Linuxkit is a good tool to create immutable Linux systems, so why don’t use it
to build a Monero mining live distro ? The only thing needed to build an Linux
with Linuxkit is a yml file containing the system information.
It can be divided in 5 main sections:
- kernel
- init
- onboot - applications that will run when the Linux boot (after init)
- services - services that will run on this system
- files - any extra files that you need to copy into your iso (like keys or configs)
Based on these principles, bellow is the configuration of a miner that will boot
and start mining rigth away. Considering that the USB disk will be at /dev/sdb1
(it will work if the target machine has only one disk).
Source
The source code is just a simple Yaml file
kernel:
image: nuald/kernel:4.12.14-extra
cmdline: "console=tty0 root=/dev/sdb1 rootwait vga=791"
init:
- linuxkit/init:6eb0158059b056a1567236280880cb87f03ff008
- linuxkit/runc:6cf26a0403376de3b5396cb676b88eea4f37aff8
- linuxkit/containerd:d955db7cd28dbd7be8a17d7063cc6b7f1bf91f0a
- linuxkit/ca-certificates:v0.6
onboot:
- name: sysctl
image: linuxkit/sysctl:v0.6
- name: rngd1
image: linuxkit/rngd:v0.6
command: ["/sbin/rngd", "-1"]
- name: ram-disk
image: linuxkit/mount:v0.6-amd64
command: ["mount", ]
- name: usb-storage
image: linuxkit/modprobe:v0.6-amd64
command: ["modprobe", "usb_storage"]
services:
- name: getty
image: linuxkit/getty:v0.6
env:
- INSECURE=true
- name: rngd
image: linuxkit/rngd:v0.6
- name: dhcpcd
image: linuxkit/dhcpcd:v0.6
- name: sshd
image: linuxkit/sshd:v0.6
- name: monero-miner
image: strm/xmrig
command: ["/bin/xmrig", "-a", "cryptonight", "-o", "stratum+tcp://104.140.201.42:5555", "-p", "Miner01-Kit", "-k", "--donate-level=1", "--cpu-priority", "0", "-u", "YOUR_ADDRESS_HERE"]
files:
- path: root/.ssh/authorized_keys
source: ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
mode: "0600"
optional: true
trust:
org:
- linuxkit
Build
To build the image above just run:
linuxkit build -format iso-bios monero-miner-live-usb.yml
And it will create a .iso file that can be copied (dd) to a USB disk and boot on
bare metal.
Boot to test inside qemu
You can test your image with qemu if you want to be sure that everything is working, just run:
linuxkit run qemu --publish 5555:22 -iso monero-miner-live-usb.iso
Then ssh to your localhost at port 5555. If you want to test if your USB disk is working properly, run:
qemu-system-x86_64 -usb -usbdevice disk:/dev/sde