making mkisofs using make_medialif boot image

[Kevin Nikiforuk]

Like many other folks, I'm trying to create a bootable CD/DVD with an ignite image on it. I've read many many posts on the subject and am still stuck on the instl_combine step because I'm trying to create an image larger than 2GB. According to the man page for instl_combine, it recommends creating an IS09660 image using something like mkisofs.

Unfortunately, when I try to use the boot image I created with make_medialif, it fails because the lif file is around 40MB. According to the mkisofs man page, the boot image must be exactly the size of either a 1.2, 1.44, or a 2.88 meg floppy, and mkisofs will use this size when creating the output iso9660 filesystem.

As I understand the posts I've read on the subject, people who have gotten this to work with regular CDs don't include filesystems like opt so as to reduce the size to something less than 700MB.

Has anyone successfully created an ISO9660 image with the lif file from make_medialif?

TIA
Kevin

[Elli Wang]

Kevin,
"instl_combine" combines your image with a bootable LIF. If your image is around 2GB, How are you going fit it into a CD? You need to trim it down to 700MB minus your boot LIF.

Elli

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Elli,

He must be trying to write a DVD.
Sorry Kevin - never tried it myself, so I have nothing to offer.

Happy Holidays,
Jeff

[Kevin Nikiforuk]

To clarify the answer is yes I am trying to burn to DVD. I've had zero success because of the lif file size.

If anyone knows of a work around I'd really like to hear the solution.

Other than that we've had great success burning bootable HP-UX 10.20, 11.00 and 11.11 Ignite image DVD's. But only when the size is under 2Gb's in size since they don't require the iso9660 filesystem.

TIP: Note that the Ignite image can only be about 1Gb in size because the process to create the bootable image expands the size to just under 2Gb. If you want the details just ask.

Cheers,
Kevin

[David Hawes-Johnson]

Kevin,

I've had a look at this, as I am trying to create a DVD image (whether it'll be bigger than 2GB I'm not sure)..

1. Anyway, I've loaded mkisofs and filled a 2 GB vxfs partition with files.
2. I then ran mkisofs to create a ISO image of the fileystem.
3. I created a lif volume and attempted to combine it with the iso image - and I got this:

# /opt/ignite/lbin/instl_combine -F dacca.lif -C /tmp_mnt/iosimage.iso
instl_combine: The CD/DVD image is larger than 2GB (or is expected to end up larger than 2GB). To make a bootable CD/DVD this large you must use an ISO9660 image while including the LIF volume as an El Torito boot volume. Then run instl_combine without the -F option.

I would say that:

1. This method cannot support > 2GB
2. The filesystems must be capable of support files > 2GB

Now I just need to find out what El Torito is! (some sort of boot manager?)

[David Hawes-Johnson]

Kevin,

Got it - you need to specify that you will not be using disk emulation mode (the reason why the boot image has to be 1.2M 1.44M or 2.8m). To do this add these options to the command line:

-no-emul-boot
-b

This allows you to create an El Torino disk, which has the lif volume embedded in it.You should then be able to create an iso image > 2GB.

In order to make sure that you can see the LIF on boot - you need to run instl_combine (without the -F option) which will create the links to the LIF volume files.

Burn thsi to a DVD and you're away (I haven;t checked my copy yet, as I don;t have a DVD Writer).

You need a later version of mkisofs (I had version 1.2b5, but upgraded to version 2 to get it to work).

HTH

[Kevin Nikiforuk]

Thanks David,

Unfortunately it's still not working for me.
I verified that I have version 2 of mkisofs which I installed as part of cdrtools.

Here's a sample of the command I'm running:
--------------------------------------------
#mkisofs -o feb3.iso -b my_lif -no-emul-boot ./dvdroot/

Here's the message I'm getting back:
------------------------------------------
mkisofs: Value too large to be stored in data type. File ./dvdroot/fs_image_hfs is too large - ignoring

The file fs_image_hfs is 3Gb in size and the LIF file my_lif is about 80Mb.

Any ideas?

[Wodisch]

Hi Kevin,

aren't you confusing PC-style Boot-CDs with HP-LIF?
HP does NOT use "El-Torito" style boot-floppy images AFAIK.
Actually a bootable Ignite-CD is a 2K/block Berkely File System with the ~40MB LIF area at the beginning. And I did NOT need to use "mkisofs" to create the bootable image - I simply burned the resulting file using "nero" and was fine (IIRC)...
That should be not different with DVD.
There might be 2GB limit, of course.

Didi you read the "whitepaper" about "creating your own install media" from the Ignite/UX homepage?

FWIW,
Wodisch

[Kevin Nikiforuk]

Wodisch,
I'm creating a bootable Ignite DVD.

According to the insl_combine man page and HP I have to create the ISO9660 filesystem since the image is greater than 2Gb. This is required to wrap the LIF around the ignite image.

I have no problem creating bootable DVD's less than 2Gb. (without using mkisofs)

Thanks for the comments.

[David Hawes-Johnson]

Kevin,

Now, I see what the problem is. I can create ISO images > 2GB, becuase they are made up of smaller files. If I attempt to create an iso image > 2GB, using files > 2GB, then I also hit this problem:

mkisofs: Value too large to be stored in data type. File /dvdroot/testfile.large is too large - ignoring

This error is produced by mkisofs, and relates to the individual files that are > 2GB (not the size of the lif volume, which is fine).

Searching through Google, it looks like this is a 'feature' of iso9660 where it cannot support files larger than 2GB. UDF can, but I can't see how to make an Ignite bootable UDF cd (it looks like ignite only supports iso9660 and hfs). So the only way around this is to split the file into 2GB hunks and modify the configuration files to use 2 seperate archives/depots instead of one.

The link on google for further reading is:
http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=2GB+mkisofs

Thanks