documentation / improvement of FAI_RAMDISKS?

Toomas Tamm tt-fai at kky.ttu.ee
Tue Oct 5 15:36:36 CEST 2010


Hello!

Recent versions of FAI 4.0 in experimental have a new variable,
FAI_RAMDISKS, which replaces the FAI_NORAMDISK in older versions.

The only documentation (besides the warning issued if the old variable
is used) seems to be in http://wiki.fai-project.org/index.php/Variables
and that does not document an important use case: what to put into the
variable if I do not want any ramdisks to be used (eg if RAM is scarce).

I tried 'unset FAI_RAMDISKS and 'FAI_RAMDISKS=""', neither of which led
to the desired effect: the default value $target/var/lib/dpkg gets
assigned just prior to its use in /usr/lib/fai/mkramdisk any time the
variable is unset or empty.

The code in /usr/lib/fai/mkramdisk contains a check whether the would-be
ramdisk will be mounted on an existing direcory. Thus, if I assign a
non-directory value (eg "NONE") to FAI_RAMDISKS, I should achieve the
desired effect or not having any ramdisks mounted.

I think that this case should be better documented, and perhaps a
special value (such as NONE) should be tested for in mkramdisk ?

Toomas



More information about the linux-fai mailing list