[Voyage-linux] package installation on ro filesystem

[Gustin Johnson]

/var/cache/apt

On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 9:03 AM, Jeff Ramin <jeff.ramin at singlewire.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks.
>
> I should clarify - the only packages being installed are those that I have
> written, so I know which directories the actual software needs to be
> writable.
>
> My question was really: which dirs does apt (or dpkg) need to be writable?
>
>
> On 02/25/2011 09:58 AM, Gustin Johnson wrote:
>>
>> It depends on the package.  Usually everything under /usr and /var
>> which is pretty much most of the system.  Apt uses /var
>> (/var/cache/apt).  Depending on the package, the common locations are
>> /usr/lib /usr/share, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, kernels also need to write
>> to /boot.  Depending on the where the package stores it's
>> configuration files you will probably need /etc as well.
>>
>> The obvious question to me is why can you not remount-rw dynamically?
>>
>> The other question I would ask is webmin really a requirement for
>> system updates?  If so the ideal approach in my mind is trigger the
>> remount-r? scripts from webmin.  I have not used webmin in close to a
>> decade, but I seem to remember it being easy to trigger scripts from
>> webmin (ie. have a button that runs remount-rw/ro or have it do that
>> before updating).
>>
>> If none of those are options then you may be easier to simply prevent
>> the machine from going into ro mode, which is trivial to do.  My dev
>> box is like this (though I still can run remount-ro manually to test
>> my customizations).
>
> --
> Jeff Ramin
> Software Engineer
> Singlewire Software
> 2601 W Beltline Hwy #510
> Madison, WI 53713
>
> Phone Direct - 608.661.1172
> www.singlewire.com
>
>