2009 Live DVD, howto make a simple, working osx livedvd Options

[spartango]

Things just keep getting better, 2009 is an excellent year already!

I am proud to announce that we now have a fully functioning, catch-free OSX live dvd that is painless to produce, and incredibly functional!

I attach images and a script that are relevant to this success, and I post here the method by which such a live dvd will be produced. I hope that now that this is functional and simple enough, we should be able to move on and put some nice features on the dvd.

Pictures:
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 Picture_5.png ( 915.73K ) Number of downloads: 7388


 Picture_1.png ( 699.92K ) Number of downloads: 4125


 Picture_4.png ( 679.42K ) Number of downloads: 3180

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How it works:

This method works because OSX has a disk image boot system in place to support its network boot system. IOHDIXController and kernel can take a path to disk image supplied to them, and mount it as /, via "imageboot", which recognizes a disk image as an attachable filesystem.
Further, Apple has setup a system to take a read-only disk image and attach a shadowfile to it, so that it is writeable. Intended to support a network boot system by making the user's session local and non-persistent, it is implemented in /etc/rc.netboot. Basically, vndevice (/usr/libexec/vndevice) attaches a shadow file to the dmg, and enables a copy-on-write strategy on that device--writes to the dmg are diverted to the temporary shadow file. This is much like what happens on a linux live dvd, albeit with Unionfs.
Normally the shadowfile is created on a local disk or network share, on either nfs or hfs. Under my method, the shadowfile is created on ramdisk formatted with hfs, and the system behaves exactly as if it were booted with netboot. The difference is that I specify that the dmg to boot from is local(file:///), and then manually start a customized rc script. The script behaves like rc.netboot, except i create a ramdisk and setup the shadowfile there instead of on a local disk. After that / is R/W and OS X boots normally into finder...and beyond.

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So HOWTO:
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 rc.liveboot.txt ( 4.93K ) Number of downloads: 6078


This method provides a way to boot from media that are read-only by diverting all writes to a ramdisk. This means it can be used to boot from a dvd(described here), USB drive, or pretty much any other media. It uses BOOT-132/Darwin as a boot loader and then exploits Apple's netboot and imageboot systems to boot from a disk image.

Install OSX fresh, boot into it and login/customize your user a bit. It's set in stone from here on out.

We need to be able to boot from a dmg, by giving Apple's netboot/image boot the pieces it needs:

0. You'll need to hack IOHDIXController.kext abit. Show its package contents, find Info.plist and change "Network-Root" to "Root". Do that for all its plugins as well. Regenerate Extensions.mkext.

1. Prepare the target media with boot-132. There are plenty of tuts in the genius bar for this...

2. Now following Rammjet's instructions, we plant some files on the root of the media:

CODE

/.Spotlight-V100
/.Trashes
/.com.apple.timemachine.supported
/.fseventsd
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist
/System/Library/Extensions.mkext
/mach_kernel

3. That done, we need to plant the new rc script: download rc.liveboot.txt, remove the txt extension and put it under /etc. make sure its perms are the same as rc.netboot. Note that if you want to set the ramdisk size, it's in that script under RAMDisk(). Just keep it >= 2000000 512 blocks...

4. Alright we're done hacking. Using disk utility, create a compressed dmg of that installation.
5. Place that in the root of your media... live.dmg is a good name for it.
6. BURN/EJECT

7. Now, boot from that media. at the darwin prompt, provide the params:
-v -f -s rp=file:///live.dmg
These can also be provided under com.apple.Boot.plist

8. At the single user prompt, run the liveboot script:
sh /etc/rc.liveboot init

9. When that finishes, exit the shell.
The system should come up and be alive!!
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Big thanks to entire OSX86 community & esp those who helped make this! Hagar, modbin, ~pcwiz, Rammjet, socalswimmer ...
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Attached File(s)

 rc.liveboot.txt ( 4.93K ) Number of downloads: 2063

 

[OCM770]

Wow nice, thanks

[socal swimmer]

hey

I did this to a usb partition using boot-132, and everything else you said.

it works!

activity monitor reports that 1.11GB of ram are "wired", so i assume this is the ramdisk.

but this is pretty awesome.

thanks!

[sama7896]

damn you're good !
Thank you !!!!

[Sherry Haibara]

GREAT WORK, Man! I'm really excited to try this out! As soon as I have a DVD and a free HD, I'll report!
Many many thanks from the community!

Sherry Haibara

[rhyguy]

cant you put "-v -f -s rp=file:///live.dmg" in the com.apple.boot.plist?

[Ryu-ka]

That looks sooooooooooooooo awesome! Good job, spartango and everyone else who contributed! I hope to try it soon.

[Cris900]

thanks.....
when i have free time i will try it

[spartango]

Thanks for testing folks!
As to the boot.plist, you sure can add those things, but i don't just so i have full control over them...Feel free to do that, it certainly will work.

Fyi, I'm gonna see if i can build an install script for this, and the community is working on a *universal* ISO(NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION) that would work on any computer a JaS or Kaly install disk would.

[rockstarjoe]

Amazing stuff! I can't wait to see how this plays out... things just keep getting better and better around here. Keep up the good work.

[munky]

good work

[Cris900]

I'm trying now ... tomorrow I hope to post the results ....
a question: how much it weighs your iso?

[krrr]

super work this is , 2009 has good start indeed .

[spartango]

Umm, my compressed image is 2.51GB

Btw, if you setup the boot loader as if you were making an osx install disk for normal macs, and didn't use hackintosh kexts, I believe this method should work for normal macs. Takers?

[fleebailey33]

I assume This could be done to a retail for "real" macs as well which could end up being quite usefullm great work!

[PingunZ]

Amazing work!

[tsotelo2]

A really nice work.Congratz!!

[eluminx]

Awesome job, to everyone who contributed to the project this is great news. I just finished installing 10.5.5 today and have been using it all day. Now that the livecd is possible it will make it so much better. Once again great work guys 2009 has started great indeed...

[MacNutty]

Where can I download the live DVD or I have to use the existing (iDeneb / iATKOS) one?

[mcolinp]

So I am trying to take this all in. I am a little past newbie to Hackintosh, and a long time power user of OSX. I am trying to figure out what all the benefits are of this system. It sounds like it can be updated without having to reapply kexts, etc.? It also seems that it may have performance benefits being that it is a ram disk. So am I correct to assume that your main install always boots as a RAM disk, or is that only for installation purposes?

Please give us some more general info for those of us who don't bleed 0's & 1's.

Thanks