RE: NFS install

[Matt Drew <mdrew redhat com>]

> Actually- I didnt copy the entire CD to a harddrive- i merely nfs
> shared the /mnt/cdrom directory.

The instructions are in the release notes on the CD and in the box.

> hrm, so the NFS install will now require that the CDROM contents
> are partially copied off the CD, then mixed with some of the files
> from the second CD?

All of the RPMS must be copied into the same directory, with the CD root
(the directory above the RedHat directory) being the directory specified
from the netboot installation.  For example, if you copied the RedHat
directories to /exports/RedHat, then you would specify the /exports
directory as the directory to mount during the net installation.

> It might make more sense for the installer to disconnect from the
> server and give you an opportunity to switch discs, (or specify a
> new server/share) as does the local CDROM install routine.

The installer team tried that -- too complicated.  Much simpler just to
copy everything, although it takes disk space.

> The option to skip the missing package and continue the
> installation (or abort?) would also be nice.

That would break dependencies (and possibly prevent the system from
booting properly).  Abort would be nice, I agree.

> btw- even after i got it using only packages from the first disc,
> the installer crashed for me sometime just before completing the
> post installation routines- though the system did seem to be
> installed properly. I read somewhere that the installer has some
> recent fixes, and since the box is now in service (so i cant mess
> with it anymore) I'm not going to investigate that (right now).

Hmmm. Fair enough.

> And on the other hand, everything worked fine installing on a more
> recent system with a cdrom drive. (I guess more people use that
> method) Perhaps it was nfs install related...

Maybe. Network installs are heavily used both here and at other sites
that need many identical machines, so it isn't going away and if there is
a problem people want to know about it. :)

> At the very least, maybe a paragraph about this should be in the
> book that comes with the boxed distro. I didnt even see a mention
> of where the netboot image was- which the 6.2 book did mention.

I'll ask about that -- I couldn't find any mention of netboot.img in the
Installation Guide for 7.1 either.  There are also some other issues on
that section in the Installation Guide that I'll also pass along to Docs
for fixing, like still saying you can mount the cd, export it via NFS, and
expect it to work.

Matt

-- 
Matt Drew
Peer Review team lead
Red Hat Consumer Services