netoy-os

The netoy-tui appliance. An Alpine Linux-based bootable ISO that turns a plain Ventoy stick into a self-contained USB ISO manager — boot it, and the TUI (built from the netoy-tui submodule in for-bootable mode) is right there on the serial console and the VGA console, with your Ventoy data partition already mounted and writable at /mnt/netoy.

Screenshots

Welcome	Network

Manage ISOs	Download ISOs

What you get

• A minimal Alpine environment that boots straight into netoy-tui — on both the serial console and VGA.
• All the networking tools preinstalled: NetworkManager (Wi-Fi backend: wpa_supplicant by default, iwd switchable) + nmtui for Wi-Fi and Ethernet, NetworkManager's internal DHCP client, dnsmasq as the DNS resolver, iproute2 for manual/static config.
• The whole netoy ISO copied into RAM and Ventoy's boot hook neutralized — so the USB stick (or CD) can be unplugged after boot.
• The real Ventoy data partition mounted read-write at /mnt/netoy, so netoy-tui manages ISOs on it with zero runtime trickery.

Why this exists

Booted through Ventoy, an ISO lives as a file on the USB data partition, and Ventoy injects a userspace hook that creates a device-mapper node over that partition. That node pins the partition read-only, breaks the Alpine boot for this image, and blocks netoy-tui from mounting it later.

This image sidesteps the whole mess in two small, explicit steps:

1. An initramfs wrapper copies the netoy ISO from the Ventoy data partition into RAM, attaches it to a loop device, then neutralizes Ventoy — drops /ventoy/ventoy_os_param and Ventoy's udev rules — so no competing device-mapper node is ever created and Alpine's modloop-extraction hook never runs. Alpine's nlplug-findfs then sees the RAM-backed loop as the only boot media. Because boot media is now a file in RAM, the physical stick can go.

2. The OpenRC netoy-ram service copies the compressed modloop squashfs into RAM, switches /.modloop to the RAM copy, unmounts the boot media, removes any leftover Ventoy device-mapper nodes, and finally mounts the real Ventoy data partition at /mnt/netoy.

Result: /lib/modules, firmware, and boot media all live in RAM, with the Ventoy data partition already mounted for netoy-tui — no runtime "undo trick" needed in the TUI.

Why not archiso? Arch's archiso has a single copytoram=y parameter that copies the whole live rootfs to RAM. Alpine has no equivalent one-liner, so this image uses a small custom initramfs wrapper + OpenRC service to do the same job while staying inside Alpine's official mkimage.sh tooling.

Build

./build.sh

Requirements on the host:

• podman
• The netoy-tui git submodule initialized: git submodule update --init

The script builds entirely inside an alpine:3.24 container: compiles netoy-tui with --features for-bootable, then runs Alpine's official mkimage.sh to produce the ISO in out/. Newer builds are dated YYMMDD, e.g. netoy-260724-x86_64.iso.

Try it in QEMU

./scripts/qemu-serial.sh

The ISO runs both a serial console (console=ttyS0,115200) and VGA (console=tty1) — headless in QEMU or on a real monitor. Both auto-login root and launch netoy-tui. Note: two independent TUI processes run at the same time; use only one console for USB operations.

The script boots the latest ISO with -nographic and attaches the serial port to your terminal. Press Ctrl+A then C to switch to the QEMU monitor, then type q to quit.

What to expect:

• The bootloader (ISOLINUX) and kernel messages on the serial line.
• The initramfs wrapper copying the netoy ISO out of the Ventoy data partition into RAM (progress bar shown), neutralizing Ventoy's hook, and attaching the RAM copy as a loop device; nlplug-findfs then discovers it as the boot media.
• OpenRC's netoy-ram service copying the modloop into RAM, switching the loop to the RAM copy, unmounting boot media, removing Ventoy device-mapper nodes, and mounting the real data partition at /mnt/netoy.
• Auto-login on ttyS0 and tty1 (a tiny getty -n -l wrapper); /root/.profile starts netoy-tui. Press Q to drop to a shell; inittab respawns the login shell.
• Root login without a password on the local console by default.

After boot

Auto-login root on every configured console via agetty --autologin root --login-program /usr/local/bin/netoy-autologin (/bin/login -f root); netoy-tui starts from /root/.profile on tty1 (VGA) and ttyS0 (serial). tty2–tty6 are auto-login root shells.

• <N> on the Network screen launches nmtui — NetworkManager's own full-screen TUI — for all Wi-Fi / Ethernet / manual IP+DNS config.
• <B> toggles the Wi-Fi backend (wpa_supplicant ↔ iwd) and restarts NetworkManager; the active backend is shown as an indicator.
• <T> runs a quick DNS/connectivity test (ping IP + hostname).
• The network status is re-checked automatically every ~5 seconds until the machine is online.
• <M> on the Manage ISOs screen remounts the Ventoy data partition at /mnt/netoy if needed (normally netoy-ram already did it at boot).

Files

File	Purpose
build.sh	Host entry point that launches the container build.
scripts/build-in-container.sh	Runs inside the Alpine container; installs tools, builds Rust binaries, invokes mkimage.sh.
scripts/qemu-serial.sh	Boots the latest ISO under QEMU with a serial console for headless testing.
vendor/mkimg.netoy.sh	Alpine image profile for mkimage.sh.
genapkovl-netoy.sh	Generates the netoy.apkovl.tar.gz overlay: services, inittab, package world.
overlay/usr/local/bin/netoy-autologin	Tiny wrapper used by agetty --autologin for passwordless root.
overlay/root/.profile	Auto-starts netoy-tui on tty1 / ttyS0 root login.
overlay/initramfs-files/netoy-copy-iso.sh	Copies the ISO into RAM, neutralizes Ventoy, attaches the RAM copy as a loop device.
overlay/	Static files that go into the apkovl.
vendor/	Vendored Alpine mkimage.sh + mkimg.base.sh from aports 3.24-stable.

Notes / limitations

• The image is intentionally minimal: NetworkManager (Wi-Fi backend: wpa_supplicant by default, switchable to iwd) for Wi-Fi/Ethernet management, nmtui as the front-end, NetworkManager's internal DHCP client + dnsmasq for DNS, iproute2 for manual/static config.
• Want an even simpler (but more RAM-hungry) approach? Replace the compressed modloop copy in netoy-ram with Alpine's official copy-modloop tool, which copies the uncompressed /lib/modules tree to RAM.