Remastering damnsmall2.2


Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Remastering damnsmall2.2
started by: loupdesteppes

Posted by loupdesteppes on Mar. 07 2006,22:14
first sorry for my english, im a french
Hoppe this with give you sompe help or way to remasterize...

I needed something like Damnsmall but not Damnsmal, more precisely, a security tool. Till now i used a knoppix remaster
I had a look on Damnsmall, very interesting because small and fast when used as livecd, even that Damnsmall pay it with less fonctionalities.
OK...i have it fully remasterized in this way....and i give you some tips.
For  that i have used the debian i have installed on my laptop with reiserfs filesystem
3 things have to be done:
1) copy the files
2) add and remove things i need or not
3) mkisofs
OK !....

1) copy the files:

I used the last Damnsmall2.2 and have all my work in a partition....if this one is empty or not doesnt matter.
There are 2 methodes, the first one is more elegant, I have used the second one
1méth:
Cloop the cdrom to make a copy of the files
#mkdir /mnt/cloop
#mount /dev/cdrom /cdrom (mount the X-DSL cdrom)
#mount -o ro,loop=/dev/cloop0 /cdrom/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX /mnt/cloop
#mkdir xdsl
#mkdir xdsl/sources
#mkdir xdsl/newcd
#cp -a /cdrom/* xdsl/newcd
#cp -a /mnt/cloop/* xdsl/sources
#cp -a /mnt/cloop/.bash_profile xdsl/source

2meth is to boot with Damnsmall and copy the decompressed KNOPPX on xdsl/sources
After that you can reboot, return on your host linux and copy the rest of the cd on xdsl/newcd

2 Customize DamnSmall

Tiaaa...Damnsmall developpers are very clever...This part was rather hot like tabasco to do...
I didnt want to become crazy and i choice a dirty but efficient and quick way to do it, i didnt want to spend nights on this part. Then if somenone can help me to do that all cleaner ??....

The probleme with Damnsmall is that they have destroy all the package environnement...thats ok if we only use the dsl package but i wanted the good old debian deb packages...
Ok...
Things they must be added !!:
/etc/apt/source.lists (we need it)  with   Debian testing
      My source.lists looks like that:
deb < http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ > testing main
deb < http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ > oldstable main non-free contrib
Then some files the system needs in:
/var/lib
/var/lib/dpkg/

I copied them all from my host debian
Then......
#chroot /mnt/sda7/xdsl/sources/KNOPPIX
#dpkg—restore
#dpkg -query -  (just to see all the installed packages)
#apt-get update
#apt-get upgrade (just to see but dont accept)
make your apt-get remove /install
Nota: you will have every time a lot of warnings, but doesnt matter, they are only warnings (i said it, its a dirty method)
accept the install of the glibc
Just a little trick: to prevent all the possible conflicts use the
APT::Force-LoopBreak "true"; (dont forget the ; )

If you have depends problems, dont use apt-get -f install
but
#dpkg --force-overwrite -i /var/cache/apt/archives/x11-common_6.9.0.dfsg.1-4_all.de
this is f eg to solve a probleme with  x11-common i had

When all that is finished, remove the directoties and files you have added
get empty   /var/lib/apt/list
then
#apt-get clean
remove  status avalaible /var/lib/dpkg/info /etc/apt/sources.list
Purge /var/lib var/temp /temp /usr/share/locale with all langages u dont need
Dont forget to delete the file containig the param APT::Force-LoopBreak "true";  (/etc/apt/apt.conf)
Maybe i  omit here some little things i have done, let me know...yes, i added some libs in /lib /var/lib and /usr/lib

Then OK, the last thing to do, the iso file
#cd /sda7/xdsl
#mkisofs -R -U -V "KNOPPIX.net filesystem" -publisher "KNOPPIX www.knoppix.net" -hide-rr-moved -cache-inodes -no-bak -pad sources/KNOPPIX | nice -5 create_compressed_fs - 65536 > newcd/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX

For me the -b param in the create_compressed_fs doesnt optimize anything, just needing a lot of time to compress

#mkisofs -pad -l -r -J -v -V "KNOPPIX" -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -b boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin -c boot/isolinux/boot.cat -hide-rr-moved -o knoppix.iso newcd

Thats it ! i burned that with k3b.....
First part: 15 min
Third part: 30 min
Second part....1 afternoon.....  

Works fine, ..with foremost, sleuthkit, john-the-ripper, biew, tcpdump, netcat, ......
My iso is 76 megs....

Posted by loupdesteppes on Mar. 07 2006,22:38
May i had something to people who say that Damnsmall is an incredible and fast system:
I think that DamnSmall is very insteresting practical and useful distro, but which cannot be compared with a real linux system. Dont forget that DamnSmall is based on a busybox, and f eg nothing can replace the power of a real shell bash .

Posted by doobit on Mar. 08 2006,02:29
There are already small linux based security tool distros available. The point of DSL is not to be easily remastered. Take a look at Robert and John's developement pages to get an idea of why DSL exists. DSL does exactly what it is designed to do plus a little more.

< http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=interview-damnsmall >

< http://www.shingledecker.org/dsl.html >

Posted by loupdesteppes on Mar. 08 2006,21:04
Thank you doobi...you are right and i have readen the interview with interest . I agree with them, DamSmall is quite different than an other distro and fast something else...i see it like a porsche car between big  rolls royces.
First time in my life i have the choice driving the first one or one of the others lol

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