[Debburn-devel] Filesystem image creators and GRUB support

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

> > > > > 16:22 < phcoder> dkg0: it doesn't allow choosing a stable UUID
George Danchev wrote:
> at least uuidgen (from util-linux package) uses Ted T'so uuid library (same 
> package shlibs/uuid/src/gen_uuid.c) to generate time-based and random-based 
> (provided a decent PRNG exits) unique identifiers.

But where is the UUID to be stored in an ISO 9660
image ? 

> Oh, perhaps we are talking about how blkid(8) from util-linux calculates 
> uuid's to device names? 

Yes. That aspect.
I see in grub.cfg : "search --fs-uuid" and
"root=UUID=...".
ISO 9660/ECMA-119 says nothing about UUID.

I assume GRUB computes a pseudo-UUID from some
properties of the image. The Primary Volume
Descriptor provides several candidates.
(See paragraph 8.4 of
 http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Ecma-119.pdf
)

So it would be necessary to know those
properties, to preserve or discard them
appropriately, and to allow the user to set them.

But first one would need to know how to make
a GRUB bootable ISO image. 


------------------------------------------------

> > A libhfs that is usable by libisofs would have
> > to provide ...
> That sounds rather complicated to be honest,

I know. But it is the fundamental way of libisofs
to generate an image. Hard to imagine how to
create a hybrid of ISO and HFS from the output of
a standalone-HFS library.

On the other hand i read at the bottom of
  http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=437226
from Daniel Kahn Gillmor:
> > There is currently an embedded code copy of libhfs (or some variant of
> > it, at any rate) in cdrkit (and probably ultimately libhfs should be
> > used by the libburnia project

Well, if it fits into genisoimage, then it should
be possible to make an adapter for libisofs.
I can see ./libhfs_iso in cdrkit, but cannot
spot any documentation.

So the first task of a libhfs would be to provide
an overview of its services and some usage
instructions. The most recent technical work in
cdrkit-1.1.7.1/libhfs_iso seems to be by Joerg
Schilling.


We would need HFS testers anyway.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas