1 2CRUNCH 0.3 README 7/23/94 3 4Crunch is available via anonymous ftp to ftp.cs.umd.edu in 5 pub/bsd/crunch-0.3.tar.gz 6 7WHAT'S NEW IN 0.3 8 9* The prototype awk script has been replaced by a more capable and 10 hopefully more robust C program. 11* No fragile template makefiles or dependencies on the details of the 12 bsd build environment. 13*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 23INTRODUCTION 24 25Crunch is a little package that helps create "crunched" binaries for use 26on boot, install, and fixit floppies. A crunched binary in this case is 27one where many programs have been linked together into one a.out file. 28The different programs are run depending on the value of argv[0], so 29hard links to the crunched binary suffice to simulate a perfectly normal 30system. 31 32As an example, I have created an 980K crunched "fixit" binary containing 33the 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 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 41Note carefully: vi, cpio, gzip, ed, sed, dump/restore, some networking 42utilities, and the disk management utilities, all in a binary small 43enough to fit on a 1.2 MB root filesystem floppy (albeit with the kernel 44on its own boot floppy). A more reasonable subset can be made to fit 45easily with a kernel for a decent one-disk fixit filesystem. 46 47The linking together of different programs by hand is an old 48space-saving technique. Crunch automates the process by building the 49necessary stub files and makefile for you (via the crunchgen program), 50and by doctoring the symbol tables of the component .o files to allow 51them to link without "symbol multiply defined" conflicts (via the 52crunchide program). 53 54 55BUILDING CRUNCH 56 57Just type make, then make install. 58 59Crunch was written and tested under NetBSD/i386, but should work under 60other PC BSD systems that use GNU ld. 61 62The crunchgen(1) and crunchide(1) man pages have more details on using 63crunch, and the examples subdirectory contains some working .conf files 64and a sample Makefile. 65 66CREDITS 67 68Thanks to the NetBSD team for a consistently high quality effort in 69bringing together a solid, state of the art development environment. 70 71Thanks to the FreeBSD guys; Rod Grimes, Nate Williams and Jordan 72Hubbard; and to Bruce Evans, for immediate and detailed feedback on 73crunch 0.1, and for pressing me to make the prototype more useable. 74 75Crunch was written for the Maruti Hard Real-Time Operating System 76project at the University of Maryland, to help make for better install 77and recovery procedures for our NetBSD-based development environment. It 78is copyright (c) 1994 by the University of Maryland under a UCB-style 79freely- redistributable notice. See the file COPYRIGHT for details. 80 81Please let me know of any problems or of enhancements you make to this 82package. I'm particularly interested in the details of what you found 83was good to put on your fixit or install disks. Thanks! 84 85Share and Enjoy, 86Jaime 87............................................................................ 88: Stand on my shoulders, : jds@cs.umd.edu : James da Silva 89: not on my toes. : uunet!mimsy!jds : http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/jds 90