Now you might be wondering how you could become a Grml developer. We're happy to announce grml.github.com, a place which should get interested people ready to contribute without much headaches. Please help us making Grml an even better kick ass solution!

• handy scripts, like grml-chroot, a wrapper around chroot which will automatically bind /dev, /sys and /proc to the chroot
• the

  netscript

  boot option. This option will download an executable from the network and execute as root
• grml-debootstrap, a tool for automated Debian installations
• grml2usb simple but powerful tools to create customized Grml images within minutes
• ZSH as default shell with a very good and comfortable zshrc
• the

  netconfig

  boot option. This option will download an archive from the network and unpack it on top of the current root filesystem
• automatically start the ssh server with the

  ssh

  boot-parameter
• Boot your Grml ISO-image directly from your existing GRUB setup with loopback.cfg
• Create your own customized Grml Distribution with the same tool we release our ISO-images: grml-live
• start arbitrary services without remastering the squashfs, just specify the the

  service

  boot option
• EFI support, we arrived late with it but we support it now out of the box even with grml2usb

What are your reasons using Grml instead of other Live CDs? What are you missing from Grml?

There were quite a lot of changes between RC1 and the new stable release. The most important ones are:

• Update to Kernel 3.1.6
• Easier remastering with grml-live and existing Grml ISO images
• New GRUB boot theme
• SYSLINUX will indicate its boot menu with one beep
• GRUB will indicate its boot menu with three beeps
• Enable all mixer controls at startup and set volume to 75%
• Reworked and more flexible GRUB config file handling
• grml2usb - use the GRUB configuration from the ISO image instead of creating a new one
• Additional keybindings for fluxbox
• Fix keyboard layout bug

I want to thank all the people involved in this magnificent and awesome release. The Grml Developers, our Contributors and all the other people involved in this release.

Starting with Grml 2009.05 we streamlined the support of hooking into our boot-process in grml-autoconfig thanks to the patches from Marc 'Zugschlus' Haber. Now it is possible to execute arbitrary scripts, unpack archives or install packages at startup not only directly from the Live CD but also from partitions. This allows you to create customized Grml Images with ease without the need to modify the squashfs image (usually known as remastering). In this example we will add the necessary files directly onto the ISO image but you can also use a USB stick instead. Please make sure you read the grml-autoconfig manpage

The first step is to create a directory which will contain all the additional files to be copied onto the ISO image. In this example we use /tmp/grml_overlay/

mkdir /tmp/grml_overlay

The next step is to create an archive containing the ssh keys. For this step you need either fakeroot or run the commands as root.

TMPDIR="/tmp/grml_config"
cd "$TMPDIR" || mkdir "$TMPDIR" && cd "$TMPDIR"
fakeroot 
mkdir --parent root/.ssh home/grml/.ssh
chmod 0700 root/.ssh home/grml/.ssh
cp /home/uli/.ssh/id_rsa.pub  root/.ssh/authorized_keys
cp /home/uli/.ssh/id_rsa.pub  home/grml/.ssh/authorized_keys
chown -R 1000:1000 home/grml
tar --numeric-owner -j -c -f /tmp/grml_overlay/config.tbz .

Now we have everything what's needed prepared and can just run grml2iso and specify the additional boot parameters as well as the overlay directory.

grml2iso -b "config ssh" -c /tmp/grml_overlay -o my-grml.iso ./grml64_2011.12.iso

Combining different boot parameters in Grml like config and ssh allows you to create customized and tailored distributions for your own needs without having to dig into the remastering process. With the availability of tools like grml2usb and grml2iso you can easily create customized tools based on Grml without the need to develop everything from scratch. We showed how you can leverage grml2iso to create a Rescue CD based on Grml with ssh keys for remote login.

But we added some important changes to improve the accessibility. Starting with Grml 2011.12 the bootloader will either beep once (if you use the default syslinux one) or will play 3 beeps (grub) to indicate the boot menu. Afterwards you can easily change the boot parameters if you press TAB (syslinux) or e (Grub). After the bootup Grml will play some tunes to indicate the finished boot. As per default Grml starts a text based menu you will have to press enter after the beep to enter the commandline

We think with the additional sound indicators in the boot-menu as well as the default sound to indicate the finished boot-process, Grml 2011.12 will be more accessible then ever.

I would like to thank Richard Hartmann for creating the different sound indicators for the upcoming Release

ipmitool user list 1

ipmitool user set name 2 jimmy
ipmitool user set password 2 mysecret

ipmitool lan set 1 ipaddr 192.168.2.6
ipmitool lan set 1 defgw ipaddr 192.168.2.1
ipmitool lan print 1

ipmitool -I lan -H 192.168.1.6 -U jimmy bmc info

ipmitool -I lan -H 192.168.1.6 -U jimmy chassis power status
ipmitool -I lan -H 192.168.1.6 -U jimmy chassis power off
ipmitool sensor get "BB Ambient Temp"
ipmitool sensor get "CPU Fan"

Often you don't need all the power and flexibility of grml-live but just want to add or change some default boot parameters and use this as your default image. For example you may want to have an ISO image which automatically starts sshd and sets the password to a specific value or downloads an executable and run it at startup. This can easily be done with grml2iso a tool based on grml2usb which allows you to create customized iso images.

Grml will automatically start sshd and set the password for the grml user if you specify the ssh boot-parameter. This allows you to remotely control your Grml CD. To create such a CD just run:

grml2iso -b "ssh=grml-password" -o my_grml.iso ./grml64_2011.12.iso

grml2usb does not offer the same flexibility as grml-live but grml2usb/grml2iso is often good enough to help you to achieve what you want without the need to modify the squashfs file.

• Download grml64_2011.12.iso
• Install the new grml-live (git rev. 11baa336b55 and newer)
• Edit config in /etc/grml/fai/*
• Build:
  sudo grml-live -A -V -u -e ~/Downloads/grml64_2011.12.iso -s testing \
  -c DEBORPHAN,GRMLBASE,GRML_FULL,RELEASE,AMD64,IGNORE \
  -r "Remastered" -g grml64 -o /tmp/grml64
• Enjoy your new ISO in /tmp/grml64/grml_isos/

One quite common task is to execute scripts after the installation like for example gathering the ssh host key or adding your own CA to the host. grml-debootstrap supports the execution of scripts after the machine is successfully installed.

To execute scripts after the installation we first need a directory containing all the scripts. This directory will be afterwards specified as a parameter to grml-debootstrap. In this example we are using ./scripts as the directory name.

mkdir ./scripts

After we create the directory we also need to create a script for our post-processing task. For this example we'll create a script which will examine the fingerprints of the ssh hosts keys. To be able to access and modify the image all the scripts executed by grml-debootstrap will have an environment variable specified called MNTPOINT which will point to the directory used for installing the system. Then we have to create a script inside the directory and make it executable:

$ cat >./scripts/89_print_sshkeys <<EOF
#!/bin/bash
set -e
if [ -z "\$MNTPOINT" ] ; then
  echo "Please run \$0 inside grml-debootstrap or export MNTPOINT" >&2
  exit 1
fi

for key in "\$MNTPOINT"/etc/ssh/ssh_host_*_key.pub ; do
  chroot "\$MNTPOINT" ssh-keygen -l -f \${key##\$MNTPOINT}
done
EOF
$ chmod +x ./scripts/89_print_sshkeys

After we created the directory and the script we can now point grml-debootstrap to the directory and it will run all executable files in it. If we extend the command-line from our last example we have to specify the --scripts parameter and point it to the created directory:

$ sudo grml-debootstrap --scripts ./scripts/ --password root-pw --vmsize 3G --vmfile --target ./qemu.img
....
Finished chroot installation, exiting.
 * Executing script ./scripts/89_print_sshkeys
1024 9e:d9:18:1d:47:ae:26:9f:53:5e:63:3c:bd:37:ea:2b /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key.pub (DSA)
2048 c1:5e:27:a3:2f:7d:30:a0:ab:75:a2:86:e7:bb:8a:e2 /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key.pub (RSA)
....

This shows how easy it is to customize and extend grml-debootstrap to your own needs. You can easily create customized scripts and run arbitrary commands on the target to do whatever you want. grml-debootstrap is of course available within Grml but also in Debian.

grml-debootstrap is designed to help you install complete Debian Systems. Typically if you install a Debian system with debootstrap you have to install the kernel, bootloader, /etc/fstab, ssh server, … yourself. grml-debootstrap automates this boring tasks and allows you to install Debian systems from within a running system within minutes.

Nowadays physical installations get less and less important but virtual installation gain importance. New servers are often run inside virtual environments like Xen, KVM or VMware. grml-debootstrap supports the automated installation of Debian into a virtualized environment without the need to use a preseeded installation medium. You can create a raw image with grml-debootstrap which boots per default with KVM and Xen. To boot the image file with other virtualization solutions you may have to convert the generated image with qemu-img

To install a plain Debian System into a raw image you just have to run

grml-debootstrap --password root-pw --vmfile --vmsize 3G --target ./squeeze.img

If you want to customize or extend grml-debootstrap have a look at the manpage or look at the scripts and package definitions in /etc/debootstrap

The upcoming Grml Release 2011.12 (check the changelog for our new Grml 2011.12-rc1) will not have any iSCSI support integrated due to build issues with dkms. Instead Grml 2011.12 will provide all the necessary tools to provide and access a ATA over Ethernet Device.

ATA over Ethernet, also known as AoE, is a protocol designed to access Block devices via Ethernet. Compared to iSCSI it does not work with IP but with Ethernet. Unfortunately this means that AoE is error-prone against Ethernet attacks like ARP spoofing. Do not use it in hostile enviornments. That being said AoE is quite simple to use.

Export a blockdevice

vblade -m 11:22:33:44:55:66 160 2 eth0 /dev/sdb1

This will allow the host with the MAC 11:22:33:44:55:66 to access /dev/sdb1 via eth0, using the shelf and slot numbers 160 and 2. These numbers are arbitrary but should be unique within the network.

Access a blockdevice

aoe-discover

You should find the device shared above as /dev/etherd/e160.2

I would like to thank to Christoph Biedl for providing this short and comprehensive documentation

For detailed information about the changes between 2011.05 and 2011.12 have a look at the official release announcement .

This release brings a downsizing and cleanup: one flavour, two architectures. The new, smaller flavour has a 350MB ISO size target, while still delivering over 1.1GB of open source software relevant for system administrators!

Give it a try and download grml 2011.12-rc and report back to us.

Please test the ISOs and everything you usually use and report back, so we can complete the stable release soon. If no major problems come up, the next iteration will be the stable release, which is scheduled for end of December.