Installation of Shurdix

Shurdix has an “Install mode”, but you can install it manually without much troubles as well. However, there is no need for separate “installation”, as long as you boot from something (e.g. CD) and there is a shurdix-conf.tar.gz somewhere (e.g. on a USB-Stick), it will be found and used.

For more information about booting, see boot.

The install mode is invoked by added the INSTALL argument to kernel command line. Usually you are installing from a CD, in which case it is sufficient to type install on the boot prompt (this is also explained on the welcome boot screen).

After the hardware detection is done and (if existing) previous configuration is loaded, setup will be executed. The parameters that are highly recommended to set are the root password (without it you won’t be able to login) and the system partition (without it neither the configuration nor the system files can be saved). It is also recommended to set the hostname, so that the newly generated keys and certificates for ssh and stunnel contain the correct name. You can set the other parameters later by running setup.pl from the command line.

After you quit it, the init script will try to partition the disk (according to the settings you made), create a filesystem and put there the rootfs, the kernel, your configuration and optional modules you enabled. It will try to find them either on the internet or (if you don’t have a working internet connection) on the CD.

Then the init script will continue as normally, and in the end you have a ready-to-use Shurdix system.

The automated install procedure makes some assumptions and only works in specified cases:

• The install machine needs internet access. It may work with IDE-CD, but is untested.
• The media for the system should be either an IDE disk or a DoC. Other (for example USB devices) aren’t suppported, you have to manually install syslinux.