Hi,
We know there is a network boot mechanism based on NFS for Debian live.
On the other hand, to run Debian live from initrd via PXE boot, i.e. all
the files are in RAM, nothing is in NFS-based directory, seems to be
another good idea. The following method works with
http://live.debian.net/weekly-builds/20070219/i386/debian-live-etch-i386-standard.iso
For us, this "frominitrd" method is useful when we just want to use a
PXE server to provide a network boot service for client, and no NFS
service is necessary. It's something like "fire and forget" mode. You
can let client PXE boot, then the network cable for client is actually
not necessary any more.
The patch file for casper in initrd (for live-package 0.99.14-3) is
attached, and the pxelinux config file in server is like:
-------------------------------
default linux
label linux
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.gz boot=casper frominitrd
-------------------------------
To use that, we have mount the isolinux/initrd.gz from
debian-live-etch-i386-standard.iso , replace the patched linuxrc, and
pack the initrd.gz with casper/filesystem.squashfs inserted.
All the above steps can be done by the program in
/opt/drbl/sbin/drbl-SL.sh in project DRBL (Diskless Remote Boot in
Linux, http://drbl.sf.net), with drbl version 1.7.9-54 or later .
Feel free to use it or modify if you think it's valuable.
Thanks you for such a nice live package.
--
Steven Shiau <steven _at_ nchc org tw> <steven _at_ stevenshiau org>
National Center for High-performance Computing, Taiwan.
http://www.nchc.org.tw
Public Key Server PGP Key ID: 1024D/9762755A
--- casper.Debian-live-etch.orig 2007-02-22 20:37:49.000000000 +0800
+++ casper.Debian-live-etch.drbl 2007-02-22 20:37:49.000000000 +0800
@@ -586,6 +586,10 @@
else
panic "Unable to find a the network rootfs live file system"
fi
+ # DRBL modify start
+ elif [ -n "$(grep -i frominitrd /proc/cmdline)" ]; then
+ livefs_root="${mountpoint}"
+ # DRBL modify end
else
# Scan local devices for the image
for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f 10 11 12 13; do
_______________________________________________
Debian-live-devel mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-live-devel
