GRML – a Linux distro for system administrators | Hacker News Reader

GRML – a Linux distro for system administrators

grml.org

68 pointspmoriarty23 comments

I've used Finnix[1] for recovery tasks in the past. Having a good Linux distro on a USB stick makes me feel ready for any (most often self inflicted) computer emergency. It's the sysadmin equivalent of a Swiss army knife.

[1] https://www.finnix.org/

Another one is SystemRescueCD[0]

I've used it extensively while preparing servers for production with the autorun feature[1]

[0] https://www.system-rescue.org/

[1] https://www.system-rescue.org/manual/Run_your_own_scripts_wi...

I combined several more live cd (such as gparted, clonezilla, memtest, ubuntu installer) in one usb stick thru the use of YUMI-UEFI. Very handy for troubleshooting esp when you are offline.

ref: https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/

I use Ventoy[0] for this purpose (multi boot drives). With it you only have to format the drive once. Ten you just copy .iso images to the drive as files and they become available to boot from. It's great.

[0] https://www.ventoy.net/

Nice software. Pity the hosting is so slow (I remember 2400 baud, and it's not that slow, but in the modern world it's slow); wonder if the author accepts donations to make it faster.

That said, the SystemRescue download from sourceforge was slower.. ended up finding a torrent and checking the SHA.

Seconded. It just works.

Thanks for this, I will add this to my collection :-) I use multiple recovery distributions with Ventoy, see also:

https://pilabor.com/blog/2022/01/the-ultimate-boot-stick/

Unrelated: I love how the website of the creator of Finnix blends elements of various epochs of the Web:

https://www.velociraptors.info/vad/

I share the same feeling. Using sysresccd [1] for it. One anecdote I remember from around 2010; sysresccd starts mdadm, scans all block devices and tries to automatically start md devices. This behaviour shocked me while booting a passive storage server which was connected to a JBOD enclosure. The active server already had the devices started and mounted (was lustre at that time). I was lucky, no data was corrupted ... pfew

Anyways, do you also know about systesccd and could you share differenced between those?

1: https://www.system-rescue.org/

Same here, I feel unsafe if I don't have my USB toolkit with me. Long time user of UBCD and a custom Ubuntu images with some block recovery utilities. Shit has saved my ass so many times

I still use their grml-zsh config :+1: You can find out in their grml-etc repo

yes! grml-zsh-config does all the things! i've only been using it about a year or so, but i wish i would have discovered it sooner.

here is the URL -- https://grml.org/zsh/

it's easy to install and works wonderfully out-of-the-box. for arch users there's also a native package. -- https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/grml-zsh-config...

Finally, an OS for Grundoon, who lives in the Okefenokee Swamp with that Pogo fellow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_(comic_strip)

I remember the days when I used hiren's boot cd to resolve most problems.

Use this with netboot.xyz with your Openwrt router, no need for USB or CD-ROM.

GRML is a great tool for recovering a system or a disk, or just run basic forensic tasks in its forensic mode to recover stuff.

I always keep the latest GRML96 (32bit + 64bit) on a bootable flash drive.

I have very fond memories of GRML, I was using this as a student in my part time sysadmin job. It was a great tool I used every day. It's nice to still see it around.

A question I didn't see in the FAQ: is there or has there ever been some crazy way of mounting the grml installation media on something like a tmpfs in memory that can still work with the root partition unmounted? I wanted to install an unsupported distro on a digital ocean droplet that way once but I'm not sure whether I only dreamed it.

edit: typo

There's a boot & copy to RAM mode in the boot menu, allowing complete removal of the boot medium after the process.

Maybe this? Looks like it just bootstraps Debian though, not grml.

https://grml.org/grml-debootstrap/

you can make a small partition at the end of the disk, copy the iso there and boot it directly from grub.

I ran grml (in those days it had an option to install) as my desktop for a few years in the mid to late 2000s. Was really very nice and so unbelievably fast.

Oh wow. I used this a few times back when it first launched, I’m impressed it’s still going nearly 20 years later

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