NFS booting problem

[Jason Edgecombe]

Your method is cool, but a little advanced.

Try this:
Just copy your NFS tree to a web-viewable directory on a web server and
change the one line in your kickstart file to use http instead of nfs.

Jason

John Summerfield wrote:
> Joe_Wulf wrote:
>> John,
>>
>> Thank you for writing.
>>
>> At this point NFS is all I know.  I have 'gotten' the concept of
>> kickstarting
>> only recently, much less learned and applied it and gotten it to
>> work.  A
>> friend/co-worker helped me to get the NFS working.  I've set it up,
>> the same
>> way for two different locations.  One of the kickstart servers is FC5
>> the
>> other is Fedora 7.  I've pretty carefully checked my configuration
>> stuff.
>> Made sure DHCP, pxeconfig, tftp and NFS were set up.  I've done
>> matched up
>> comparisons between the config files for both locations.  At the FC5
>> site
>> I can fully build repeatedly the same end systems (RHEL AS4u5 32/64 bit)
>> and (RHEL5 32/64 bit) while only changing the nuts and bolts in the
>> %post
>> sections.  I'm applying the same logic and applying the same kinds of
>> things at the Fedora 7 site (even with the same IP networks/address
>> space)
>> and find that the at the Fedora 7 site, something is 'wrong'.  About 1
>> time in 25 (or more) the system will build without anything changing;
>> the
>> rest of the time it is not NFS mounting for the KS.cfg parts.  So, its
>> failing at the same place.
>
> What's in /var/log/messages?
>
>
>
> To use http, you need a web server. I use virtual hosts, but that's
> not essential.
>
> With a decent Internet connexion, one can also install via http
> directly off the 'net. It runs well with a caching proxy, and bot
> Squid and Apache can fill that role superbly.
>
> An advantage of this technique is that one only downloads those files
> actually needed: there's no need for several Gbytes of data.
>
> Once it's cached, installs go at local LAN speeds.
>
> If using Squid, then I suggest a transparent proxy - it simplifies
> installs (one does not need to configure the proxy) and applies to
> ordinary folk using Firefox, Seamonkey etc as well.
>
> I use this virtual host definition:
> [root at ns ~]# cat /etc/httpd/conf/vhosts.d/RHEL.conf
> <VirtualHost *:80>
>         ServerAdmin webmaster at computerdatasafe.com.au
>         DocumentRoot /var/local/mirrors/linux/RHEL
>         ServerName RHEL.demo.lan
>         ServerAlias RHEL.demo.room
>         ServerAlias RHEL
>         Alias           /RHEL/          "/var/local/mirrors/linux/RHEL/"
>         Alias           /Fedora/       
> "/var/local/mirrors/linux/Fedora/"
>         Alias           /Specifix/
> "/var/local/mirrors/linux/Specifix/os/"
>         Alias           /ScientificLinux/
> "/var/local/mirrors/linux/ScientificLinux/"
>         Alias           /CentOS/       
> "/var/local/mirrors/linux/CentOS/"
>         ScriptAlias     /ks/            "/var/local/mirrors/linux/ks/"
>         ErrorLog  /var/log/httpd/RHEL-error_log
>         CustomLog /var/log/httpd/RHEL-access_log combined
> <Directory "/var/local/mirrors/linux/RHEL/">
>         AllowOverride None
>         Options +FollowSymLinks +Indexes
>         Order allow,deny
>         Allow from 192.168
> </Directory>
>
> <directory "/var/local/mirrors/linux/Fedora">
>         AllowOverride None
>         Options FollowSymLinks Indexes
>         Order allow,deny
>         Allow from 192.168
> </Directory>
>
> <directory "/var/local/mirrors/linux/Specifix/os">
>         AllowOverride None
>         Options FollowSymLinks Indexes
>         Order allow,deny
>         Allow from 192.168
> </Directory>
> <Directory "/var/local/mirrors/linux/CentOS/">
>         AllowOverride None
>         Options FollowSymLinks Indexes
>         Order allow,deny
>         Allow from 192.168
> </Directory>
>
>
> </VirtualHost>
> [root at ns ~]#
>
> If you don't want the virtual host stuff, just remove the virtualhost
> things fore and aft.
>
> I have another vhost which I used to install FC2 through a modem with
> time-limited sessions; I'll post it on provocation:-)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>> On the VC3 screen there is syslog-like output, of the following
>> (retyped):
>> 20:08:21  INFO    : doing kickstart... setting it up
>> 20:08:22  INFO    : DHCPv4 interface configuration succeeded.
>> 20:08:23  WARNING : reverse name lookup failed
>> 20:08:24  INFO    : url is 192.168.10.2:/ks/ks-f/RHEL5u0x32ks.cfg
>> 20:08:25  INFO    : file location:
>> nfs://192.168.10.2:/ks/ks-f/RHEL5u0x32ks.cfg
>> 20:08:26  ERROR   : failed to mount nfs source
>
> Like you, I found nfs a little temperamental. In contrast, httpp works
> every time, and also it writes a nice log so one can see what files
> are used.
>
>
>>
>> I've put the 'seconds' in increments to uniquely talk about each
>> line, as
>> needed.  Before ":21" I'm frustrated with the IPv6 that it wastes
>> time trying
>> to mount, but hopefully someone will give me a way to prevent that.
>
> I think it's "noipv6"
>
>>
>> At ":23" I do not understand that reverse name lookup failure.  DNS
>> has been
>> setup, established, configured and not changed.  For these boots, it
>> seems
>> that the errors only occasionally go away without any change to DNS or a
>> restart of the named daemon.  And when I don't get this error, the
>> systems
>> NFS mount and build fully.
> It's trying to convert your install target's IP address to a host
> name. It plans to use this as the name of the system.
>
>>
>> At the Fedora 7 site, the Fedora 7 system is a Pentium 4 with 512 MB
>> of RAM
>> 726 GB of disk storage with a 100 bit ethernet card.  The network
>> connections
>> are through a Linksys RT41-BU router.  The kickstart'ees are virtual
>> machines
>> on a MAC Pro with dual quad-core CPUs, 4GB RAM and 520 GB of internal
>> storage.
>> The MAC Pro has XP64bit installed and is current with all the Micro$loth
>> updates, no firewall, no anti-virus and no anti-spam enabled. 
>> Manually built
>> systems of the above mentioned guests flawlessly install time after
>> time, I
>> can get them repeatedly successfully mount filesystems via NFS (and
>> successfully export them too)
>
> Xen?
> Virtual PC?
> VMWare?
> Whichever you're using, have you tried one of the others?
>
>
>
> I'm not sure of the current situation, but it used to be the case that
> Anaconda's nfs tools weren't as good as the installed ones. Also, I
> think it's using pump for its dhcp client.
>
>>
>> There is also a Dell XPS 1710 laptop within the same network, also
>> every attempt
>> to build 32 bit systems succeed.  I even changed the 'mac' address of
>> a problem
>> one not building to identify the one from the MAC Pro over to the
>> Dell XPS, and
>> it built every time.
>>
>> R,
>> -Joe Wulf, CISSP, USN(RET)
>>  Senior IA Engineer
>>  ProSync Technology Group, LLC
>>  www.prosync.com
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com
>> [mailto:kickstart-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of John Summerfield
>> Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 20:41
>> To: Discussion list about Kickstart
>> Subject: Re: NFS booting problem
>>
>> Joe_Wulf wrote:
>>> I've got an on again, off again problem where I can initiate a
>>> kickstart for
>>> RHEL5 (32 or 64 bit), as well as
>>> for RHEL AS4 (32 or 64 bit) and many times the NFS mount for the KS
>>> config cannot be found.  Then, after numerous reboots to
>>> troubleshoot the problem, poof, the NFS mount is found and some
>>> systems get built.  Nothing changed.  Even reboots of the kickstart
>>> server, the Linksys router and the Mac Pro (with WinXP and VMware 6
>>> installed) don't change that many restarts have to happen before it
>>> will somehow, magically start building.
>>>  
>>> A most confusing problem and one that I need insight, advice and
>>> questions from you all on what to check so I can solve it.  All help
>>> is appreciated!
>>
>> It's some years since I did an NFS install. http, in my experience,
>> works well.
>> Do you have some reason (other than setup) not to do it too?
>>
>
>