Customizing 3.2

[benritchey]

I thought I would share my experience creating a customized UBCD <g>. I 1st tried using WinImage under 98SE to extract the files from the .iso and the cygwin port of mkisofs (.exe) v2.01 to create the new iso, but nada. mkisofs (the very latest at the time) kept crashing.

2nd I tried building the .iso under linux, accessing the FAT32 files directly, but nada. The iso built but insert wouldn't run (couldn't find it's own file system). My personal Boot images now work and I can recover from ugly installs (active/boot flags stuck) without using a single floppy, just UBCD. [:^)))

3rd, tried moving the files themselves to the ext2 partition, then mkisofs, nada, no insert (boots still work).

Back to the drawing board <g>, 4th, mounted the original iso as a loopback file, re-extracted the build tree again (simple copy using cp -av) and merged changes from old build tree (boot images, main.scn and custom.scn plus personal sub-dirs, including chmod 555 for all), Bingo! Everything works, best thing since sliced bread!

Ok, next, sleep (lots), mow the grass then customize Insert to include my own config files, etc. <chuckle>. Wish me luck ...

YMMV

[Chrishoff]

Hi, I've tried some ways to customize UBCD and burn a new version on CD/DVD. The best choice: Take an ISO-tool like UltraISO (http://www.ultraiso.com) and extract the UBCD-files on harddisk. After changing the content, open the original UBCD-ISO and copy the new files from harddisk into the ISO. Save it, burn the ISO on cd/dvd and boot. No problems yet.

cu
Christoph

[uriel613]

I am with Chrishoff, just open the ISO with WinISO (in my case), extract the files you wish to change, change them, place them back into the ISO, save out the ISO and burn baby burn. Works everytime. Only problem I get is every now and then my ISO gets corrupted. So....just keep a backup.

Now a modified INSERT that would be cool. Hadn't tried that. INSERT is probably one of my most used tools. That and my /var directory that includes the captive-ntfs necessary files from my Windows XP laptop. I have used a few times to rescue NTFS formatted Windows machines. Yuk!

Uriel

[bldrdash]

Uriel:

> Now a modified INSERT that would be cool. Hadn't tried that.
> INSERT is probably one of my most used tools. That and my
> /var directory that includes the captive-ntfs necessary files
> from my Windows XP laptop. I have used a few times to rescue
> NTFS formatted Windows machines. Yuk!


Regarding captive, I'm not sure if I documented this
but if you copy ntoskrnl.exe and ntfs.sys to /home/insert/captive
then add /home/insert/captive/ to /home/insert/restore.list,
the Configuration->Insert->Save selectable..
then take the file saved "insert-config.tar.bz2" and place
on the CDROM/INSERT directory you'll always have the captive
files necessary.

Lastly, how important would you rate captive? To be honest,
I've used NTFS in RO mode, but have yet needed to use the RW
abilities of captive. The reason I ask is that the upcoming
version (no date yet), will run the 2.6 kernel. Captive
development has been discontinued so as 2.6 progresses,
captive looks like it is less likely to work. On the plus
side, 2.6 should have better SATA support.

-- Charles

[LittlBUGer]

I'm not sure if this will work in this situation, but this is the mkisofs command I created that works with the "combo CD" instructions I created HERE

Code: Select all

"C:\pebuilder3032\mkisofs.exe" -joliet-long -iso-level 2 -N -d -relaxed-filenames -duplicates-once -D -boot-load-seg 0x7C0 -boot-load-size 4 -o "C:/combocdiso/THE_UBCD_COMBO.iso" -b "boot/loader.bin" -no-emul-boot -volid "THE_UBCD" -sysid "Win32" "C:/combocd/"

Just remember to change the paths to where the appropriate files are located.

[bldrdash]

Within Linux, here is the mkisofs command I use:

From the root of the UBCD extracted directory:

mkisofs -N -J -r -o -vv -V "UBCD 3.2" -o ../ubcd.iso -b boot/loader.bin \
-no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 .

Ignore the "Warning: creating filesystem that does not conform to ISO-9660."
message.

-- Charles

[uriel613]

Charles,

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Lastly, how important would you rate captive? To be honest,
I've used NTFS in RO mode, but have yet needed to use the RW
abilities of captive. The reason I ask is that the upcoming
version (no date yet), will run the 2.6 kernel. Captive
development has been discontinued so as 2.6 progresses,
captive looks like it is less likely to work. On the plus
side, 2.6 should have better SATA support.

-- Charles
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You raise an interesting question. The truth is the majority of work that I have done is met with the CD in its current mode. RO access of NTFS is more than sufficient for most things. The captive-ntfs (or any NTFS write capability) is most useful for fixing small issues or for restoring deleted critical files. The UBCD does have the Offline NT Password and Registry Editor on it...so editing the Windows registry can be dealt with by that. I guess it really depends on how trashed the machine is. I would give that up though for the 2.6 kernel features. Although I would keep an older copy of UBCD with the 2.4 kernel running around my toolkit in case I hit an older system.

I will try your INSERT recommendations. My current method of just burning the NT files to a /var directory on the UBCD cd and then mounting the CD and copying the directory into a running INSERT is lame, lame, lame. Just hadn't got to the point where I wanted to tackle dealing with modifying the INSERT install. While on the subject any chance of having an updated INSERT on the cd? Also, last I checked there were still some problems with links within the documents as accessed via menus on INSERT. No big deal for operation just something to correct on next version. I can double check and outline exactly which ones were an issue.

Bottom line: UBCD ROCKS!!!! Never, ever, leave home without it.

Raving fan,

Uriel
P.S.: Did I mention never leave home without UBCD?

[bldrdash]

Uriel:

Thanks for your comments. I might look for a bootable
floppy with captive, but considering it doesn't work
with W2K3 server and would have limited device support,
probably won't put too much effort into it.

As far as the next release, I can't yet say. It looks like
I'll be collaborating with the Insert author so the 2.6
version of Insert will be released faster, plus it will
shorten the release time for me to get UBCD Insert out.

You don't need to remaster Insert in order to store your
windows captive related files. You just need to copy
the insert-config.tar.bz2 created from a saved config
to the INSERT directory on CDROM. Of even easier,
create a insert-config.tar.bz2 containing
home/insert/captive/ntoskrnl.exe
home/insert/captive/ntfs.sys
and inject it (ULtraISO, WinISO, WinImage) to the INSERT
dir.

-- Charles

[uriel613]

Charles,

>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As far as the next release, I can't yet say. It looks like
I'll be collaborating with the Insert author so the 2.6
version of Insert will be released faster, plus it will
shorten the release time for me to get UBCD Insert out.

You don't need to remaster Insert in order to store your
windows captive related files. You just need to copy
the insert-config.tar.bz2 created from a saved config
to the INSERT directory on CDROM. Of even easier,
create a insert-config.tar.bz2 containing
home/insert/captive/ntoskrnl.exe
home/insert/captive/ntfs.sys
and inject it (ULtraISO, WinISO, WinImage) to the INSERT
dir.
>>>>>>>>>

Thanks for our insight into the future of INSERT and UBCD. As to the additional notes on the captive file insertion, I understood from your previous comments that I would not need to remaster INSERT which is cool. Although it might be interesting figuring out how to remaster it just to add a few things. That being said, I already add additional things like windows versions of Nmap and Netcat to the CD as well as PDFs that I might find useful such as the OSSTMM 2.1 from http://www.isecom.org/osstmm/ also add windscp, putty, wingz, winvi and vncviewer. All for that time when you just need a few tools on an existing machine without booting off the UBCD. That might be an interesting forum discussion: What tools do you add to UBCD to enhance its usefulness to you?

Regards,

Uriel

[sadyc]

Lastly, how important would you rate captive? To be honest,
I've used NTFS in RO mode, but have yet needed to use the RW
abilities of captive. The reason I ask is that the upcoming
version (no date yet), will run the 2.6 kernel. Captive
development has been discontinued so as 2.6 progresses,
captive looks like it is less likely to work. On the plus
side, 2.6 should have better SATA support.

-- Charles

Hello,

I find captive important.
It's true that mostly I use NTFS in RO mode, but usually the few situations in which I need RW mode are critical.

I think I won't trade captive for kernel 2.6. I can find kernel 2.6 in a lot of linux bootable CD, but captive is rare bird.

BTW, do you know what problems exactly captive does have with kernel 2.6? Maybe I have time to look at them and try to fix them.

--adrian

[bldrdash]

>
> BTW, do you know what problems exactly captive does have with
> kernel 2.6? Maybe I have time to look at them and try to fix them.
>
> --adrian
>
>

Adrian:

The problem is that captive requires LUFS, both use kernel sources
to compile, and both are no longer in development (for about 1 year now).
I periodically search google and the captive mail archives to see
if anyone has been able to get it to compile/work; but no luck.
The only posts I've seen have to do with using an RPM captive,
through alien, on Ubuntu. There have been many changes in 2.6
relating to driver development, which I believe is the fundamental
problem when compiling the code written for 2.4.

Sorry, to answer specifically your question on exactly what
problems there are.. tons of make errors... too many to
be more explicit.

Check out the project site at:
http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/

Let us know how to fair; there are lots of people looking
for captive under 2.6 (not necessarily in Insert, just in
general).

-- Charles

[sadyc]

>
> BTW, do you know what problems exactly captive does have with
> kernel 2.6? Maybe I have time to look at them and try to fix them.
>
> --adrian

Adrian:

The problem is that captive requires LUFS, both use kernel sources
to compile, and both are no longer in development (for about 1 year now).
I periodically search google and the captive mail archives to see
if anyone has been able to get it to compile/work; but no luck.
The only posts I've seen have to do with using an RPM captive,
through alien, on Ubuntu. There have been many changes in 2.6
relating to driver development, which I believe is the fundamental
problem when compiling the code written for 2.4.

They are changes, but in some cases you can fix thing but just changing structures. (I experienced this with an older vmware tools which woudn't compile on kernel 2.6)

Regarding LUFS, as I can read see on their site one of the last changes (10.30.2003) is " fixed 2.6 build issues".
LUFS is made of a kernel part + user space (daemon) part.
Basically it delegates most of the VFS (kernel virtual file system) calls to a the daemon.
So in the kernel you have a translation interface, only; which shouldn't be hard to make 2.6 comaptible.

IF captive uses only LUFS API, then captive doesn't need any changes.

However nowdays, FUSE (Filesystem In Userspace) might be included in the official kernel 2.6.12 or 2.6.13. FUSE does the same thing as LUFS, but probably has a different API.
Maybe it will be wiser to port captive to work with FUSE, since it will be part of the mainline kernel, and is proven to work with kernel 2.6.

I'll have a look at this things when I find some time.

--adrian

[sadyc]

IF captive uses only LUFS API, then captive doesn't need any changes.

However nowdays, FUSE (Filesystem In Userspace) might be included in the official kernel 2.6.12 or 2.6.13. FUSE does the same thing as LUFS, but probably has a different API.
Maybe it will be wiser to port captive to work with FUSE, since it will be part of the mainline kernel, and is proven to work with kernel 2.6.
--adrian

Hehe, look what I've found:
a FUSE to LUFS bridge:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... _id=132803

Description:

This is a modified LUFS daemon, which uses the FUSE kernel module. It is binary compatible with existing LUFS filesystems, so no recompilation is needed.

--adrian