Optimization of CernVM early boot process

CernVM virtual machine is a Linux based virtual appliance optimized for High Energy Physics experiments. It is used for cloud computing, volunteer computing, and software development by the four large LHC experiments. The goal of this project is proling and optimizing the boot process of the CernVM. A key part was the development of a performance profiler for shell scripts as an extension to the popular BusyBox open source UNIX tool suite. Based on the measurements, costly shell code was replaced by more efficient, custom C programs. The results are compared to the original ones and successful optimization is proven.