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Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 2,052  

overlay-root

Hello:

Aside from a post post by Ralph Ronnquist from early 2023, I have not seen or read about anyone using it.

Q: anyone using overlayroot?

Asking because I will most probably not upgrade to Excalibur, Daedalus works perfectly well with my ca. 2007 hardware, just like it did with  Jesse / ascii onwards.

Best,

A.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,920  

Re: overlay-root

I had a build host for live isos that was set up that way, but things got moved around and now I just have a regular VM to work in. I think I let that virtual host go because I couldn't do vnc with it. Other than that, it worked and I didn't notice a difference.

rbit

Member

Registered: 2018-06-12

Posts: 127  

Re: overlay-root

I use overlay-boot on several servers now.  A couple different configurations -- mainly using overlayfs, one is using a loop image file with drbd.  In fact just this last weekend I updated my installation of overlay-boot -- it was a bit outdated.  There's now a SHARE option that will bind-mount, which I've also found helpful for my use case.  In my overlay-boot configuration, the subhost's LOWER directory is a higher version of devuan than the hosting system (I created it with debootstrap --minbase and added things as needed).  For example, on a chimaera host I run daedalus subhosts; on a daedalus host, I run excalibur subhosts.  It's taken a bit of trial-and-error getting things set up, but for the most part it's been working well.
Did you have any particular question about overlay-boot?

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 2,052  

Re: overlay-root

Hello:

Sorry for the delay in answering, was away from my kb.
Or maybe the kb was away from me? 8^°

... worked and I didn't notice a difference.

Good to know.

... use overlay-boot on several servers ...
... bit of trial-and-error getting things set up, but for the most part it's been working well.

Thank you for the detail but I fear it is all rather over my head.
But it is good to know it works as you intended which means that it will most probably work for me.

So, one down. 8^)

... any particular question about overlay-boot?

The basic question for me would be if it will work for my (simple?) use case and most important, how to go about it.

To wit:

1.
Not decided yet but most probably will not be entering the Devuan Excalibur scene.
Reasons being how complicated it is getting (and will get) and the fact that (as mentioned) my box works perfectly well with Daedalus*.

That means I will not purchase any new core hardware (MB, PSU, etc.) save something wreaking havoc with my Sun U24.
Possible exceptions would be finding the odd SAS2/3 spare and matching controller, or a four socket PCI-E video card to replace the twin two socket FX580s for a decent price (liberating a PCI-E slot) or having to replace one or both of the SyncMaster 940n flanking a newer but also discontinued Dell P1914S.

*
TL;DR: all hardware that will run perfectly well with Devuan Daedalus (or even Chimaera) without a hitch - PBKAC being the obvious exception.

My idea (if feasible) is to run a Devuan Daedalus box in a highly protected space, isolated from the web for work/office crap.

And at the same time have web access by other means. eg: a VM running an up-to-date Devuan live ISO with some sort of sandboxed environment for banking, sharing downloads or video streaming (which I do quite a bit at these days).

My box hosts a headless Devuan Chimaera VM with a Pi-hole/Unbound DNS which could be moved to a RPi3B+ living in a drawer. It may then justify the time and money I spent on the bloody thing and in doing so, liberate memory (8Gb) and CPU (Intel Q9550) cycles for running the above setup.

That is about it.

Best,

A.