source: chapter07/kernfs.xml@ 83d8de03

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  "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
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<sect1 id="ch-tools-kernfs">
  <?dbhtml filename="kernfs.html"?>

  <title>Preparing Virtual Kernel File Systems</title>

  <indexterm zone="ch-tools-kernfs">
    <primary sortas="e-/dev/">/dev/*</primary>
  </indexterm>

    <para>Various file systems exported by the kernel are used to communicate to
    and from the kernel itself. These file systems are virtual in that no disk
    space is used for them. The content of the file systems resides in
    memory.</para>

    <para>Begin by creating directories onto which the file systems will be
    mounted:</para>

<screen><userinput>mkdir -pv $LFS/{dev,proc,sys,run}</userinput></screen>

  <sect2 id="ch-tools-bindmount">
    <title>Mounting and Populating /dev</title>

      <para>During a normal boot, the kernel automatically mounts the
      <systemitem class="filesystem">devtmpfs</systemitem> filesystem on the
      <filename class="directory">/dev</filename> directory, and allow the
      devices to be created dynamically on that virtual filesystem as they
      are detected or accessed. Device creation is generally done during the
      boot process by Udev. Since this new system does not yet have Udev and
      has not yet been booted, it is necessary to mount and populate
      <filename class="directory">/dev</filename> manually. This is
      accomplished by bind mounting the host system's
      <filename class="directory">/dev</filename> directory. A bind mount is
      a special type of mount that allows you to create a mirror of a
      directory or mount point to some other location. Use the following
      command to achieve this:</para>

<screen><userinput>mount -v --bind /dev $LFS/dev</userinput></screen>

  </sect2>

  <sect2 id="ch-tools-kernfsmount">
    <title>Mounting Virtual Kernel File Systems</title>

      <para>Now mount the remaining virtual kernel filesystems:</para>

<screen><userinput>mount -v --bind /dev/pts $LFS/dev/pts
mount -vt proc proc $LFS/proc
mount -vt sysfs sysfs $LFS/sys
mount -vt tmpfs tmpfs $LFS/run</userinput></screen>
<!--
    <variablelist>
      <title>The meaning of the mount options for devpts:</title>

      <varlistentry>
        <term><parameter>gid=5</parameter></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>This ensures that all devpts-created device nodes are owned by
          group ID 5.  This is the ID we will use later on for the <systemitem
          class="groupname">tty</systemitem> group.  We use the group ID instead
          of a name, since the host system might use a different ID for its
          <systemitem class="groupname">tty</systemitem> group.</para>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry>
        <term><parameter>mode=0620</parameter></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>This ensures that all devpts-created device nodes have mode 0620
          (user readable and writable, group writable).  Together with the
          option above, this ensures that devpts will create device nodes that
          meet the requirements of grantpt(), meaning the Glibc
          <command>pt_chown</command> helper binary (which is not installed by
          default) is not necessary.</para>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

    </variablelist>
-->
      <para>In some host systems, <filename>/dev/shm</filename> is a
      symbolic link to <filename class="directory">/run/shm</filename>.
      The /run tmpfs was mounted above so in this case only a
      directory needs to be created.</para>

<screen><userinput>if [ -h $LFS/dev/shm ]; then
  mkdir -pv $LFS/$(readlink $LFS/dev/shm)
fi</userinput></screen>

  </sect2>

</sect1>