Hello Linux dsitro experts,

I was tasked to build a Demo CD for a web-based application. The
applications runs on Linux + Apache + PHP. I would like to use minimal
Linux install for this Demo CD. The minimal OS on the CD must prevent
any file copy and file viewing. This is to prevent anyone from copying
the PHP files from the CD. What is the best way to achieve this?

What is the best minimal Linux distro for this purpose?

I understand that someone can potentially mount the Demo CD on another
Linux box, and copy the files that way. Is there is way to prevent
this?

What do you use to create Demo CDs for such applications?

Thanks
Saqib Ali

The best choice you have is to build your application into an encrypted image, and then when the CD is run have the image extract to a ram disk at run time so that the files exist only in RAM. To avoid copying simply disallow switching of consoles and do not include the mount programs - take the source for mount and compile it into another program.

Hello,

This seems like a good idea. Can you please point me to some documentation, that can help get started on this.

Thanks.
Saqib Ali

You're going to have to custom-code it on your own, unfortunately, but the rc.d boot process is fairly well-documented, you can plug your own custom de/en/cryption wrapper in fairly easily. I haven't heard of anyone doing it quite that way before but there is no technical reason it couldn't be done.