Automating Applications

Most complex applications start with a floppy add-on. The advantage of this is that a single floppy can often turn a generic Bootable CD into a fully functional server, application environment, support platform, or security device.

• Floppy add-ons: Bootable CDs provide a means to create custom floppy disks to allow Bootable CD customization to your needs. The system automatically boots from the Bootable CD disk and run your programs with your configuration based on information you supply on a floppy disk. For details, press here.

Some of the things that are typically done on most floppy add-ons are listed here.

• Adding passwords The Bootable CD installs with only a 'root' user and with an empty password. This allows the user who boots the Bootable CD from the console to do what they will quickly and efficiently. But for any networking application that allows services or supports external users, a password is usually appropriate. Detailed instructions are provided here.

• Configuring networking: Typically, you can add the commands described under networking in the Bootable CD Tutorial to the PLAC.go file (after the password file is set please) and this will automatically bring up your Internet connection(s). Examples are here.

• Mounting network file systems: Just as the example in the tutorial shows how to manually bring up a SMB server for Windows network file access, the process can be automated in PLAC.go. For details, press here.

• Anything else: As you can see, the process is quite simple. First, you get the commands you want to do working properly. Next, you add them to the PLAC.go file in the proper order. If files are needed, you leave copies of what you want the files to contain on the floppy and use commands in the PLAC.go file to copy them to the proper place in the system at startup. They you update the PLAC.go file, SYNC the floppy, and reboot.

With these as a starting point, here are some of the most popular applications we have used or seen used with Bootable CDs:

• Firewalling: Bootable CD firewalls are a good way to combine high assurance against attacks on the firewall itself with network address translation to allow you to hook up many computers to a single external Internet connection. For details, press here.

• Fetching Web Content: Httrack is a free program that provides facilities for downloading whole web sites. With its extensive options, httrack provides an wide range of capabilities for loading web content, including making images of entire web sites and domains. A simple intervace to httrack has been included in the Bootable CD distribution. You type:

  track [URL] [PATH]
  

  and the Bootable CD will download the whole web site starting at the URL you provided into the directory you named as the path. A variation on this theme is to keep cryptographic checksums of web content on your floppy and use the download process to verify that the web site content is unaltered. The full httrack manual is available here.

Lots of other applications are available, and you can customize them into the PLAC.go file to make your system automate them as a process whenever booting up.