README revision 1.1
1 2 CRUNCH 0.3 README 7/23/94 3 4 Crunch is available via anonymous ftp to ftp.cs.umd.edu in 5 pub/bsd/crunch-0.3.tar.gz 6 7 WHAT'S NEW IN 0.3 8 9 * The prototype awk script has been replaced by a more capable and 10 hopefully more robust C program. 11 * No fragile template makefiles or dependencies on the details of the 12 bsd build environment. 13 * You can build crunched binaries even with no sources on-line, you 14 just need the .o files. Crunchgen still will try to figure out as 15 much as possible on its own, but you can override its guessing by 16 specifying the list of .o files explicitly. 17 * Crunch itself has been bmake'd and some man pages written, so it 18 should be ready to install. 19 * Added patch for FreeBSD from Jordan Hubbard, plus the .conf files used 20 for the FreeBSD install floppies as examples. 21 22 23 INTRODUCTION 24 25 Crunch is a little package that helps create "crunched" binaries for use 26 on boot, install, and fixit floppies. A crunched binary in this case is 27 one where many programs have been linked together into one a.out file. 28 The different programs are run depending on the value of argv[0], so 29 hard links to the crunched binary suffice to simulate a perfectly normal 30 system. 31 32 As an example, I have created an 980K crunched "fixit" binary containing 33 the following programs in their entirety: 34 35 cat chmod cp date dd df echo ed expr hostname kill ln ls mkdir 36 mt mv pwd rcp rm rmdir sh sleep stty sync test [ badsect chown 37 clri disklabel dump rdump dmesg fdisk fsck halt ifconfig init 38 mknod mount newfs ping reboot restore rrestore swapon umount 39 ftp rsh sed telnet rlogin vi cpio gzip gunzip gzcat 40 41 Note carefully: vi, cpio, gzip, ed, sed, dump/restore, some networking 42 utilities, and the disk management utilities, all in a binary small 43 enough to fit on a 1.2 MB root filesystem floppy (albeit with the kernel 44 on its own boot floppy). A more reasonable subset can be made to fit 45 easily with a kernel for a decent one-disk fixit filesystem. 46 47 The linking together of different programs by hand is an old 48 space-saving technique. Crunch automates the process by building the 49 necessary stub files and makefile for you (via the crunchgen program), 50 and by doctoring the symbol tables of the component .o files to allow 51 them to link without "symbol multiply defined" conflicts (via the 52 crunchide program). 53 54 55 BUILDING CRUNCH 56 57 Just type make, then make install. 58 59 Crunch was written and tested under NetBSD/i386, but should work under 60 other PC BSD systems that use GNU ld. 61 62 The crunchgen(1) and crunchide(1) man pages have more details on using 63 crunch, and the examples subdirectory contains some working .conf files 64 and a sample Makefile. 65 66 CREDITS 67 68 Thanks to the NetBSD team for a consistently high quality effort in 69 bringing together a solid, state of the art development environment. 70 71 Thanks to the FreeBSD guys; Rod Grimes, Nate Williams and Jordan 72 Hubbard; and to Bruce Evans, for immediate and detailed feedback on 73 crunch 0.1, and for pressing me to make the prototype more useable. 74 75 Crunch was written for the Maruti Hard Real-Time Operating System 76 project at the University of Maryland, to help make for better install 77 and recovery procedures for our NetBSD-based development environment. It 78 is copyright (c) 1994 by the University of Maryland under a UCB-style 79 freely- redistributable notice. See the file COPYRIGHT for details. 80 81 Please let me know of any problems or of enhancements you make to this 82 package. I'm particularly interested in the details of what you found 83 was good to put on your fixit or install disks. Thanks! 84 85 Share and Enjoy, 86 Jaime 87 ............................................................................ 88 : Stand on my shoulders, : jds (a] cs.umd.edu : James da Silva 89 : not on my toes. : uunet!mimsy!jds : http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/jds 90
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