Re: Speed up CD/DVD-based FreeBSD

On Mon, 12 Mar 2018 09:00:28 +0100
Andreas Nilsson <andrnils_at_gmail.com> wrote:


Sorry for the late reply, I'll answer inline, see below.


> On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 8:30 AM, Rodney W. Grimes <
> freebsd-rwg_at_pdx.rh.cn85.dnsmgr.net> wrote:
> 
> > > We have a special case of running FreeBSD (actually a NanoBSD)
> > > from a  
> > CD/DVD.  
> > > The reason behind using a CD/DVD is to prevent manipulations.
> > >
> > > Now, after the GUI hass started, the system autologin a user and  
> > autostarts  
> > > Firefox. But starting Firefox takes ~ 5 - 7 minutes, while the
> > > operating  
> > system  
> > > takes 2 - 3 minutes. As you can imagine, this isn't quite a
> > > useful time.
> > >
> > > Is there a simple way, considering enough RAM in the box, to
> > > speed up the process? Loading Firefox makes the DVD drive moving
> > > the head very often  
> > - I  
> > > assume this is the fact because I can hear the head scratiching
> > > around  
> > very  
> > > intense.
> > >
> > > Does FreeBSD bring tools/facilities onboard to achive what I'm  
> > requesting or do  
> > > I need an additional port/softwarepackage?  
> >
> > Are you custom building this CD-rom image, or is it just a slightly
> > modified
> > stock FreeBSD distritbution with some scripts?

I do not understand correctly what you mean by "stock FreeBSD". I do
not change the sources. It is mostly NanoBSD-driven, but the resulting
system is highly minimalistic by excluding those parts of the OS which
are usually not needed when running embedded applications apart from
development. So, there are lots of WITHOUT_ tags while building and
more importantly while installing the resulting image.

The image itself is "custom made", since NanoBSD doesn't offer a proper
CD9660 build script. But, it isn't hard to add some functionality to
achive this task.


The "bloat" of 2,6 GB size comes from the utoization of X11,
windowmaker and not at last Firefox itself. I'll try to reduce the size
by using x11/xorg-minimal with adding missing/required ports manually,
but this issue is another one.

The meaning of "having enough/plenty of RAM" is: I'm willing to use at
least 2GB RAM, at the moment I have 4GB in the box, but 8 is also
possible. But this box has only one purpose: offering Firefox for
checking on a remote server for some data. So any RAM  more than
necessary is a waste of resources.

> >
> > One suggestion would be to run from a mfs /usr,
> > including /usr/local, as a sample on how to do this take a look
> > at /etc/rc.initdiskless that does this for /etc and /var when
> > booting diskless.

I'll check this, thanks for the hint.

> >
> > I suspect your slow down is shared library linking time, which
> > would mean you might also solve this problem by building a staticly
> > linked firefox binary.  This would be much simpler to try out.

FreeBSD 11.1-RELENG-p7 boot time itself is ~ 3 - 5 minutes (4
core/thread Haswell customer CPU at >3 GHz and 8 GB RAM from DVD ROM).
Starting X11 takes another 3 minutes and when windowmaker shows up
starting Firefox, it takes overall more than 35 minutes until Firefox
is started and usable. The box is supposed to run 24/7, but consider a
power surge or lightouts, it is indisputable that booting takes to long.

Linking Firefox statically would take precautions in the poudriere
package builder we run for such tasks - well, I guess this would be
achivable, but for the sake of being most flexible in terms of we can
use ANY repository I would consider a static linking approach a last
resort.

> >
> > --
> > Rod Grimes
> > rgrimes_at_freebsd.org
> >  
> 
> Hello,
> 
> doesn't nanoBSD run in ro-mode per default, ie it should be somewhat
> tamper proof as is, even installed on disk.

Well, NanoBSD can be configured to mount / ro, but this can be changed.
Running from a DVD ROM provides a better tamper proof solution and I
would prefere the DVD ROM in favour of a potentially writable medium.
At this very moment the test system runs from an USB flash device and
is fairly fast in bootup, > 3 minutes at from hitting the power button
up to have Firefox opened and ready to work.

> 
> If running from optical drive is important, I would have a closer
> look on how pcbsd/trueos sets up their install-discs ( or at least
> used to, haven't tried one in a while ) where they basically load the
> entire file system into ram from a compressed image on the optical
> disc.

Well, thanks for the hint. 

> 
> Best regards
> Andreas

Kind regards,

Oliver