[Techtalk] booting a diskless client

[Maria McKinley]

> 
> So, I'm still having a problem. It boots up, gets its ip, says:
> 
> VFS: Mounted root (nfs filesystem).
> Freeing unused kernel memory: 404k freed
> Failed to execute /sbin/init. Attempting defaults...
> Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found. Try passing init=option to 
> kernel.
> 
> Before I found that the file system was being mounted on /root/ instead 
> of /, so I tried passing init=/root/sbin/init, but I got the same 
> message (but with the new path), so it is getting the init option, and 
> both the client and the server claim that root was mounted, so I am at a 
> total loss. init appears to be fine, and certainly works on the server.
> 
> This is driving me completely insane.
> 
> cheers,
> maria

Just for shits and giggles I tried booting with init=/bin/bash and
init=/root/bin/bash, and got the same messages. This says to me that
there is not a problem with the init itself, but with actually finding
the file. Both the client and the server seem to think that the root
file system was mounted, so either it is being somehow silently
dismounted, or it is mounting in some bizarre place. Open to any
suggestions...

cheers,
maria