LFS

Linux From Scratch Project

Work Log

Prerequisites

In order to share files between systems, the git program was used.

Problem with git.

WARNING: gnome-keyring:: couldn't connect to: /home/[user_name]/.cache/keyring-[generated_string]/pkcs11

Solutions found @ Debian Forums & Solved Programming Problems

Part I - Introduction

Chapter I

Just reading, nothing of note.

Part II - Preparing for the Build

Chapter II - Preparing a new Partition

1. Creating the empty partitions

In this chapter we need to create a new partition where the LFS Linux kernel will be located.

The problem : only have 1 partition and it's the bootable one.

Solution for VM : add a new harddrive of 12GB

Harddrive is located in /dev/sdb (port 2 SATA) Run:

cfdisk /dev/sdb

And then

1. add the 10240MB partition with
2. and the swap partition for the remaining 2GBs

This can also be done with gparted as it's simply much easier.

Solution for Ubuntu Laptop :

Reboot the machine with the Ubuntu USB stick inserted. Boot on the Live Ubuntu Image and get gparted. Resize to heart's content and follow the rest of the instructions (or just do everything with gparted).

Source

2. Make file system:

In order to see the number of the partitions one must run:

fdisk -l

Then using the IDs of the partitions (The second harddrive is located on port 2 SATA so sdb):

mkfs -v -t ext4 /dev/sdb1
mkswap /dev/sdb5

After the filesystem has been created we setup an environment variable $LFS as such:

export LFS=/mnt/lfs

Setting this variable to another place (like home/<user_name>) should be avoided. All users should have read and write permissions to that place otherwise there will be issues afterwards.

This variable will be used to quickly retrive the path to the location of the mounted LFS ppartition.

Add the export within the .bashrc and /root/.bashrc by using

nano .bashrc

Without this change, the environment variable is forgotten when leaving the terminal.

Note: What's the difference between .bashrc, .bash_profile, and .environment?

Note: on ubuntu

Also enabled colored terminal since was already here.

force_color_prompt=yes

3. Mounting the new partition

We make the partition accesible now by mounting it as an ext4 filetype.

sudo mkdir -pv $LFS
sudo mount -v -t ext4 /dev/sdb1 $LFS

The -p option from makedir creates the parents of the path. For example: /dir1/dir2/dir3, creates: dir1, then /dir1/dir2 then /dir1/dir2/dir3

Chapter III - Packages and Patches

In this chapter the sources needed to build a linux kernel are downloaded. The sources are located within the wget-list.txt file but the repository also contains the list itself.

Create the sources directory and set the write and sticky modes on that directory:

mkdir -v $LFS/sources
chmod -v a+wt $LFS/sources

Download all sources by using the wget-list.txt provided by the LFS author/team with the following command:

wget --input-file=wget-list --continue --directory-prefix=$LFS/sources

The packages were also posted on Github. Downloading them from git would probably require the LFS git as some of the files are larger than 50mb.

Just run :

git clone https://github.com/Drakesinger/LFS-7.8-Packages.git sources

Chapter IV - Final Preparations

In this chapter we create a directory for the installation of temporary tools used to compile our kernel and we add an unprivileged user with a personal environment to reduce the risk of hurting our host system.

1. The Tools directory

As root, create the tools directory and a symbolic link to it on the host system.

sudo mkdir -v $LFS/tools
sudo ln -sv $LFS/tools /

2. The lfs user

Next we add the lfs user so that no pain may arrive when doing the rest of the actions.

sudo groupadd lfs
sudo useradd -s /bin/bash -g lfs -m -k /dev/null lfs

Now we need that lfs user to have a password:

sudo passwd lfs

And we grant it full access rights to tools and sources (he'll need it).

chown -v lfs $LFS/tools
chown -v lfs $LFS/sources

Now we login as the lfs user:

su - lfs

3. The lfs user's environment

Run the following commands to set up the environment:

cat > ~/.bash_profile << "EOF"
exec env -i HOME=$HOME TERM=$TERM PS1='\u:\w\$ ' /bin/bash
EOF

cat > ~/.bashrc << "EOF"
set +h
umask 022
LFS=/mnt/lfs
LC_ALL=POSIX
LFS_TGT=$(uname -m)-lfs-linux-gnu
PATH=/tools/bin:/bin:/usr/bin
export LFS LC_ALL LFS_TGT PATH
EOF

source ~/.bash_profile

Chapter V - Constructing a Temporary System

Q) What is a toolchain?

A) Compiler + Assembler + Linker + Libraries

In order to determine the working platform we can run the script located within the binutils tarball called config.guess. The result on my VM is:

$ ./config.guess
i686-pc-linux-gnu

To determine the platform's dynamic linker run the following:

$ echo 'int main(){}' > dummy.c
$ gcc dummy.c 
$ ls
a.out  dummy.c
$ readelf -l a.out | grep interpreter
      [Requesting program interpreter: /lib/ld-linux.so.2]

Note Added the $ to diferentiate input from output.

For the rest of this chapter, just follow the instruction in the book.

In case it is not clear (it isn't sometimes), for each sub-chapter (aka. package) you do the following:

1. Untar it: tar -xf <package_name>.tar.xz
2. Go into the extracted folder: cd <package_name>
3. Follow the rest of the instructions.
4. Once done, go back to the sources directory: cd ..
5. Remove the extracted files: rm -r <package_name>

Note I have not encountered any problems during this chapter.

Once the stripping has been done (I have not done it) you change users again.

Exit the lfs user's shell by entering:

exit

And change the ownership back to root:

chown -R root:root $LFS/tools

Part III - Building the LFS System

Chapter VI - Installing Basic System Software

1. Preparing Virtual Kernel File Systems

1. Directories where the file systems will be mounted

mkdir -pv $LFS/{dev,proc,sys,run}

2. Device nodes

mknod -m 600 $LFS/dev/console c 5 1
mknod -m 666 $LFS/dev/null c 1 3

3. Mounting and populating /dev

mount -v --bind /dev $LFS/dev

4. Remaining virtual kernel filesystems:

mount -vt devpts devpts $LFS/dev/pts -o gid=5,mode=620
mount -vt proc proc $LFS/proc
mount -vt sysfs sysfs $LFS/sys
mount -vt tmpfs tmpfs $LFS/run

2. Package Management

No package manager is installed.

3. Entering the Chroot environment

We now enter a different root environment that is populated with the temporary tools only:

chroot "$LFS" /tools/bin/env -i \
HOME=/root \
TERM="$TERM" \
PS1='\u:\w\$ ' \
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/tools/bin \
/tools/bin/bash --login +h

If one ever quits this environment, run the command again.

The bash prompt will indicate that this user has no name. This will be fixed later after the passwd and group files are created is installed.

4. Creating Directories

mkdir -pv /{bin,boot,etc/{opt,sysconfig},home,lib/firmware,mnt,opt}
mkdir -pv /{media/{floppy,cdrom},sbin,srv,var}
install -dv -m 0750 /root
install -dv -m 1777 /tmp /var/tmp
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}{bin,include,lib,sbin,src}
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}share/{color,dict,doc,info,locale,man}
mkdir -v /usr/{,local/}share/{misc,terminfo,zoneinfo}
mkdir -v /usr/libexec
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}share/man/man{1..8}
case $(uname -m) in
x86_64) ln -sv lib /lib64
ln -sv lib /usr/lib64
ln -sv lib /usr/local/lib64 ;;
esac
mkdir -v /var/{log,mail,spool}
ln -sv /run /var/run
ln -sv /run/lock /var/lock
mkdir -pv /var/{opt,cache,lib/{color,misc,locate},local}

5. Creating Essential Files and Symlinks

ln -sv /tools/bin/{bash,cat,echo,pwd,stty} /bin
ln -sv /tools/bin/perl /usr/bin
ln -sv /tools/lib/libgcc_s.so{,.1} /usr/lib
ln -sv /tools/lib/libstdc++.so{,.6} /usr/lib
sed 's/tools/usr/' /tools/lib/libstdc++.la > /usr/lib/libstdc++.la
ln -sv bash /bin/sh

ln -sv /proc/self/mounts /etc/mtab

Create the passwd file:

cat > /etc/passwd << "EOF"
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
bin:x:1:1:bin:/dev/null:/bin/false
daemon:x:6:6:Daemon User:/dev/null:/bin/false
messagebus:x:18:18:D-Bus Message Daemon User:/var/run/dbus:/bin/false
nobody:x:99:99:Unprivileged User:/dev/null:/bin/false
EOF

And the groups:

cat > /etc/group << "EOF"
root:x:0:
bin:x:1:daemon
sys:x:2:
kmem:x:3:
tape:x:4:
tty:x:5:
daemon:x:6:
floppy:x:7:
disk:x:8:
lp:x:9:
dialout:x:10:
audio:x:11:
video:x:12:
utmp:x:13:
usb:x:14:
cdrom:x:15:
adm:x:16:
messagebus:x:18:
systemd-journal:x:23:
input:x:24:
mail:x:34:
nogroup:x:99:
users:x:999:
EOF

Now run the shell againm this will allow user name and group name resolution to work since the files have been set up:

exec /tools/bin/bash --login +h

In order for some programs, login, agetty and init to write their log files, those files need to exist:

touch /var/log/{btmp,lastlog,wtmp}
chgrp -v utmp /var/log/lastlog
chmod -v 664 /var/log/lastlog
chmod -v 600 /var/log/btmp

For the rest of this chapter, just follow the instructions from the book. Some of the packages however, had some changes we needed to do in order for our swiss french virtual linux machine.

Packages with modifications or installed without testsuite confirmation:

• Glibc Locales used:

  localedef -i fr_CH -f UTF-8 fr_CH.UTF-8
  localedef -i fr_CH -f ISO-8859-1 fr_CH

  Everything else is the same.

• GCC

  The GCC compiler has been installed following the instructions in the book. The test results are located [here](.\Captures\GCC Testsuite Summary-details.txt). Comparing with the results of the testsuite ran by the GCC team shows that the failed tests are not really problematic.

  Failed tests:

  

• Shadow configuration

  • left GROUP=999 by default
  • Changed CREATE_MAIL_SPOOL=no using: sed -i 's/yes/no/' /etc/default/useradd

• Libtool-2.4

• Inetutils-1.9.4

• Perl

• Autoconf

• Automake

• Diffutils

• GetText

• Gperf

• GROFF

  Configured with the following:

  PAGE=A4 ./configure --prefix=/usr

• XZ-5.2.1

  Problem after installation.

   ln -svf ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/liblzma.so) /usr/lib/liblzma.so

  However, after some study (and using ls -lFahH --color ):

  The symbolic link /usr/lib/liblzma.so will point to

   lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    26 Mar  7 16:29 liblzma.so -> ../../lib/liblzma.so.5.2.1*

  /lib is the root, may have been easier to point directly to /lib insted of ../../lib. This is made in case the user does not exist?

  Looks like acctually all symbolic links to libraries not in the user use the same type of paths.

• Kmod Problem

  Last symbolic link could not be created. Tried to remake the package -> failure. had to restore back to a previous image. After rebuilding and modifying everything from the Autoconf tool, everything works.

• Eudev

  Command to update hardware device info:

  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/tools/lib udevadm hwdb --update

  Needs to be run after every hardware update

Chapter 7 - System Configuration

Managing Devices

Nothing was done to deal with duplicate devices nor insertable USBs.

General Network Configuaration

Following the book, the following configuration has been used:

cat > /etc/sysconfig/ifconfig.eth0 << "EOF"
ONBOOT=yes
IFACE=eth0
SERVICE=ipv4-static
IP=192.168.1.2
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
PREFIX=24
BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
EOF

The /etc/resolv.conf file was configured using the data from the host machine.

To configure the resolv.conf file run the following:

cat > /etc/resolv.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/resolv.conf
domain <Your Domain Name>
nameserver <IP address of your primary nameserver>
nameserver <IP address of your secondary nameserver>
# End /etc/resolv.conf
EOF

However, it was modified as in the following screenshot to be in accord with the network at school:


In order to share stuff between the debian machine and everything else I set up git. The IP address of the virtual machine was wrong and had to renew the lease. Done with:

$ sudo dhclient -r eth0
$ sudo dhclient eth0

The system hostname has been configured using:

echo "mutdeb" > /etc/hostname

The hosts file has not been set up as no address resolutions had to be done.

Configuring Sysvinit

Just following the book:

cat > /etc/inittab << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/inittab
id:3:initdefault:
si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc S
l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 0
l1:S1:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 6
ca:12345:ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t1 -a -r now
su:S016:once:/sbin/sulogin
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty --noclear tty1 9600
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty2 9600
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty3 9600
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty4 9600
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty5 9600
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty6 9600
# End /etc/inittab
EOF

Configuring the system clock

The Virtual Machine has not been rebooted in some time and the hardware clock was very different than the system clock. Seeing as the command:

hwclock --localtime -show

Did not return a value that was accurate to the system clock it means that the hwclock was set to UTC. To configure the clock I did:

cat > /etc/sysconfig/clock << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/sysconfig/clock
UTC=1
# Set this to any options you might need to give to hwclock,
# such as machine hardware clock type for Alphas.
CLOCKPARAMS=
# End /etc/sysconfig/clock
EOF

No clockparams as it was simply not clear from the manual page what to enter there.

Configuring the linux console

The worst part of the whole book.

This is the part where documentation is simply abysmal and hard to read. Setup of the linux console keymap is complicated since the host machine runs debian and the manual pages for dumpkeys / keymaps / loadkeys all point to a location that is not valid on a debian system.

Trying to find out the font used by the bash console points to the usr/share/connsole-setup/console-setup file:

CHARMAP=guess

CODESET=guess
FONTFACE=TerminusBold
FONTSIZE=16

So our font is Terminus.

Now we need to determine the keymaps.

After trying to read the documentation and getting a headache I gave up. Honestly, this is one of the worst documentation I have ever seen. Trying to retrieve the charset of the current console, the font used, the keymaps is simply stupid and un-doable.

So the following was done:

1. Get all the keymaps on the host system:

dumpkeys > backup.kmap

This file can be loaded with loadkeys 2. Instead of using that keymap file I configured the console as such:

cat > /etc/sysconfig/console << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/sysconfig/console
UNICODE="1"
KEYMAP="qwertz/fr_CH"
FONT="lat2-16 -m 8859-15"
# End /etc/sysconfig/console
EOF

**Notes**

* KEYMAP: The keymaps are located on the lfs system in `/usr/share/keymaps/i386/`. 
Here I have chosen the correct layout but without `latin-1` support (which was a mistake).
If the keymap is not correct (it isn't, but I didn't change it), I can always go back and use that keymap dump instead of the official keymap.

* FONT: no idea, cannot determine from the Terminus font readme which should be used and the [Francophone HOW-TO](http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Francophones-HOWTO-5.html#ss5.4) is simply impossible to read.

The rc.site File

The sysconfig/rc.site configuration used:

DISTRO="LFS-10-Mars-2016" # The distro name
DISTRO_CONTACT="horiamut@msn.com" # Bug report address
DISTRO_MINI="LFS-10-Mars-2016" # Short name used in filenames for distro config

[...]

# Write out fsck progress if yes
VERBOSE_FSCK=yes

The locales used (should change to english and eradicate the french language, it's simply horrible):

root:/etc# LC_ALL=fr_CH.iso88591 locale charmap
ISO-8859-1
root:/etc# LC_ALL=fr_CH.iso88591 locale language
French
root:/etc# LC_ALL=fr_CH.iso88591 locale int_curr_symbol
CHF
root:/etc# LC_ALL=fr_CH.iso88591 locale int_prefix     
41
root:/etc#

The profile language:

cat > /etc/profile << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/profile
export LANG=fr_CH.ISO-8859-1
# End /etc/profile
EOF

No inputrc file was created.

The shells file that contains a list of the login shells available on the system:

cat > /etc/shells << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/shells
/bin/sh
/bin/bash
# End /etc/shells
EOF

Chapter 8 - Making the LFS System Bootable

File System Table

The FSTAB file was configured as such:

cat > /etc/fstab << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/fstab
# file system / mount-point / filesystem type / options / dump / fsck
# order
/dev/sdb1   /               ext4            defaults                1   1
/dev/sdb5   swap            swap            pri=1                   0   0
proc        /proc           proc            nosuid,noexec,nodev     0   0
sysfs       /sys            sysfs           nosuid,noexec,nodev     0   0
devpts      /dev/pts        devpts          gid=5,mode=620          0   0
tmpfs       /run            tmpfs           defaults                0   0
devtmpfs    /dev            devtmpfs        mode=0755,nosuid        0   0
/dev/sr0    /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660     user,noauto             0   0
# End /etc/fstab
EOF

Kernel Compilation and Installation

make mrproper
make defconfig

make menuconfig
CONFIG_LOCALVERSION="LFS-Horia-Mut-10-Mar-16"

make

The Module load order:

install -v -m755 -d /etc/modprobe.d
cat > /etc/modprobe.d/usb.conf << "EOF"
# Begin /etc/modprobe.d/usb.conf
install ohci_hcd /sbin/modprobe ehci_hcd ; /sbin/modprobe -i ohci_hcd ; true
install uhci_hcd /sbin/modprobe ehci_hcd ; /sbin/modprobe -i uhci_hcd ; true
# End /etc/modprobe.d/usb.conf
EOF

Using GRUB to Set Up the Boot Process

No rescue boot disk has been done. There wasn't any need for one since there are plenty of images of the virtual machine done for backup.

There is no way to actually read the grub.cfg file without spending too much time over it, so just following the book's instructions and the fact that our LFS disk is on a harddisk on sata port 2 we can just start configuring GRUB. Install the GRUB files.

grub-install /dev/sdb

Create the GRUB configuration file:

cat > /boot/grub/grub.cfg << "EOF"
# Begin /boot/grub/grub.cfg
set default=0
set timeout=5
insmod ext2
set root=(hd1,1)
menuentry "GNU/Linux, Linux 4.2-lfs-7.8 by Mut Horia" {
linux /boot/vmlinuz-4.2-lfs-7.8 root=/dev/sdb1 ro
}
EOF

Chapter 9 - The End

cat > /etc/lsb-release << "EOF"
DISTRIB_ID="Linux From Scratch"
DISTRIB_RELEASE="7.8"
DISTRIB_CODENAME="LFS by Horia Mut"
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Linux From Scratch"
EOF

Run the new linux from scratch distribution

Reboot the machine:

shutdown -r now

At the booting screen (in this case VirtualBox one):

1. press F12
2. chose the 2nd disk
3. GRUB will automatically load the new kernel and it's components
4. Login as

   username: root
   password: superlfs