[NCLUG] FC6 diskless with system-config-netboot

[John L. Bass]

Hi Guys,

Been a while since I've built a diskless array with NFS roots. My first
attempt this time was to use the PXE boot with a hand crafted initrd
similar to MythTV Howto. Got the kernel booted without any trouble, but it
just paniced tring to open up the NFS root, and rebooted continuously.

Take two was to use system-config-netboot, again using PXE to boot,
which again gets the kernel booted, but console rolls with some block
error when it tries to mount the root.

The nfs server directories seem reasonable, and are mountable from inside
my network without problems:

	[jbass ~]$ ls /raid/mpi-cluster/*
	/raid/mpi-cluster/root:
	#    boot  etc   lib         media  mnt  opt   raid  sbin     srv  tftpboot  usr  xx
	bin  dev   home  lost+found  misc   net  proc  root  selinux  sys  tmp       var  ync

	/raid/mpi-cluster/root=:
	raid

	/raid/mpi-cluster/snapshot:
	files  mpi32-224.dmsd.com
	[jbass at FastBox ~]$ cat /etc/exports
	/raid                         192.92.99.0/24(rw,no_root_squash,sync)


The PXE boot file at least gets the kernel and initrd file loaded using:

	[jbass pxelinux.cfg]# cat C05C63E0
	default MPI_Cluster

	label MPI_Cluster
	    kernel MPI_Cluster/vmlinuz
	    append  initrd=MPI_Cluster/initrd.img root=/dev/ram0 init=disklessrc NFSROOT=192.92.99.9:/raid/mpi-cluster ramdisk_size=21147 ETHERNET=eth0 SNAPSHOT=


which is enough to get it looping in a block error. System-config-netboot
is being a bit wierd in that it doesn't like the PXE boot files it generates,
by giving the following error when you next start it:

	Error:Invalid PXE Boot File /tftpboot/linux-install/pxelinux.cfg/C05C63E0
	MPI_Cluster is not PXE Operating System
	Do you wish to delete PXE Boot File?

Anybody else using System-config-netboot with success?

Doing PXE FC6 diskless NFS roots with success?

Have fun,
John