Grml

Grml is an open source Linux distribution based on the Debian GNU/Linux operating and designed from the ground up to by used by system administrators and end-users who prefer text-mode tools.

It can be used as a system rescue CD, offers out-of-the-box usability for the visually impaired, and automatic hardware detection. It’s distributed in two separate editions, a small one with only a few essential packages and no desktop environment, as well as a full flavor with extra applications and a lightweight window manager.

Distributed in two editions, as 64-bit and 32-bit Live CDs

It’s available for download as Live CD ISO images, two for each edition, supporting both 64-bit and 32-bit hardware platforms. They can be burned to blank CD discs or written to USB flash drives.

The distribution can be easily installed to a local disk drive, but only from the command-line prompt when booting the live environment (available in both editions). It also features a cryptsetup, losetup, mount and mkfs wrapper called grml-crypt.

Boot options

The Live CDs feature a custom boot prompt, from where users can start an existing operating system from the first disk drive, jump to an old-style isolinux prompt, as well as to run GRUB2, iPXE, FreeDOS, MirOS, Memtest86+, HDT (Hardware Detection Tool), as well as an all-in-one image.

Default boot options include debug mode, disable framebuffer, disable kernel mode-setting, enable SSH (with random password), forensic mode, graphical mode, copy to RAM, persistency mode, serial console, and German settings.

Includes only lightweight apps

The Full edition comes with the Midnight Commander two-panel file manager, GParted disk partitioning tool, Xpdf PDF viewer, XTerm terminal emulator, Telnet client, Irssi IRC client, Wireshark network scanner, Iceweasel web browser, and many other useful tools.

Bottom line

All in all, Grml is a decent and minimal Debian-based Live CD for system administrators. It offers a great selection of system packages to choose from, specifically designed for system recovery and rescue tasks.

What is new in this release:

• Update kernel to 4.9.29
• Update Debian packages to most recent Debian/stretch versions as of 2017-05-30
• Avoid automatic LVM scanning
• Avoid automatic mdadm scanning
• Enable autologin for user root on serial console ttyS0
• Enable systemd specific debug boot options in debugging mode
• Fix GRUB error message ('error: null src bitmap in grub_video_bitmap_create_scaled') when choosing boot sub-menu in EFI mode
• Fix console-setup related error message
• Fix grml-x startup issues
• Fix several aoe-tools related issues
• Software changes: added console-setup, haveged, rng-tools and added cpufrequtils + lsscsi to grml-small
• Switched from grml-runtty to agetty
• Warn in initramfs if there is

What is new in version 2014.11:

• New features:
• new boot option getfile.retries=...: by specifying a number it controls the number of download retries for the netscript=... and netscript=... boot options (defaults to '10' if unset), usage example: 'getfile.retries=42'
• grml2usb: improved check for bootflag, new option --skip-bootflag and Python3 support
• grml-quickconfig: display IP and password if ssh boot option is used
• grml-lang: support language settings for Italy
• grml-hwinfo: support i2c-tools's decode-dimms, edac-utils and mcelog
• grml-zshrc:
• rework and unify $PATH handling
• several improvements in battery information/reporting (incl. support for FreeBSD + OpenBSD)
• extend dchange() to support apt-get and multiple package names
• grml-debootstrap:
• Adjust locale handling (LANG/LANGUAGE) to match with Debian wheezy defaults
• Initial packer/vagrant/autotest setup
• New option --vm to install VMs into LVs and such
• New option --defaultinterfaces to install default /etc/network/interfaces
• Set up default /etc/network/interfaces with dhcp for eth0 in VM use case
• Copy /etc/network/interfaces from host system, unless --nointerfaces is used or target is a VM
• Support --nokernel option to skip installation of default kernel images
• Support execution of --grub when installing to target directory
• Switch default filesystem from ext3 to ext4
• Provide --debug option for very verbose execution
• Important Changes:
• Switch from http.debian.net to ftp.debian.org as default mirror in grml-live: because of unreliable mirror usage with http.debian.net the grml-live system uses ftp.debian.org as its main mirror
• Bits & bolts:
• Linux kernel is based on 3.16.7.
• Fixed several bugs from the bug tracking system.

What is new in version 2014.03:

• New features:
• new boot option vlan: this provides support for e.g. using something like 'ip=10.10.10.42::10.10.10.1:255.255.255.0:grml:eth0:off vlan=301:eth0' to use VID 301 for device eth0 (development sponsored by Sipwise GmbH)
• grml-debootstrap:
• Support FIXED_DISK_IDENTIFIERS option, useful for reproducible builds
• install bridge-utils, cryptsetup, ifenslave and vlan packages by default
• Support overriding configuration via environment variables
• Important Changes:
• forensic mode: the readonly boot option was renamed to read-only (caused by change in upstream's live-boot)
• Bits & bolts:
• Linux kernel is based on 3.13.6.
• Fixed several bugs from the bug tracking system.
• Packages;
• Details about shipped packages and their versions on Grml are available in the Debian section. Visit dpkg_list for a detailed list of packages shipped with Grml 2014.03).
• Updates:
• Packages are taken from Debian testing, 30th of March 2014. 18 packages have been removed, and these 22 new packages have been added (plus dependencies, excluding lib* and kernel image):
• dump ifenslave nocache openssh-sftp-server python-crypto
• python-dnspython python-ldb python-lockfile python-ntdb
• python-samba python-talloc python-tdb qemu-system-common
• qemu-system-x86 samba-common-bin samba-dsdb-modules
• samba-libs sysvinit-core tcplay tdb-tools
• xserver-xorg-video-modesetting xulrunner-24.0
• These Debian packages have been removed/replaced (excluding lib* and kernel image):
• ifenslave-2.6 recover ruby1.8 rubygems ttf-dejavu-core ufsutils
• vgabios xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
• xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-i128
• xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
• xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-sis
• xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
• xulrunner-17.0

What is new in version 2013.09:

• This Grml release provides fresh software packages after the Debian stable release (AKA wheezy) has been released.
• As usual it also incorporates up2date hardware support and fixes known bugs from the previous Grml release.

What is new in version 2013.02:

• ssh boot option: display SSH server key fingerprints
• grml-hwinfo: added support for lsscsi, iscsiadm, proxmox/libvirt/openvz/vserver information retrieval, swapon, mdadm, LVM + dmsetup, now using 'lspci -nn' for lspci output
• grml-live: handling firmware related packages in GRMLBASE, added uuid-runtime to GRMLBASE
• grml-network: netcardconfig provides support to scan for available wireless networks
• grml-udev-config: Do not set mount options for NTFS partitions to "ro" any longer
• grml2usb: verify that the bootflag is enabled
• grml2iso: ISOs are dd-able by default
• grml-debootstrap:
• Use http.debian.net as default mirror
• Set wheezy as the new default release
• Add acpi-support-base + firmware-linux-free to default package selection

What is new in version 2012.05:

• Update to Kernel 3.3.7
• Added sysstat (and imvirt-helper was pulled in as dependency)
• Fixed Grub2, iPXE and MirOS bsd4grml boot options for 64bit ISO
• Added wallpaper
• Fixed lang boot option for grml-small flavour

What is new in version 2011.12:

• New features:
• EFI Boot support from CD-ROM and USB keys (amd64 only)
• mDNS support (try ping grml.local with libnss-mdns and avahi-daemon or similar enabled on your host)
• NFS Client support and d-bus start automatically
• grml-debootstrap, the tool of choice to install Debian, can now directly build virtual machine images.
• grml-live, our build tool, was enhanced with new features to better integrate with Jenkins. This release, as well as the current daily images are built from within Jenkins!
• Important Changes:
• Z-Shell configuration has been cleaned up. Quite a few functions have been removed from the default configuration.
• X11 environment has been downsized as well. The window manager is now fluxbox. idesk has been removed, all available software is now reachable from the fluxbox menu.
• The accessibility support now consists of shipping standard speakup and enabling sound during boot. A new beep sequence (4 tones) is sounded just before the quickconfig menu starts. The isolinux menu will beep once, and the grub menu will beep three times. (The accessibility boot options have been removed.)
• iSCSI Target is now provided by LIO. The configuration tool targetcli is included.
• xterm now uses the Terminus font, like the VT consoles.
• Virtual Machines automatically get the "noprompt" behaviour.
• Ancient config files and examples have been removed from grml-etc(-core).
• Ancient scripts have been removed from grml-scripts(-core).
• Anonymous stats are collected during boot up. This includes: Grml release name, boot media type (local or remote), a random string, used boot option keys (no values) and if your CPU is 64bit-capable. You can turn this off with the nostats boot option.
• Bits & bolts:
• Modem support has been removed from grml-network
• VT consoles are driven by grml-runtty, our homegrown login and getty replacement for Live CDs.
• Netboot scenarios should no longer use the "nodhcp" boot option.
• grml2hd is no longer in PATH to discourage its use even further. The related boot options have been removed.
• grml2usb: compat for releases < 2009.05, grub1 and lilo support have been removed.
• Release builds are now built from Debian's testing distribution, instead of unstable.
• Linux kernel is based on 3.1.6. No additional modules are shipped.
• Fixed several bugs from the bug tracking system.

What is new in version 2011.05:

• New Linux kernel version based on 2.6.38.7
• Initramfs is now XZ compressed (smaller)
• /run has been introduced
• Special new features:
• dns= bootoption allows for specifying static nameservers.
• grml-feedback, a commandline application for providing feedback to the Grml Team via feedback.grml.org.
• Easier syntax for grml-quickconfig menu files, existing menu files are still valid.
• grml2iso small ISOs: grml2iso can now output small ISOs (~ 20MB) with only kernel and initrd. These are meant to be used with fetch=.
• Important Changes
• iPXE has replaced gPXE.
• Core scripts previously found in grml-scripts are now shipped as grml-scripts-core to facilitate reuse on plain Debian systems.
• Due to popular demand, the ratpoison window manager is included once again.
• grml-debootstrap adds the security repository for stable and testing installations.
• grml-quickconfig will be executed on grml-small.
• More complicated disk configurations (LVM and SW-RAID, though not stacked on each other) are supported when booting Grml via grml-rescueboot or with the findiso= and live-media= bootoptions.

What is new in version 2010.12:

• New features:
• New Linux kernel version based on 2.6.36.2
• Config-less X to take advantage of X.org's automatic configuration
• Support for Kernel Mode Setting (KMS)
• grml-rescueboot / loopback.cfg feature and grub-imageboot for ISO boot (note: more details will follow - TODO)
• Initial release of Kantan, an automated testing suite for continuous integration and a test environment; see grml.org/kantan/ for details (not shipped in Grml by default though)
• Incremental grml-rebuildfstab triggered by udev events for faster execution time
• Special new features:
• Improved serial console on multiple devices (thanks to Marc Haber)
• vnc_connect bootoption allowing to connect to an existing listening vnc client. Can be used to connect easily from devices behind firewalls as connection is initiated from the vnc server instead of the vnc client.
• grml-terminalserver no longer needs to rebuild the initrd, default initrd/initramfs shipped on ISO is fully-featured for PXE boot.
• The netscript bootoption provides the new environment variable named NETSCRIPT to provide an option to ensure that the script is executed under the according environment.
• Updated manifold boot features (thanks to Thorsten Glaser): dd-ed ISOs (for booting via USB) now use isolinux as bootloader as well, so you get the same boot menu in normal CD boot as well as in USB boot.
• New features in Grml's Zsh:
• Fully documented, see grml.org/zsh (thanks to Joerg Woelke) - available online as well as offline ('man 5 grmlzshrc')
• Uses zsh's built-in vcs_info and falls back to a grml-packaged version if the current version of zsh does not come with its own implementation
• Important Changes:
• Removed many window managers (fvwm/fvwm-crystal, ratpoison, dwm, twm, w9wm, evilwm, jwm, pekwm) due to size and out-of-the-box configuration issues. See issue897 for the discussion.
• grml2hd is no longer available from grml-quickconfig, the selection dialog displayed after grml-full or grml-medium are done booting.
• Reworked /etc/runlevel.conf deployment. Instead of providing runlevel.conf through grml-etc it's being deployed through grml-live to improve customization capabilities.
• Rewrite of grml-x due to new xorg.conf handling, please note that some options that are now unnecessary have been removed and that all single-dash options (-force, -nostart,...) became common long options (--force, --nostart,...).
• Switched from live-initramfs to live-boot based on version 2.0.12.
• Switched from pump to ISC dhclient, triggered by udev events during boot (use nodhcp to turn this off).
• Network configuration via /etc/network/interfaces supported during boot-up (static IP address assignment - e.g. via ip=... booption - and dhcp are both configured via /etc/network/interfaces).
• Reworked sound mixer handling to improve handling of IBM hardware and multiple soundcards.
• Kernel:
• Based on vanilla kernel 2.6.36.2 including several patches and additional modules:
• aufs iscsitarget loop-aes lzma ndiswrapper openafs
• speakup squashfs sysprof tp-smapi virtualbox-ose-guest
• xtables-addons
• Bugfixes:
• Fixed several bugs and issues reported on grml_2010.04 @ grml-wiki and in the bug tracking system.
• Packages / Software:
• Details about shipped packages and their versions on Grml are available at the Debian section. Visit dpkg_get_selections for a main package listing and dpkg_list for a detailed list of packages shipped with Grml 2010.12.
• Updates:
• Updated all packages to Debian Unstable branch by 15th of december 2010 (plus some further selected updates until 29th of december).
• Major changes since release 2010.04 (20100429):
• Grml developer meeting in Vienna.
• Christian Hofstaedter joined the Grml team.
• Grml at FrOSCon 2010.
• German magazine freiesMagazin provides an article about Grml in edition 06/2010.
• Grml talk at Net Culture Lab in Dornbirn.

What is new in version 2010.04 RC1:

• grml-quickconfig: rewritten from scratch with proper customisation support, now being shipped through new Debian package grml-quickconfig
• Remove deprecated bt-audio script
• grml-lock: add support for graphical version via gdialog/zenity
• grml-setlang: do not set LC_CTYPE any longer
• grml-hostname: address xauth issue
• zsh-login: do not disable grml-quickconfig for serial console
• grml-info: improve support for customisation
• vnc bootoption: booting with vnc=yourpassword and the startx bootoption automatically starts the vnc service for user 'grml' using graphical remote access with provided password
• dmraid related bootoptions: nodmraid to not enable present dmraid devices, dmraid=on to automatically enable any present dmraid devices and dmraid=off to actively try to stop any possibly present dmraid devices.
• New bootoption bootid for improving reliability of boot process. The specified argument to the bootoption is matched against a token on the ISO to make sure that only the correct Grml version gets booted.
• More robust network booting: The last Grml release (2009.10) already invented the ethdevice= bootoption which allows you to specify a specific NIC for booting. The bootoption ethdevice and its surrounding code has been extended so it is possible to specify multiple devices at once that should be configured. If you don't have any specific configuration all present NICs will be used for configuration via DHCP automatically. Visit the Grml developer blog for further information
• Providing an improved default configuration for top(1) utility when running as (non-root) user
• Improved serial console handling through /etc/inittab*. Using normal getty instead of mgetty and several baud rate settings (115200,57600,38400,19200,9600,4800,2400,1200) to let getty figure out which mode should be used.
• Reworked xinitrc handling: modularize the code into ~/.xinitrc.d/ and support configuration through ~/.config/grml/xinitrc.