| Updated for Ubuntu Natty Narwhal 11.04 |
This page details the actions that I followed to create a network bootable copy of Ubuntu that was suitable for using in an internet cafe. The instructions show how to set up the server to serve a copy of the CD over NFS, along with the required network boot options, so that any client on the network can use Live Ubuntu just by network booting.
The instructions are written as a reminder for me on how to do it, but hopefully they are clear enough for anyone else to use. Feel free to update them to make it clearer!
I make the assumption that the server runs Debian, but any server should do the job with the right packages.
/srv/ubuntu 10.0.0.1/255.255.0.0(ro,no_root_squash,async,subtree_check)
DEFAULT netboot LABEL netboot KERNEL vmlinuz APPEND noapic initrd=initrd.lz lang=uk nfsroot=10.0.0.1:/srv/ubuntu netboot=nfs root=/dev/nfs boot=casper
/etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart/etc/init.d/tftpd-hpa startIf you want to close all the ports on your server, but open up the required ones for NFS, then you will need to fix the port numbers that NFS uses. To do this, do the following:
STATDOPTS="--port 32765 --outgoing-port 32766"
RPCMOUNTDOPTS="-p 32767"
RPCRQUOTADOPTS="-p 32769"
options lockd nlm_udpport=32768 nlm_tcpport=32768
# NFS ports as per the NFS-HOWTO # http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/NFS-HOWTO/security.html#FIREWALLS # Listing here does not mean they will bind to these ports. rpc.nfsd 2049/tcp # RPC nfsd rpc.nfsd 2049/udp # RPC nfsd rpc.statd-bc 32765/tcp # RPC statd broadcast rpc.statd-bc 32765/udp # RPC statd broadcast rpc.statd 32766/tcp # RPC statd listen rpc.statd 32766/udp # RPC statd listen rpc.mountd 32767/tcp # RPC mountd rpc.mountd 32767/udp # RPC mountd rcp.lockd 32768/tcp # RPC lockd/nlockmgr rcp.lockd 32768/udp # RPC lockd/nlockmgr rpc.quotad 32769/tcp # RPC quotad rpc.quotad 32769/udp # RPC quotad
This is fully detailed in the other section on the site about a Setting up a captive portal from scratch using Debian, so it's best to check that for full details, but essentially you need the following lines in your /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf file:
option root-path "10.0.0.1:/opt/ubuntu"; filename "pxelinux.0"; next-server 10.0.0.1;
This section is optional but recommended. If you already have a customised Ubuntu image, or are happy with the default one provided, then skip to the next step.
I won't provide full details here for extraction - please see the reference at the bottom of the page.
I assume that the squash filesystem has already been extracted and chrooted into.
Now use apt-get to add/remove packages as required. I did the following:
apt-get install joe
apt-get update
apt-get install lynx
apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
The following two scripts are set to run before Gnome starts and after Gnome has started. They call scripts on the NFS file store to copy in further customisations for the user. The reason for this is because once the squashfs image has been mastered it is difficult to alter small settings. These 2 scripts allow alterations to be carried out on the scripts in the NFS file store easily in the future.
This script looks for the /cdrom directory (which is the NFS mount point) and runs any scripts in /cdrom/custom/pre-gnome. This means that on the NFS share, files can be put in /srv/ubuntu/custom and copied using scripts in /srv/ubuntu/custom/pre-gnome
# pre-gnome - run any commands from the nfs share during boot
description "copy files before gnome starts"
start on starting mountall
task
script
. /etc/default/rcS
if [ -x /cdrom/custom/pre-gnome ]; then
for file in `ls /cdrom/custom/pre-gnome`; do
if [ "${file}" != "${file%""~""}" ]; then
continue
fi
/cdrom/custom/pre-gnome/$file /cdrom/custom/
done
fi
end script
#!/bin/sh
. /lib/lsb/init-functions
if [ -x /cdrom/custom/post-gnome ]; then
log_begin_msg "Running post-gnome scripts (/cdrom/custom)"
for file in `ls /cdrom/custom/post-gnome`; do
if [ "${file}" != "${file%""~""}" ]; then
continue
fi
/cdrom/custom/post-gnome/$file /cdrom/custom/
done
fi
chmod +x /usr/bin/post-gnome
[Desktop Entry] Name=Remote Configure Script Encoding=UTF-8 Version=1.0 Name[en_GB]=post-gnome Exec=post-gnome Comment=Copies over any files after Gnome has started GenericName=Post Gnome Copy Terminal=false Type=Application X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=5
#!/bin/bash
while [ 1 ]
do
# check that firefox is not already running
if ps aux|grep 'firefox-bin'|grep -v 'grep' > /dev/null
then
echo nothing > /dev/null
else
# disable client from browsing web, forcing them to sign syops
lynx -dump http://earth.wardroom/disable.php > /dev/null
/usr/bin/firefox $1
rm -fr /home/ubuntu/.mozilla/firefox/
fi
sleep 2
done
chmod +x /usr/bin/firefox.sh
Create /etc/xdg/autostart/firefox.sh.desktop
[Desktop Entry] Version=1.0 Name=Firefox restart shell Comment=Browse the World Wide Web GenericName=Web Browser Terminal=false Type=Application Exec=firefox.sh X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=5 Name[en_GB]=Firefox.sh
XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="gb"
/etc/skel contains the skeleton layout of the to-be-created ubuntu user. Add and remove files as required. (I just removed the Examples link)
rm /var/lib/dbus/machine-id
rm /sbin/initctl
dpkg-divert --rename --remove /sbin/initctl
rm /etc/resolv.conf
umount /proc || umount -lf /proc
umount /sys
umount /dev/pts
Exit from chroot
sudo umount edit/dev || sudo umount -lf edit/dev
rm filesystem.squashfs
sudo mksquashfs edit filesystem.squashfs
Create directories /srv/ubuntu/custom/pre-gnome and /srv/ununtu/custom/post-gnome on the server and insert scripts as follows. The directories and the contents referenced in the scripts should also be created as required with custom settings in. To get the required settings, I ran a Live copy of Ubuntu, made my changes, and then copied the appropriate changed files to the server.
#!/bin/bash cp -a $1/home/.gconf /home/ubuntu/.gconf chown -R ubuntu.ubuntu /home/ubuntu/.gconf cp -a $1/home/.mozilla /home/ubuntu/.mozilla chown -R ubuntu /home/ubuntu/.mozilla cp -a $1/home/.local /home/ubuntu/.local chown -R ubuntu /home/ubuntu/.local cp -a $1/home/.config /home/ubuntu/.config chown -R ubuntu /home/ubuntu/.config cp $1/printers.conf /etc/cups cp $1/LaserJet-4050.ppd /etc/cups/ppd /etc/init.d/cupsys force-reload cp $1/ubuntumenu.png /opt # A complete hack. ESD (for sounds) seems to make an error # come up about gnome-settings-daemon rm /usr/bin/esd
rm /etc/localtime ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/London /etc/localtime
ntpdate -u pool.ntp.org
#!/bin/bash echo "DefaultSession=gnome-classic" >> /etc/gdm/custom.conf
chmod +x /srv/ubuntu/custom/pre-gnome/ntp
chmod +x /srv/ubuntu/custom/pre-gnome/timezone
chmod +x /srv/ubuntu/custom/pre-gnome/gdm
#!/bin/bash # This script runs on start up of gnome, to put hacks in that I couldn't get working # A real hack to get the panel configured as required # I couldn't get the default settings to work from /etc/gconf, so this # script copies them in once gnome has started, and then restarts the panel. sleep 4 rm -fr ~/.gconf cp -a /cdrom/custom/home/.gconf . gconftool-2 --shutdown killall gnome-panel
Make the 2 scripts above executable (chmod +x copy)
The above example copy in the settings from /opt/ubuntu/custom/home. An example set of scripts that can be placed there are contained at http://www.andybev.com/web-portal/home.tar.gz. To use:
cd /srv/ubuntu/custom wget http://www.andybev.com/web-portal/home.tar.gz tar -zxvf home.tar.gz
#!/bin/bash cp $1/printers.conf /etc/cups cp $1/LaserJet-4050.ppd /etc/cups/ppd /etc/init.d/cupsys force-reload
chmod +x /srv/ubuntu/custom/pre-gnome/printer