As previously mentioned, the OS image can be thought of as a filesystem. In fact, the image contains a small directory structure that tells procnto the names and positions of the files contained within it; the image also contains the files themselves. When the embedded system is running, the image can be accessed just like any other read-only filesystem:
# cd /proc/boot # ls .script ping cat data1 pidin ksh ls ftp procnto devc-ser8250-abc123 # cat data1 This is a data file, called data1, contained in the image. Note that this is a convenient way of associating data files with your programs.
The above example actually demonstrates two aspects of having the OS image function as a filesystem. When we issued the ls command, the OS loaded ls from the image filesystem (pathname /proc/boot/ls). Then, when we issued the cat command, the OS loaded cat from the image filesystem as well, and opened the file data1.
Let's now take a look at how we configure the image to contain files.