> -----Original Message-----
> From: Max Khitrov [mailto:maximkh at yahoo dot com]
> Sent: 06 March 2005 01:08
> To: m0n0wall at lists dot m0n0 dot ch
> Subject: Re: [m0n0wall] php script to edit the base files
> 
> 
> --- Chris Buechler <cbuechler at gmail dot com> wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 06:46:36 -0800 (PST), Max Khitrov
> > <maximkh at yahoo dot com> wrote:
> > > In that case, what I wanted to ask is, what if I write a script
> > that
> > > will mount the hard drive to the currently running system. Would
> > that
> > > then give me the ability to modify the files and make those changes
> > > permanent? What I really want to do is just some basic cosmetic
> > > changes, so I'm thinking why not write a really simply php file
> > that
> > > will mount the hard drive partition, and then give me an overview
> > of
> > > all the files there.
> >
> > It's not that simple because there are no "partitions" to mount, per
> > se.
> >
> > -Chris
> 
> Are you sure? I can't remember exactly, but I seem to recall that a
> number of months ago when I was reformatting a drive that used to have
> m0n0wall on it, cfdisk showed some partition with a number like hda8 or
> something like that.
> 
> Oh well, I'm going to be setting up a new firewall once my hardware
> arrives, will have some time to play around with this :)
> 
> I don't know, maybe it's just me, but while I appreciate all of the
> security Manuel put into this, I find it a bit too restrictive. I don't
> see any reason not to provide us with a simple way of editing the
> configurations and web files on the installation without having to go
> through the process of trying to find a FreeBSD system on which to work
> and then re-imaging the whole thing again. SSH I guess is a dead issue
> at this point, though once again, while I can understand the reasons
> not to include it in the default setup, there should either be a second
> distribution that may be larger in size, but gives us greater freedom,
> or we should have a way of adding these things ourselves with ease
> (ease being the key word there :P). Am I the only one who thinks so?
> 
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The image contains a partition /dev/sdXa (where X is a number - at least on
my system). /dev/sdXa gets mounted to /cf and this is where the config file
is written to. On boot a disk image called mfsroot.gz is extracted to memory
from /dev/sdXa and forms the root file system.

That's why you see partitions but nonetheless, the root file system is not
persisted following a reboot.