcd.ko module"
insmod /lib/uhci-hcd.ko
mount -t usbfs /proc/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb
echo "Loading scsi_transport_spi.ko module"
insmod /lib/scsi_transport_spi.ko
echo "Loading mptbase.ko module"
insmod /lib/mptbase.ko
echo "Loading mptscsih.ko module"
insmod /lib/mptscsih.ko
echo "Loading mptspi.ko module"
insmod /lib/mptspi.ko
echo "Loading usb-storage.ko module"
insmod /lib/usb-storage.ko
mkblkdevs
echo My Shell
/bin/sh

Along with the initrd.img and vmlinuz, I have made an iso image.

Once I boot the iso image, it gives me the busybox shell. However it is still in initramfs state. Then I try to mount the files in the iso to a /mnt directory and chroot to the environment according to this script:

#!/bin/sh

echo Creating a mount point
mkdir /mnt
echo Mounting the Root File System
mount /dev/hdc /mnt ==> this mounts the iso image in the cd-rom to /mnt
echo changing Root
mount -o bind /proc /mnt/boot/proc/
mount -o bind /sys /mnt/boot/mnt/
export HOME=/root
chroot /mnt/boot

Here, I cannot do much as the file system mounted is read only. I need a read write environment, so that I can get things modified and certain files that uses /var can write to it.

Thanks and Regards,
-=Srijan