[SOLVED] chroot bootable USB?

[brianblaze]

Hello fellow helpers!

I have a quick question which seems to have no quick answers... I want to mount my bootable USB and have access to the root of the linux on the USB (chroot)... the problem is when I mount the usb it has the files that are used to automatically boot the USB not the actual root itself... anyone have an idea of how to go about locating the root on my USB? Also fdisk shows the one partition on my usb...

Thanks in advance!

[Skull One]

I guess it is a live-usb.
You can access the filesystem using three mount commands. Here the steps.

1. Create the mount points:

mkdir /mnt/liveusb
mkdir /mnt/squashfs
mkdir /mnt/rootfs

2. Mount.
2a. The usb stick first (this can also be done in another way):

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/liveusb

2b. You must have a squashfs filesystem, mount it:

mount -t squashfs  /mnt/liveusb/LiveOS/squashfs.img  /mnt/squashfs

2c. Mount the root image:

 mount -o loop /mnt/squashfs/LiveOS/rootfs.img /mnt/rootfs

The root filesystem is now mounted in /mnt/rootfs.

To unmount:

umount  /mnt/rootfs
umount  /mnt/squashfs
umount  /mnt/liveusb
rmdir  /mnt/rootfs
rmdir  /mnt/squashfs
rmdir  /mnt/liveusb

Of course, adapt the directories to what you have.

[brianblaze]

Almost perfect! My only problem is that after mounting 2b I get this message

mount: warning: squashfs/ seems to be mounted read-only.

Any Idea how to have it not read only...

I am looking up this squashfs since this is the first I hear about it THANK YOU!

[jpollard]

It is a compressed filesystem - it can only be read only as attempting to replace a block would destroy the compression (the replacement would likely be larger than the original).

So, no you can't have it read/write.

You can copy it into an uncompressed separate filesystem though.

See http://tldp.org/HOWTO/SquashFS-HOWTO/

[brianblaze]

Originally Posted by jpollard

It is a compressed filesystem - it can only be read only as attempting to replace a block would destroy the compression (the replacement would likely be larger than the original).

So, no you can't have it read/write.

You can copy it into an uncompressed separate filesystem though.

See http://tldp.org/HOWTO/SquashFS-HOWTO/

Awesome thanks for the help guys... I got some reading to do!!!

[Skull One]

Squashfs *is* read-only by definition.
You cannot modify a live system in that way. If you want to do it, you will have to unpack the filesystem, make your modifications, and rebuild a new one (for comparison, you can assimilate it as a .iso file).

Edit: whoops! a bit too late!

[brianblaze]

Originally Posted by Skull One

Squashfs *is* read-only by definition.
You cannot modify a live system in that way. If you want to do it, you will have to unpack the filesystem, make your modifications, and rebuild a new one (for comparison, you can assimilate it as a .iso file).

Edit: whoops! a bit too late!

Never too late thanks