Sidebar 2

Sidebar: Required Mini-Root Functions

The mini-root provides basic operating system functionality by employing a memory-based filesystem containing a handful of operating system commands. Often a mini-root is used by a vendor to facilitate loading system software from a distribution medium onto the boot-disk. A mini-root can also be used by a system administrator to salvage or restore the root partition of the boot-disk if the disk has become corrupted and cannot boot. All mini-roots are not the same, and some vendors will even customize one for you (for a price). In any event, the mini-root must be able to do the following in order to perform the procedure presented here:

provide a shell to execute commands, like sh(1)

set terminal characteristics, like stty(1)

manipulate SCSI magnetic tapes, like mt(1)

copy and convert data, like dd(1)

make special files for devices, like MAKEDEV(8) or mknod(8)

partition hard disks, like chpt(8)

provide boot blocks for sectors 0-15 of a boot-disk

make filesystems, like mkfs(8) or newfs(8)

mount filesystems, like mount(8)

restore filesystems to disk, like restore(8)

check filesystem integrity, like fsck(8)

synchronize disks, like sync(1)

shutdown the mini-root, like halt(8) or reboot(8).