Non-hard drive partitions on locked down server?

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Date: 8 Mar 2005 03:51:01 GMT

I am working on setting up a server that will be locked away in a
physically inaccessible place, and am trying to take some precautionary
measures to minimize downtime. The server doesn't have to do much, really
just a log in server for ssh/ssl/vnc gateway purposes. Minor storage.

I want to have no hard drives on this system.

The bulk of the filesystem can be loaded off of CD-ROMs. This is of course
read-only and physically unalterable. A reboot would restore the system
state. Persistent intruders would be (nearly) impossible.

Does anyone have any experience using something like a USB flash drive for
non-volatile storage on such a setup? I know I could use RAM drives but I
need persistent storage (log files, home directories) and don't care much
about speed at all. The disk access will be minor.

As I understand it, many USB flash drives insist on carrying FAT file
systems. If that is the case then how can I go about introducing multiple
filesystem mount points within a SINGLE physical flash drive?

Would it work to, within a single FAT partition for the flash drive, create
multiple files to use as loopback mounts? I presume this will safely offer
all the UNIX permissions I need once those loopbacks are mounted.

Or any other ideas for how to do persistent r/w storage without using a
hard drive? I also don't have any network storage, must be local.

-- 
Jem Berkes
Windows, UNIX software and system design
http://www.sysdesign.ca/

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