Takeover.sh – Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system via SSH without reboot

Re:Takeover.sh – Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system v... by exDM69 on Saturday February 11, 2017 @11:12AM (#13623183)

Yes, it's a fun exercise to build a tiny Linux install that's fully on the initrd. Not that you'd want to have that kind of system in daily use outside of special applications.

> I think it's even possible to embed the initrd in the kernel binary itself, but I've never really investigated that.

Yes, the kernel config has an option to embed the initrd in the kernel image. I'm not sure if there are any advantages to this.

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Re:Takeover.sh – Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system v... by arca_vorago on Saturday February 11, 2017 @12:14PM (#13623496)

I use the initramfs method to put an small ssh server in that I can use to unlock full disk encrypted headless boxen, so I could see initrd in the kernel being used in a similar way.

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Re:Takeover.sh – Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system v... by yellowapple on Saturday February 11, 2017 @10:34PM (#13626523)

The advantage to embedding the initrd is usually that you don't have to worry about a separate initrd (for example, if you're reliant on some really basic bootloader). It's also more in-line with, say, OpenBSD (AFAICT) which doesn't use a separate initrd/initramfs (not sure if this is true of all BSDs).

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Re:Takeover.sh – Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system v... by nickysielicki on Sunday February 12, 2017 @04:54AM (#13627657)

> I'm not sure if there are any advantages to this

This comes to mind: http://kroah.com/log/blog/2013/09/02/booting-a-self-signed-l...

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Re:Takeover.sh – Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system v... by amboar on Sunday February 12, 2017 @05:47AM (#13627786)

Having the initrd merged with the kernel is slightly less hassle when netbooting to test during kernel development

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