Byzantium Live Distro: Difference between revisions
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==Goals== | ==Goals== | ||
* Will be documented. | |||
** A Creative Commons-licensed book will be made available with the Byzantium distribution as well as separately | |||
** Will explain the finer points of setting up a mesh, as well as accompanying projects (such as dialup gateways and long-haul transports). | |||
** Will be translated into as many languages as possible. | |||
* Widely compatible. | |||
** Users need to be able to boot their desktop/laptop/netbook from Byzantium media and set up a node. | |||
** As little fiddling with network drivers as possible. | |||
* Rapidly deployable. | |||
** Users need to be able to configure their Byzantium node rapidly and with little assistance. | |||
** Emergency situations. | |||
** Control panel aims to be as self-documenting as possible. | |||
* Aims to protect confidentiality of traffic. | |||
** Opportunistic IPsec? | |||
** All services default to SSLv3/TLSv1. | |||
* Aims to protect integrity of traffic. | |||
** SSLv3/TLSv1. | |||
* Meshes should grow without the direction of a central authority. | |||
** Anyone can set up a mesh node. | |||
** Anyone can set up services on the mesh. | |||
** Services packaged by default can be managed (activated and deactivated) from the control panel | |||
** Services packaged by default will come preconfigured with secure defaults and a mobile-friendly theme where appropriate. | |||
** This is a calculated risk. The threat models of Tor and I2P take this into account as well. | |||
* Byzantium nodes need to be rapidly clonable. | |||
** One copy of the live distribution needs to become many on demand. | |||
** Nodes need to be clonable without taking the node down. | |||
* Persistent storage has to be an option. | |||
** Built into [http://porteus.org Porteus]. | |||
*** save.dat file | |||
*** removable media | |||
*** media Porteus is installed to | |||
==Features== | ==Features== | ||
Revision as of 02:25, 7 July 2011
Description
We are building a portable live Linux distribution based on Porteus Linux. Porteus itself is a fork of Slax that has been brought up to date with Slackware 13.37 and uses a 2.6.38.8 kernel. Porteus can use binary packages from Slackware 13.37.
Goals
- Will be documented.
- A Creative Commons-licensed book will be made available with the Byzantium distribution as well as separately
- Will explain the finer points of setting up a mesh, as well as accompanying projects (such as dialup gateways and long-haul transports).
- Will be translated into as many languages as possible.
- Widely compatible.
- Users need to be able to boot their desktop/laptop/netbook from Byzantium media and set up a node.
- As little fiddling with network drivers as possible.
- Rapidly deployable.
- Users need to be able to configure their Byzantium node rapidly and with little assistance.
- Emergency situations.
- Control panel aims to be as self-documenting as possible.
- Aims to protect confidentiality of traffic.
- Opportunistic IPsec?
- All services default to SSLv3/TLSv1.
- Aims to protect integrity of traffic.
- SSLv3/TLSv1.
- Meshes should grow without the direction of a central authority.
- Anyone can set up a mesh node.
- Anyone can set up services on the mesh.
- Services packaged by default can be managed (activated and deactivated) from the control panel
- Services packaged by default will come preconfigured with secure defaults and a mobile-friendly theme where appropriate.
- This is a calculated risk. The threat models of Tor and I2P take this into account as well.
- Byzantium nodes need to be rapidly clonable.
- One copy of the live distribution needs to become many on demand.
- Nodes need to be clonable without taking the node down.
- Persistent storage has to be an option.
- Built into Porteus.
- save.dat file
- removable media
- media Porteus is installed to
- Built into Porteus.
Features
ToDo
- Node Control Panel
- Wiki
- Microblog
- File dump/Twitpic work-alike
- Voice chat/telephony server
- Clientless web chat
- Blog?
- EtherPad-like thing
- Streaming media server
- HTTP caching proxy
- Tor
Packages built for Byzantium
- CherryPy - Porteus and Slackware don't package it so I made one for us. It's been checked into Git.
- pySetupTools - Required for installing some Python modules.
- Mako - Python HTML templating system.
- Dependency of the control panel.
- Git - Converted Slackware v13.37 package.
- Curl - Converted Slackware v13.37 package.
- Dependency of git.
- Note: To make git work without "error setting certificate verify locations" errors, you need to run the following command as the root user: git config --system http.sslcainfo /usr/share/curl/ca-bundle.crt
Links
Place links relevant to any part of the process of making this livedistro here.
Porteus Official Website Processes for building Porteus packages.