redhat-config-netboot, setup diskless environment

[Kaspars Melkis]

Today I installed a couple of Fedora Core 1 Diskless workstations. I
just thought to share my experiences with others.

I followed the RedHat documentation but some things did not work as
desired.

First not all my computers support PXE network boot. PXE boot floppy
image was hard to find. After some trials I found that boot image for
etherboot can be generated with mknbi tools. I used the following
command:

/usr/bin/mknbi-linux --append "noauto root=/dev/ram0 init=disklessrc
NFSROOT=192.168.0.43:/mnt/storage/diskless/fc1 ramdisk_size=10000
ETHERNET=eth0 SNAPSHOT=maya" \
vmlinuz initrd.img > kernel

Then instructed dhcpd to load "kernel" instead of "pxelinux.0". 

Then I found out that I cannot change keyboard layout in Gnome with
setxkbmap. It was because directory /var/lib/xkb was read only. I added
it to files.custom in snapshot directory but I would like that it gets
included in "files" in future. 

The biggest problem was that it did not support older ISA network cards.
It is strage because the owners of older hardware would be the prime
candidates to use diskless workstations anyway. I decided to resolve
this.

At first I thought that it was just the question of loading the
appropriate kernel module. DHCPD acctually allows to pass the parameters
for each host, like this,

      option option-128     e4:45:74:68:00:00;
      option option-129     "NIC=ne IO=0x300";

But to make it load I included the following lines in "disklessrc"
before "loadmodules":

if [ -n "$NIC" ] ; then
	echo "$NIC $IO"
	/sbin/modprobe $NIC io=$IO
fi

But the ne module still would not load. It turned out that "ne.o" is
moved to directory "unsupported" and thus are not included in
initrd.img. Not willing to include "unsupported" modules and unnecessary
increasing  initrd.img and copied ne.o module into kernel/drivers/net
and changed modules.dep appropriately. These changes worked!

Cheers,

Kaspars

2004-01-09 at 17:47, Lewi rakstīja:
> I'm having problem with step-by-step redhat-config-netboot diskless information, 
> I have following in the included docs,
> 
> is there any good documentation that explain this, 
> what I'm confusing is, in docs that comes with redhat-config-netboot package
> is using pxelinux.0, but I ran my compaq deskpro 6000 using tlan ethernet rom from rom-o-matic website
> 
> client can boot successfully, but when request file pxelinux.0-> is not valid image or something, 
> then I read some diskless howto, then I create 
> mknbi-linux /boot/vmlinuz /boot/initrd > linux.nbi
> 
> then I change in dhcpd.conf, that client that with some MAC Address is using file linux.nbi
> client booting successfull loading kernel, but stucked in 
> "unable too mount root nfs, specify rootfs" or something error messages
> 
> I look that when redhat-config-netboot add OS, it patch somefile in rootdir that contain / for client
> 
> thank you
> 
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