VLMCSD-FLOPPY(7)             KMS Activation Manual            VLMCSD-FLOPPY(7)



NAME
       floppy144.vfd - a bootable floppy disk with Linux and vlmcsd(8)


DESCRIPTION
       floppy144.vfd  is an image of a bootable floppy that contains a minimal
       version of Linux and vlmcsd(8). It requires only 16 MB of RAM. Its pri‐
       mary purpose is to run vlmcsd(8) in a small virtual machine which makes
       it easy to use vlmcsd(8) to activate the virtual  machine's  host  com‐
       puter  which is not possible in Windows 8.1 and up. The floppy image is
       a standard 3,5" floppy with 1.44 MB storage. It  is  formatted  with  a
       FAT12 filesystem. The floppy can be mounted to apply several customiza‐
       tions.


SUPPORTED HYPERVISORS
       The floppy image has been tested with the following hypervisors:

              VMWare, VirtualBox, Hyper-V and QEMU

       Others are likely to work.


SETUP
       Create a new virtual machine. Assign 16 MB of RAM. Add a  floppy  drive
       and  attach  floppy144.vfd  to this drive. Do not create a virtual hard
       disk. Setup the virtual machine to boot from a floppy drive (VirtualBox
       has  floppy  boot  disabled  by  default). If possible, setup a virtual
       machine with plain old BIOS (not UEFI). If you created an UEFI  virtual
       machine,  enable  the  compatibility support mode (CSM) to allow a BIOS
       compatible boot. Set number of CPUs to 1. The Linux kernel is not capa‐
       ble  of  SMP.  Remove  IDE, SATA, SCSI and USB support if possible. The
       Linux kernel can't handle this and ignores  any  devices  connected  to
       these buses.

       Setup an ethernet card. The following models are supported:

              Intel PRO/1000
              AMD PCNET III
              AMD PCNET32
              VMWare vmxnet3 (paravirtualized driver used by VMWare)
              virtio (paravirtualized driver used by VirtualBox, QEMU, KVM and
              lguest)

       Most hypervisors emulate an Intel PRO/1000 or AMD PCNET32  by  default.
       Selecting  a  paravirtualized  driver slightly improves performance. In
       VirtualBox you can simply select virtio in  the  network  configuration
       dialog.  VMWare requires that you add or change the VMX file. Use 'eth‐
       ernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet3"' in your VMWare config file.

       If you are using QEMU, you must also setup a TAP  adapter.  Port  redi‐
       rection does not work to activate your own computer.


CONFIGURATION
       floppy144.vfd  can  be  customized  to  fit your needs. This is done by
       editing the file syslinux.cfg on the floppy  image.  The  floppy  image
       must  be  mounted. Under Linux you can simply attach floppy144.vfd to a
       loop device which is mountable like any other block device. For Windows
       you must use some software that allows mounting a floppy image, e.g.
       OSFMount ⟨http://www.osforensics.com/tools/mount-disk-images.html⟩

       OSFMount works under all Windows versions beginning with Windows XP  up
       to Windows 10 (32- and 64-bit).

       The default syslinux.cfg file looks like this:

              prompt 0
              TIMEOUT 50
              default dhcp

              LABEL dhcp
                KERNEL bzImage
                APPEND     vga=773    quiet    initrd=initrd    KBD=us    LIS‐
              TEN=[::]:1688,0.0.0.0:1688       TZ=UTC0        IPV4_CONFIG=DHCP
              NTP_SERVER=pool.ntp.org   HOST_NAME=vlmcsd  ROOT_PASSWORD=vlmcsd
              USER_NAME=user    USER_PASSWORD=vlmcsd     GUEST_PASSWORD=vlmcsd
              INETD=Y WINDOWS=06401-00206-271-395032-03-1033-9600.0000-1652016
              OFFICE2010=06401-00096-199-204970-03-1033-9600.0000-1652016
              OFFICE2013=06401-00206-234-921934-03-1033-9600.0000-1652016
              HWID=36:4F:46:3A:88:63:D3:5F

              LABEL static
                KERNEL bzImage
                APPEND    vga=773    quiet    initrd=initrd    KBD=fr     LIS‐
              TEN=[::]:1688,0.0.0.0:1688         TZ=CET-1CEST,M3.5.0,M10.5.0/3
              IPV4_CONFIG=STATIC   IPV4_ADDRESS=192.168.20.123/24   IPV4_GATE‐
              WAY=192.168.20.2      IPV4_DNS1=192.168.20.2      IPV4_DNS2=NONE
              NTP_SERVER=pool.ntp.org  HOST_NAME=vlmcsd   ROOT_PASSWORD=vlmcsd
              USER_NAME=user     USER_PASSWORD=vlmcsd    GUEST_PASSWORD=vlmcsd
              INETD=Y


       There are two configurations in this files: dhcp (for  configuring  the
       IPv4  network  via  DHCP) and static (for a static IPv4 configuration).
       The kernel always boots the dhcp configuration  without  asking  (lines
       'prompt  0' and 'default dhcp'). You can simply change the default con‐
       figuration to static and then customize the APPEND line in  the  static
       configuration.  For more details how to customize the syslinux.cfg file
       see syslinux(1).

       Each APPPEND line contains one or more items seperated by  spaces.  All
       items are case-sensitive. The following parameters can be customized:


       vga=vesa-video-mode
              Sets  the VESA display mode for the virtual machine. The parame‐
              ter is not optional. If you ommit it, you will not see  anything
              on the screen. 773 means 1024x768 with 256 colors. See Wikipedia
              ⟨https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
              VESA_BIOS_Extensions#Linux_video_mode_numbers⟩  for  more  video
              modes. Note that all 16 color (4-bit) modes will not  work.  Use
              8-bit  (256 colors), 16-bit (65536 colors), 24-bit and 32-bit (>
              16 Million colors) only. All modes above 1280x1024 are non-VESA-
              standard and vary for all (virtual) graphic cards.


       quiet  This  causes the kernel not display the its log during boot. You
              may omit quiet but it doesn't make much sense. The boot  log  is
              actually  very  verbose and scrolls away from screen quickly. If
              any errors occur during boot, they will  be  displayed  even  if
              quiet  is  present in the APPEND line. You may evaluate the com‐
              plete boot log later by using the dmesg command or the  menu  on
              /dev/tty8.


       initrd=initial-ram-disk-file
              This  defines  the  initial  ram disk that the kernel will read.
              There is only one initial ram disk on the floppy thus leave ini‐
              trd=initrd as it is.


       KBD=keyboard-layout-name
              This  allows you to select the keyboard layout. keyboard-layout-
              name is usually the ISO 3166-1 (top level  domain)  code  for  a
              country.  A  list of valid keyboard-layout-names can be accessed
              via the menu system on /dev/tty8 (press ALT-F8). Note, that this
              is  a  keyboard driver only. There is no Unicode font support in
              floppy144.vfd (due to the fact that the kernel  uses  a  generic
              VESA  framebuffer device only). Characters beyond ASCII work for
              Western European languages only but not Eastern European, Greek,
              Cyrillic,  Arabic,  Hebrew, CJK and other languages. There is no
              need in floppy144.vfd to enter any characters outside ASCII. The
              purpose  of  the keyboard maps are that you will find characters
              like dash, backslash, brackets, braces, etc. at the usual  place
              on your keyboard.


       LISTEN=PRIVATE[:tcp-port]   |   ip-address[:tcp-port][,ip-address[:tcp-
       port]][,...]
              One or more combinations of IP addresses and optional  TCP  port
              seperated  by  commas that vlmcsd(8) should listen on or PRIVATE
              to listen on all private IP addresses only. The default port  is
              1688.  If  you  use an explicit port number, append it to the IP
              address seperated by a colon. If you use a port number  and  the
              IP  address  contains colons, you must enclose the IP address in
              brackets. For example 192.168.0.2,[fd00::dead:beef]:5678  causes
              vlmcsd(8) to listen on 192.168.0.2 port 1688 and fd00::dead:beef
              port 5678.


       WINDOWS=epid
              Defines the ePID that is used for Windows  activations.  If  you
              ommit  this parameter, vlmcsd generates a random ePID when it is
              started.


       OFFICE2010=epid
              Defines the ePID that is used for Office  2010  activations.  If
              you ommit this parameter, vlmcsd(8) generates a random ePID when
              it is started.


       OFFICE2013=epid
              Defines the ePID that is used  for  Office  (versions  2013  and
              greater)  activations.  If  you  ommit this parameter, vlmcsd(8)
              generates a random ePID when it is started.


       HWID=hwid
              Defines the HwId that is sent to clients. hwid must be specified
              as  16  hex  digits  that are interpreted as a series of 8 bytes
              (big endian). Any character that is not  a  hex  digit  will  be
              ignored. This is for better readability.


       TZ=posix-time-zone-string
              Set  the time zone to posix-time-zone-string. It must conform to
              the POSIX ⟨http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/
              basedefs/xbd_chap08.html⟩  specification.  Simplified  time zone
              strings  like  "Europe/London"  or  "America/Detroit"  are   not
              allowed.  This has the very simple reason that there is no space
              on the floppy to store the time zone database.

              The string CET-1CEST,M3.5.0,M10.5.0/3 (most countries in Europe)
              reads as follows:

              CET       The standard (winter) time zone has the name CET.

              -1        The  standard time zone is one hour east of UTC. Nega‐
                        tive numbers are east of  UTC.  Positive  numbers  are
                        west of UTC.

              CEST      The  daylight  saving  (summer) time zone has the name
                        CEST.

              M3.5.0    Daylight saving time starts in the 3rd  month  (March)
                        on  the 5th (=last) occurence of weekday 0 (Sunday) at
                        2 o'clock (2 o'clock is a default value).

              M10.5.0/3 Daylight saving time ends in the 10th month  (October)
                        on  the 5th (=last) occurence of weekday 0 (Sunday) at
                        3 o'clock.

              If you don't have daylight saving time, things are  easier.  For
              Chinese  Standard  Time  for example, just use CST-8 as the time
              zone string.

              On  a  Linux  desktop  system,  you  can  use  a  command   like
              strings /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York | tail -n1.    This
              should return EST5EDT,M3.2.0,M11.1.0. You can use  the  returned
              string for the TZ=posix-time-zone-string parameter.


       IPV4_CONFIG=DHCP | STATIC
              This  determines  how  you want to configure IPv4 networking. If
              you use IPV4_CONFIG=STATIC, you  must  supply  additional  para‐
              maters to the APPEND command line.


       IPV4_ADDRESS=ipv4-address/CIDR-mask
              Use ipv4-address with netmask CIDR-mask for static IPv4 configu‐
              ration. The netmask must  not  be  ommitted.  For  IPv4  address
              192.168.12.17    with    a    netmask   of   255.255.255.0   use
              192.168.12.17/24. For IPv4 address 10.4.0.8 with  a  netmask  of
              255.255.0.0  use  10.4.0.8/16. This paramater is ignored, if you
              used IPV4_CONFIG=DHCP.


       IPV4_GATEWAY=ipv4-address | NONE
              Use ipv4-address as the default gateway.  This  is  usually  the
              IPv4 address of your router. You may specify NONE explicitly for
              no gateway. In this case your virtual machine is only visible on
              its  local LAN. This paramater is ignored, if you used IPV4_CON‐
              FIG=DHCP.


       IPV4_DNS1=ipv4-address | NONE
              Use ipv4-address as the primary name server.  In  home  networks
              this  is  often the IPv4 address of your router. You may specify
              NONE explicitly. If you specified NONE for both  IPV4_DNS1=  and
              IPV4_DNS2=, your virtual machine cannot resolve host names to IP
              addresses. While vlmcsd(8) works perfectly without DNS  servers,
              you  must  use  IP  addresses when referring to a host, e.g. for
              specifying an NTP server. This paramater is ignored, if you used
              IPV4_CONFIG=DHCP.


       IPV4_DNS2=ipv4-address | NONE
              Use  ipv4-address  as  the secondary name server. It serves as a
              backup if the primary name server is not  available.  Home  net‐
              works often don't have a secondary name server. In this case set
              this to NONE. This paramater is ignored, if you  used  IPV4_CON‐
              FIG=DHCP.


       NTP_SERVER=host-name | ipv4-address | NONE
              This  sets  the name of a time server using the NTP protocol. If
              your virtualization environment reliably provides time, you  can
              set  this  to  NONE.  Don't  use  a  public  time  service  like
              pool.ntp.org or time.nist.gov if you have a (at  least  somewhat
              reliable) NTP server in your LAN.


       HOST_NAME=host-name
              Sets  the  local host name for your virtual machine. It can be a
              single name or a fully-qualified domain name FQDN. If  you  used
              IPV4_CONFIG=DHCP and your DHCP server returns a domain name, the
              domain part of an FQDN will be replaced by that name. This  host
              name  or  host  part of an FQDN will not replaced by a host name
              returned via DHCP. The host name is not important for the opera‐
              tion of floppy144.vfd.


       ROOT_PASSWORD=password
              Sets the password of the root user.


       USER_NAME=username
              Sets  the name of for a general user with no special privileges.
              This user can login but can't do much.


       USER_PASSWORD=password
              Sets the password for the user defined by USER_NAME=username.


       GUEST_PASSWORD=password
              Sets the password for the pre-defined guest user. This user  has
              the   same   priviliges   (none)   as   the   user   defined  by
              USER_NAME=username.


       INETD=Y | N
              INETD=Y specifies that inetd(8) should automatically be started.
              That means you can telnet and ftp to your virtual machine.


       VLMCSD_EXTRA_ARGS=comma-seperated-argument-list
              Allows  you to specify additional command line options that will
              be passed to vlmcsd(8). Instead of spaces you use commas between
              arguments. Example: VLMCSD_EXTRA_ARGS=-c1,-K3,-M1


OPERATION
   Diskless System
       The  floppy144.vfd  virtual  machine  is  a  diskless system that works
       entirely from RAM. The file system is actually a RAM disk that is  cre‐
       ated from the initrd(4) file on the floppy image.

       Anything  you'll do from inside the virtual machine, for instance edit‐
       ing a config file, will be lost when you reboot the machine. So, if you
       ever  asked  yourself  if  rm  -fr  / (root privileges required) really
       deletes all files from all mounted partitions, the floppy144.vfd VM  is
       the right place to test it (Yes, it does).

       The  VM  uses  a  RAM disk, because the Linux kernel had to be stripped
       down to essential features to fit on a 1.44 MB floppy. It has no floppy
       driver,  no  disk  file  system  drivers and no block layer (cannot use
       disks of any type).


   System startup
       The kernel boots up very quickly and the init script (/sbin/init) waits
       5 seconds. In these 5 seconds you can:

              Press  'm'  to manually enter the time zone and the IPv4 parame‐
              ters. These will be queried interactively.
              Press 't' to manually enter the time zone only.
              Press 's' to escape to a shell.

       If you don't want to 5 seconds for continuing the init process, you can
       press  any  other key to speed things up. At the end of the init script
       you should see thatvlmcsd(8) has started. You should also  see  the  IP
       addresses and all user names and passwords.


   Logging into the system
       There  are 5 local logins provided on /dev/tty2 to /dev/tty6. To switch
       to these logins, simply press ALT-F2 to ALT-F6. To return to  the  con‐
       sole  on  /dev/tty1,  press ALT-F1. If inetd(8) is running you can also
       use telnet(1). This allows you use a terminal program (e.g. putty) that
       can  utilize  your  keyboard  layout, can be resized and has full UTF-8
       support. The local terminals support US keyboard layout only. Please be
       aware  that telnet(1) is unencrypted and everything including passwords
       is transmitted in clear text. There is not  enough  space  for  an  ssh
       server like sshd(8) or dropbear(8).

       The  floppy image only provides basic Unix commands. Type busybox or ll
       /bin to get a list. The only editor available is vi(1).  If  you  don't
       like  vi,  you  may transfer config files via ftp(1) edit them with the
       editor of your choice and transfer them back to the floppy144.vfd VM.


   The menu system
       You'll find a menu system on /dev/tty8 (press ALT-F8  to  see  it).  It
       allows  you  performing  some  administrative tasks and to view various
       system information. It is mainly for users that do not have much  expe‐
       rience with Unix commands.


       1) (Re)start vlmcsd
              Starts  or  restarts  vlmcsd(8).  This  is useful if you changed
              /etc/vlmcsd.ini(5).


       2) Stop vlmcsd
              Stops vlmcsd(8).


       3) (Re)start inetd
              Starts or restarts inetd(8). If inetd(8) is  restarted,  current
              clients  connected  via telnet(1) or ftp(1) will not be dropped.
              They can continue their sessions. This is useful if you  changed
              /etc/inetd.conf(5).


       4) Stop inet
              Stops  inetd(8).  All  clients connected via telnet(1) or ftp(1)
              will be dropped immediately.


       5) Change the time zone
              Just in case you missed pressing 't' during system startup. This
              also  restarts vlmcsd(8) if it was running to notify it that the
              time zone has changed.  Restarting  vlmcsd(8)  allows  currently
              connected clients to finish their activation.


       k) Change keyboard layout
              This allows you to select a different keyboard layout.


       6) Show all kernel boot parameters
              Shows  all  parameters passed to the kernel via syslinux.cfg. If
              you experience any unexpected behavior,  you  can  use  this  to
              check if your APPEND line in syslinux.cfg is correct. The output
              is piped through less(1). So press 'q' to return to the menu.


       7) Show boot log (dmesg)
              Shows the boot log of the kernel. The output  is  piped  through
              less(1). So press 'q' to return to the menu.


       8) Show TCP/IP configuration
              Shows  the  TCP/IP  configuration, listening sockets and current
              TCP and UDP connections. Useful, if you problems with  net  con‐
              nectivity.  The output is piped through less(1). So press 'q' to
              return to the menu.


       9) Show running processes
              Shows all processes including memory and CPU usage. Display will
              updated every second. Press 'q' or CTRL-C to return to the menu.


       s) Shutdown
              Shuts down the floppy144.vfd virtual machine. Proper shutdown is
              not required. It is ok to use a hard power off in your  virtual‐
              ization program.


       r) Reboot
              Reboots  the floppy144.vfd virtual machine. Proper reboot is not
              required. It is ok to use a hard reset  in  your  virtualization
              program.


PERMANENT CHANGES OF INITRD
       If  you  want to change any file or script of the file system (e.g. the
       init script /sbin/init or /etc/vlmcsd.ini), you'll need  to  mount  the
       floppy  image,  unpack  the  initrd(4)  file, make any modfications you
       like, create a new initrd(4) file and copy it to the mounted floppy.

       To unpack the initrd(4) file you'll need xz(1)  (or  lzma(1)  on  older
       unix-like OSses) and cpio(1). These can be installed using your package
       manager on all major distros. It is  ok  to  use  the  BSD  version  of
       cpio(1).  No  need  to get the GNU version for BSD users.  Provided the
       floppy is mounted in /mnt/floppy do the following:

       Create an empty directory
              mkdir ~/vlmcsd-floppy-initrd

       cd into that directory
              cd ~/vlmcsd-floppy-initrd

       Unpack initrd
              cat /mnt/floppy/initrd | unlzma | cpio -i

       After applying your changes build a new initrd(4) file:


       cd into your directory
              cd ~/vlmcsd-floppy-initrd

       Create the packed file
              find . | cpio -o -H newc | lzma > /mnt/floppy/initrd

       Do not try to use 'lzma -9' to achive better  compression.  The  kernel
       can't  read  the  resulting  file. While customizing the initrd(4) file
       works on almost any unix-like OS, it does not work on Windows even  not
       with  Cygwin. The reason is that the NTFS file system can't handle uids
       and gids. These cannot be preserved when unpacking the cpio(1)  archive
       to  NTFS. If you use the WSL subsystem of Windows 10 Redstone (Anniver‐
       sary Update) and later, you must make sure to unpack the initrd(4) file
       to  a directory on VolFs (normally everything that is not mounted under
       /mnt). The initrd(4) file can be on a VolFs or DriveFs.


FAQ
   On what distro is the floppy image based?
       None. Besides the boot loader ldlinux.sys, there are only  three  bina‐
       ries:  The  Linux  kernel bzImage, busybox(1) and vlmcsdmulti-x86-musl-
       static. bzImage  and  busybox(1)  have  been  compiled  with  carefully
       selected  configuration  parameters  not  found in any distro. This was
       neccesary to fit everything on a 1.44 MB floppy.


   Why is a rather old Linux kernel (3.12) used?
       Linux 3.12 is the last kernel that can be booted with  16  MB  of  RAM.
       Beginning with Linux 3.13 it requires much more memory (about 80 MB) to
       boot. The floppy image is regularly tested with newer  kernels.  Every‐
       thing works except that you need to assign much more main memory to the
       virtual machine.


   Can the floppy be booted on bare metal?
       Basically yes. However, only Intel Pro/1000 and  AMD  PCNET32  ethernet
       cards  are supported by the kernel. In addition there is no USB support
       compiled into the kernel. That means you can only use an IBM AT or  IBM
       PS/2 keyboard which are not available on newer hardware.


FILES
       syslinux.cfg, vlmcsd.ini(5)


BUGS
       IPv6 cannot be configured with static or manual parameters.
       DHCPv6 is not supported.
       ´ip route add ...' does not work. Use 'route add ...' instead.


AUTHOR
       floppy144.vfd has been created by Hotbird64


CREDITS
       Linus Torvalds et al. for the Linux kernel
       Erik Andersen et al. for the original uClibc
       Waldemar Brodkorb et al. for uClibc-ng
       Denys Vlasenko et al. for BusyBox
       H. Peter Anvin et al. for SYSLINUX


SEE ALSO
       vlmcsd(8), vlmcsd.ini(5), initrd(4), busybox(1), syslinux(1)



Hotbird64                        October 2016                 VLMCSD-FLOPPY(7)
