[Techtalk] booting a diskless client
Maria McKinley
maria at shadlen.org
Wed Oct 1 02:33:42 UTC 2008
Rudy Zijlstra wrote:
>>
> Hi Maria,
>
> Can you share your pxe config?
>
> Also, what kernel level is the file server? And how is the kernel of the
> diskless client configured?
>
> I've been looking at my own diskless config, and would like to compare.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rudy
here is the rundown on how I have (almost) set up my pxe client:
Compiled a kernel (debian 2.6.26) (this is explicit, I just copied from
my instructions)
Top Level (Linux Kernel Configuration) -> Networking -> Networking
Options -> IP: kernel level autoconfiguration
(once autoconfiguation is asterisked, these show up to put an asterisk in:
IP: DHCP support
IP: BOOTP support (maybe IP: RARP support?)
Top Level -> Device Drivers -> Network Device Support -> appropriate
network card Ethernet
Top Level -> Device Drivers -> Input device support -> Mice -> PS/2 mouse
Top Level -> File systems -> Miscellaneous filesystems -> make sure
Compressessed ROM file system support has *
Top Level -> File systems -> Network File Systems -> NFS file system support
-> Root file system on NFS
created initrd (used MODULES=netboot and BOOT=nfs options in
initramfs.conf):
mkinitramfs -o /tftpboot/initrd.gz 2.6.26
created a gpxe file for floppy:
http://rom-o-matic.net/gpxe/gpxe-0.9.4/contrib/rom-o-matic/
picked out my network card (which they don't make particularly easy),
created image, and stuck it on a floppy
stuck the bzImage and initrd.gz on my webserver with a file boot.gpxe
with the following contents:
#!gpxe
# clocksource option added, because without it would get stuck during boot
kernel http://www.shadlen.org/gpxe/bzImage init=/root/sbin/init
root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=10.208.108.19:/tftpboot/oscar ip=dhcp
clocksource=acpi_pm
initrd http://www.shadlen.org/gpxe/initrd.gz
boot
(played around with all kinds of changes options in the above file, also
dhcpd.conf)
added stuff to my dhcpd.conf:
# computational cluster
group {
filename "http://www.shadlen.org/gpxe/boot.gpxe";
server-identifier 10.208.108.19;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.128;
use-host-decl-names on;
default-lease-time 86400; # 24 hours
max-lease-time 86400; # 24 hours
host nina {
hardware ethernet 00:04:23:e0:5f:9b;
fixed-address 10.208.108.19;
}
host oscar {
hardware ethernet 00:04:23:e0:5e:68;
fixed-address 10.208.108.28;
option root-path "/tftpboot";
}
}
added to exports:
/tftpboot 10.208.108.28(rw,sync,no_root_squash)
/usr 10.208.108.28(rw,sync,no_root_squash)
make directory /tftpboot/oscar and copied stuff from root directory of
server, with certain files changed (can be explicit about this if you
want) or omitted.
restarted various services
Probably more than you really wanted, and I probably forgot something,
but hope it is useful.
cheers,
maria
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