Comments on: Network booting + NFS root with Mandriva http://colin.guthr.ie/2007/12/network-booting-nfs-root-with-mandriva/ Illegitimi non carborundum Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:39:28 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Network Boot Mageia: PXE + NFS Root goodness « Colin.Guthr.ie http://colin.guthr.ie/2007/12/network-booting-nfs-root-with-mandriva/comment-page-1/#comment-1245 Network Boot Mageia: PXE + NFS Root goodness « Colin.Guthr.ie Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:16:16 +0000 #comment-1245 [...] a while back I wrote about setting up Mandriva for network boot and I'm still running a similar configuration albeit upgraded every six months or so as new [...]

]]> By: oboingo http://colin.guthr.ie/2007/12/network-booting-nfs-root-with-mandriva/comment-page-1/#comment-1013 oboingo Sat, 20 Nov 2010 07:31:08 +0000 #comment-1013 Eh! Never mind. It didn’t work because I was trying to be too clever. Bought a Seagate Dockstar (armel arch) on sale. I thought in theory that could work well as a nfsroot server (hacked with openwrt) to x86 clients, and it does, except for the login issue. (PAM inheritance??)

Long story short a Mandriva box works just fine as nfsroot server to other x86 clients.

]]> By: oboingo http://colin.guthr.ie/2007/12/network-booting-nfs-root-with-mandriva/comment-page-1/#comment-1009 oboingo Sat, 20 Nov 2010 01:21:17 +0000 #comment-1009 I’ve almost successfully done this with mandriva 2010.1. “Almost” being the operative word there.

The client systems boot up completely to runlevel 3 (login:), but it refuses to let me login in! Frustrating to be so close and yet so far!

Clearly I’m missing something rather obvious. You’ve probably moved on to Mageia but I can really use some pointers.

Thanks!

]]> By: AL13N http://colin.guthr.ie/2007/12/network-booting-nfs-root-with-mandriva/comment-page-1/#comment-773 AL13N Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:36:24 +0000 #comment-773 i’ve had several issues getting it to work for myself:

* mkinitrd-net doesn’t exist for x86_64
* dracut seems to fail on several points to make a working initrd in relation to NFS, but after several modifications it sort of works
* i added a tmpfs mountpoint in fstab for /tmp
* even though i wanted to have it read-write, (so i left readonly alone), the NFS mont point didn’t want to remount rw … i’ve forced it to boot by adding rw to kernel command line.
* there are still some kind of i18n warnings when booting, saying File Not Found, even thought the settings appear normal-ish…

]]> By: Colin http://colin.guthr.ie/2007/12/network-booting-nfs-root-with-mandriva/comment-page-1/#comment-770 Colin Wed, 14 Jul 2010 10:24:58 +0000 #comment-770 Did you really copy the right initrd from /var/lib/tftpboot/? (this is where mkinitrd-net puts it by default).

Not sure what you mean by “there is no mkinitrd-net anymore” as the package still exists here AFAICT. I used it not long ago after updating my network boot systems to 2010.1.

You do have to make sure that the /dev and /proc on the NFS mount is suitably clean tho’, otherwise udev wont start and other issues like sysfs not being mounted also get in the way.

Also mkinitrd is still the recommended and maintained initrd creator in Mandriva. Dracut may be what we use next time around, but for now mkinitrd is still preferred.

]]> By: AL13N http://colin.guthr.ie/2007/12/network-booting-nfs-root-with-mandriva/comment-page-1/#comment-769 AL13N Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:11:01 +0000 #comment-769 yes, that’s what i thought at first, but it’s odd, since it’s a chrooted install, with only one kernel… and i’m building it inside the chroot… so that would either mean the modules installed are built wrong for that kernel…

I also doublechecked if i copied the kernel and initrd over to the PXE config file but all looked ok…

the thing is, there is no mkinitrd-net anymore and mkinitrd isn’t even maintained… people are telling me i need to use dracut, but it’s still in development… :-(

tbh, i prolly will just make my own initrd manually… it’ll be easier and at least i’ll know if it doesn’t work it’s my own damn fault.

]]> By: Colin http://colin.guthr.ie/2007/12/network-booting-nfs-root-with-mandriva/comment-page-1/#comment-768 Colin Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:34:49 +0000 #comment-768 If you are getting undefined symbols, then it smells like you are creating an initrd for a different kernel to the one being run. e.g. your actual boot kernel is 2.6.30 and your modules are from 2.6.31 or similar. Even just a variation in the kernel flavour may be enough to get these symbol errors. e.g. in Mandriva there are server kernels and desktop kernels and a few other variations too. Make sure you use the right kernel when running mkinitrd (or mkinitrd-net) to generate the initrd.

]]> By: AL13N http://colin.guthr.ie/2007/12/network-booting-nfs-root-with-mandriva/comment-page-1/#comment-767 AL13N Sun, 11 Jul 2010 07:52:54 +0000 #comment-767 it seems there’s no mkinitrd-net anymore in 2010.1

i’ve tried lotsa thing to make a good initrd (even dracut), all through a chrooted install, but dracut seems to not include any modules at all. and mkinitrd gives errors with missing symbols??? when insmodding the modules?

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