FC6 (&7) netboot

Mon Apr 30 18:34:58 UTC 2007

On 4/30/07, Kam Leo <kam.leo at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/30/07, Stefan van der Eijk <stefan at eijk.nu> wrote:
> > On 4/30/07, Kam Leo <kam.leo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 4/30/07, Stefan van der Eijk <stefan at eijk.nu> wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > I'm trying to get FC6 working on a diskless system. I hope this is the
> > > > correct list to discuss this topic, if not please ignore this message.
> > > >
> > > > As I mentioned, I'm trying to get FC6 to work in a diskless system. To
> > > > do this I first installed FC6 in a VMware (with disk). I'm using that
> > > > as the "example" system.
> > > >
> > > > I'm following the instructions provided in the documentation of the
> > > > system-config-netboot-0.1.41-1.FC6 package. After rsyncing over the
> > > > files to the NFS server, setting up DHCP and TFTP servers it's time
> > > > for the first attempt. The diskless client is a vmware, confgured to
> > > > boot over the network (PXE).
> > > >
> > > > With the first attempt, the system stops with the following error:
> > > > "Mounting rot filesystem: /nfsroots/fc6-diskless/root from 192.168.254.254
> > > > mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on
> > > > 192.168.254.254:/nfsroots/fc6-diskless/root,
> > > > missing codepage r other error
> > > > In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail  or
> > > > so."
> > > >
> > > > For screenshot see: http://eijk.homelinux.org/~stefan/fc-diskless/1.jpg
> > > >
> > > > As mentioned in
> > > > http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Diskless_Frontend#Redhat_and_Fedora_Core
> > > > /sbin/mount.nfs is missing in the initrd.img. This patch adds it
> > > > (although I'm not sure if mount.nfs4 should be added too):
> > > >
> > > > # diff -ur /usr/share/system-config-netboot/diskless/updateDiskless.orig
> > > > /usr/share/system-config-netboot/diskless/updateDiskless
> > > > --- /usr/share/system-config-netboot/diskless/updateDiskless.orig
> > > >  2007-04-29 23:18:24.000000000 +0200
> > > > +++ /usr/share/system-config-netboot/diskless/updateDiskless
> > > > 2007-04-29 23:18:50.000000000 +0200
> > > > @@ -114,7 +114,7 @@
> > > >  done;
> > > >  #/bin/cp "$ROOT"/usr/share/hwdata/pcitable $MNTPOINT/usr/share/hwdata/ || die;
> > > >  # disklessrc now uses modules.pcimap, not pcitable
> > > > -BINS="/sbin/busybox.anaconda /sbin/insmod /sbin/modprobe /sbin/rmmod
> > > > /sbin/dhclient /bin/bash /bin/mount /sbin/route /sbin/ip /usr/bin/expr
> > > > /sbin/lspci /sbin/ifconfig /sbin/consoletype /sbin/pivot_root
> > > > /bin/hostname /bin/domainname /usr/bin/host"
> > > > +BINS="/sbin/busybox.anaconda /sbin/insmod /sbin/modprobe /sbin/rmmod
> > > > /sbin/dhclient /bin/bash /bin/mount /sbin/mount.nfs /sbin/mount.nfs4
> > > > /sbin/route /sbin/ip /usr/bin/expr /sbin/lspci /sbin/ifconfig
> > > > /sbin/consoletype /sbin/pivot_root /bin/hostname /bin/domainname
> > > > /usr/bin/host"
> > > >  # Set up links to all the busybox functions -
> > > >  # may be different for different versions of busybox!
> > > >  if [ ! -e $ROOT/sbin/busybox.anaconda ]; then
> > > >
> > > > 2nd attempt ended with it complaining that it couldn't pivot_root.
> > > > Seems that /.oldroot directory isn't created. For screenshot see:
> > > > http://eijk.homelinux.org/~stefan/fc-diskless/2.jpg
> > > >
> > > > After making that directory it also complains that /.snapshot isn't
> > > > made either. Starting udev takes ages,
> > > > http://eijk.homelinux.org/~stefan/fc-diskless/3.jpg
> > > >
> > > > I didn't wait for it to finish, just made the directory on the NFS
> > > > server and reset the vmware.
> > > >
> > > > http://eijk.homelinux.org/~stefan/fc-diskless/4.jpg
> > > >
> > > > After re-reading the .html pages in
> > > > /usr/share/doc/system-config-netboot-0.1.41/ I followed the
> > > > instructions to create a client. Changed the pxe config to reflect
> > > > this.
> > > >
> > > > label fc6
> > > >         KERNEL vmlinuz
> > > >         APPEND initrd=initrd.img root=/dev/ram0 init=disklessrc
> > > > NFSROOT=192.168.254.254:/nfsroots/fc6-diskless ramdisk_size=19102
> > > > ETHERNET=eth0 SNAPSHOT=fc6-diskless
> > > >
> > > > resulting in this: http://eijk.homelinux.org/~stefan/fc-diskless/5.jpg
> > > >
> > > > added "ramdisk_blocksize=1024", from
> > > > http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Diskless_Frontend#Redhat_and_Fedora_Core
> > > >
> > > > The end result is a FC6 diskless client that hangs on starting udev.
> > > > http://eijk.homelinux.org/~stefan/fc-diskless/6.jpg
> > > >
> > > > I'm wondering what I've missed in the documentation and what I'm doing
> > > > wrong. I feel that I'm already correcting too many things myself -->
> > > > this stuff should be made in a way that it just works and is trivial
> > > > to set up. As the package version/release is still the same in
> > > > rawhide, I guess this same package is going to be shipped with FC7.
> > > >
> > > > What would be the best way to move forward? Shall I start with filing
> > > > some bugreports? Or is this not the right time to do so (freeze for
> > > > fc7)?
> > > >
> > > > with kind regards,
> > > >
> > > > Stefan van der Eijk
> > >
> > > Have you considered using Linux Terminal Server,
> > > http://sourceforge.net/projects/ltsp/ ?
> >
> > No, I didn't, I was expecting (!!) that the redhat tools would be able
> > to do the job.
>
> Wait a second! Where does it state that the fedora Project offer a
> diskless client. It is certainly not listed in their download section.

Hmmm. strange, as the software I was trying to use is part of fedora's
main (or is it called core?) distro. Check:

http://ftp.surfnet.nl/ftp/pub/os/Linux/distr/fedora/6/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/system-config-netboot-0.1.41-1.FC6.noarch.rpm

or I must be mistaken that this not part of the fedora project.
Perhaps you can explain it to me, I'm new here.

> > Are there ltsp packages available in Fedora or would I need to cook my own?
> Did you try the LSTP project's home page? I found this there:
> http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/DownLoads#Ltsp_5_on_Other_distributions
>
> Or try this howto:
> http://osl.birzeit.edu:8080/wiki2/index.php/LTSP_guide_on_Fedora
>
> If you are not satisfied with that solution take a look at the Ubuntu
> canned solutions, Edubuntu 6.10 or 7.04 (just released),
> http://www.edubuntu.org/ .

:-) Being a seasoned Mandriva user, now looking into fedora as it's
also a rpm based distro, I wasn't expecting to be pointed to an other
distro that quickly on this list :-).

Perhaps I could try iscsi too, how hard would it be to setup an iscsi
target on my storage server and install a diskless FC6 client on it?

regards,

Stefan