[Soekris] Minimalist *nix distro?

[Andy Michaels]

On Apr 18, 2007, at 8:29 PM, Cassandra Brockett wrote:

> I'm looking for an extremely minimalist *nix distro for running one
> program - Bind, as a caching name server only.
>
> There's a bunch of places I need to install these things, and I use the
> Soekris for things like this, but I'm a little concerned using a distro
> designed for firewalls (such as m0n0wall) due to the extra packages on
> the system, basically I'd like something as small as possible.
>
> So... If anyone knows of:-
> 	a) A distro that has just the base system that I can compile
> Bind (prefer Bind9) for and it has nothing else active/installed by
> default.
> 	b) A distro that might have extra packages, but the packages
> need to be specifically enabled
>
> I cannot have ANYTHING but bind responding on the network on these
> boxen, hence the request for info.  And yes, I mean anything, meaning
> everything configuration is serial-based.  I'm happy with a web-based
> config or something for initial config, but once the systems are at
> "production" stage even that can't be responding.
>
> Oh and of course, anything I can just duplicate out about 20+ CF's for
> the boxes post initial configuration would be great.
>
> And one more thing, the boxes IP's will be set via DHCP at the remote
> sites... I know I can build a distro for just this manually (and very
> painfully), but I'd prefer not to reinvent the wheel (ie. I'm lazy).
>

Cassandra, I personally use OpenBSD on  my soekris box.  It's very 
minimal, as others have mentioned.  Also, the flashdist script allows 
you to configure it fairly simply.

I took notes on my procedure here: 
http://www.therac25.net/projects-net4801.php

Good luck!

-Andy


> --
> Cassandra Brockett
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