Finnix LiveCD Recovery Distribution Support

I've added support to the LPM that allows you to utilize Finnix as a recovery/rescue/bootstrap distribution. It occupies none of your disk space, autoconfigures your network interface and swap files, and contains enough admin utilities to get just about anything done. To quote the Finnix website:



How to utilize Finnix in our environment

1) Create an empty Configuration Profile (Configurations sub-tab, click "Create a new Configuration Profile")
2) Select "Recovery - Finnix (kernel)" for the kernel
3) Select "Recovery - Finnix (iso)" for /dev/ubda
4) Select "Recovery - Finnix (initrd)" for the initrd (right below disk images)
5) Add your disk images that you need to repair/mount from inside Finnix to the remaining /dev/ubd slots.
6) Boot the new profile
7) Use the Lish Console to access your Finnix install

Short History on Finnix

Finnix was created by our very own Linode.com Community member "fo0bar" (Ryan Finnie).



The Finnix LiveCD



Finnix ISOs for x86, PPC, UML and Xen are freely available for download for non-Linode use at:
http://www.finnix.org/

Ryan also has a Limited Edition signed LiveCD available here:
http://www.finnix.org/limited-edition.php

The Finnix Distrowatch page:
http://www.distrowatch.com/finnix

Finnix+Linode Sourceforge announcement:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=513745

Enjoy!
-Chris

Thanks a lot for your support, caker. I'm very pleased how it turned out. This is a feature that, as far as I know, no other VDS provider has even attempted (despite many many people asking for it ). Here's how it looks when you boot into the Finnix image:

Welcome to Finnix for User Mode Linux!

[*] Running Linux kernel 2.6.14.2-finnix86.1-linode1 on i686
[*] Host: Linux host11.linode.com 2.6.11-1-bigmem64 #2 SMP Mon Mar 7 15:00:57 EST 2005 i686
[*] Scanning for partitions and creating /etc/fstab... done
[*] Using swap partition /dev/ubdb
[*] Starting background DHCP request... eth0
[*] Finnix version 86.1 ready; 346 packages available
INIT: Entering runlevel: 2
root@tty0:~#

BTW kids, those Limited Edition CDs have not been publicly announced yet, so order now and be... umm, cool.

Awesom! An excellent new feature, thanks guys!

Awesome. I can get rid of my Debian image now that I'd been keeping around for recovery in case I needed it. Thanks, guys.

Thanks for the new feature.

Welcome to the forums, crespowu!

The Linode forums contain a wealth of handy information, both about Linux in general and about running a Linode. One caveat when looking through them: keep an eye on the date of a post before replying. Sometimes ancient threads get resuscitated, and they start showing up at the top of the recent activity list. That's when dogs start living with cats and confusion reigns.

Sorry,... couldn't resist.

I just used this utility to successfully edit a script that crashed my server at startup...between your AJAX Console and this Finnix Recovery CD integration, your services are the best I've ever seen for a VPS...bravo.

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How to use Finnix these days, please? Because there is no /dev/ubda, I think the configuration profile changed since the release of this tutorial.

TIA.

Anywhere it says ub change it to xv. Everything else is exactly the same.

-James

In UML, disk images follow the naming scheme "/dev/ubdX". In Xen, it's "/dev/xvdX". So, just do a find/replace (as it were) and continue following the instructions.

Edit: Damn, irgeek wins.

While upgrading my Arch system today something really bad occured with glibc resulting in bash not working because of library errors. Thankfully finnix was available as it saved my ass... thanks Linode!!!

I just got this during a failed reboot.

[code]kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 216k freed
INIT: version 2.86 booting
hostname: the specified hostname is invalid
Activating swap...Adding 262136k swap on /dev/xvdb. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:262136k
done.
Checking root file system...fsck 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
/dev/xvda has gone 338 days without being checked, check forced.
/dev/xvda: Inodes that were part of a corrupted orphan linked list found.

/dev/xvda: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
(i.e., without -a or -p options)
fsck died with exit status 4
failed (code 4).
* An automatic file system check (fsck) of the root filesystem failed.
A manual fsck must be performed, then the system restarted.
The fsck should be performed in maintenance mode with the
root filesystem mounted in read-only mode.
* The root filesystem is currently mounted in read-only mode.
A maintenance shell will now be started.
After performing system maintenance, press CONTROL-D
to terminate the maintenance shell and restart the system.
Give root password for maintenance
(or type Control-D to continue):[/code]

And this forum post sorted this all out for me.

And once again exceptional exemplary service by linode staff too in helping me out.

Thanks a lot.