On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:14:23 -0600 Ron Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 12/09/08 13:47, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote: > > On Tuesday 2008 December 09 11:49:42 Ron Johnson wrote: > >> On 12/09/08 11:25, Micha Feigin wrote: > >>> On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:27:28 -0600 > >>> Ron Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>>> On 12/09/08 09:58, Micha Feigin wrote: > >>>>> I want to setup three machines to boot over the network from an nfs > >>>>> root. The network doesn't have a dhcp server (I prefer if it's possible > >>>>> to do it without one) and the network card is only supported with newer > >>>>> kernels (2.6.28-rc). > >>>>> > >>>>> Is there a way to do it through grub or do I need to setup a minimal > >>>>> system and boot from it? > >>>>> > >>>>> Any pointers on how to set this up? > >>>> PXE boot seems like what you want, where the client's NIC requests > >>>> the boot files from the server. > >>>> > >>>> Or am I misunderstanding your questions? > >>> Yes, theoretically that is what I want, but if I'm not mistaken PXE boot > >>> is dependent on a dhcp server giving the machine an IP and declaring that > >>> it has a boot image to provide, or am I wrong. > >>> > >>> I want to give the ip as an option and use a given nfs server as a root, > >>> not resolve these values at run time > >> Hmmm, yes, you're right. There's got to be a way, though, using > >> bootp, MAC address and tftp, since that's how we did it 10 years ago > >> with X Terminals. > > > > DHCP is an extension to bootp. Anything you were doing with bootp 10 years > > ago should be done with DHCP today. IIRC, dhcpd from ISC can do bootp > > without the DHCP extensions. > > > > And, yeah, for a full PXE boot, you will need a TFTP server on the > > network. (It could be the DHCP server, but doesn't have to be.) I could be > > wrong, but I believe that PXE is actually proprietary Intel extensions to > > and older, standard "netboot" protocol. > > > > If you just want NFS root, it's suppored by the kernel, I think something > > like root=IP:/path, but you'll need some storage in the clients for the > > bootloader, kernel image, and initrd (if any). > > > > If you want the kernel image and initrd loaded from the network, you'll > > need a DHCP server that responds to requests with the IP of the TFTP server > > (as path to the file?). That response will have to include some IP > > address, possibly with a very short lease, that the client will use during > > the TFTP download. This IP can, of course, be overridden with configuration > > in the kernel/initrd. > > > > You can do both and, if the client needs access to more data than fits in > > RAM, you'll need to. The kernel/initrd will be loaded from the TFTP server > > specified in the DHCP response. The initrd will then mount the NFS root > > filesystem and chroot/switch_root/pivot_root into it. > > And can't you tell DHCP to associate IP addresses to MAC addresses? > So even though OP doesn't want to use DHCP, he'd use it but not > for it's usual purpose... > I can't use a dhcp server on this network. These machines are exposed to the general network which already has a dhcp server and if I add another one I'm going to cause trouble over the whole network. Besides a dhcp server with the specific setup is going to be a serious pain. The machines do have disks which are meant mostly for local user data. The idea is to have as little as possible in terms of a system on each machine to make it easier to maintain and keep safe from the users. Looks like the easiest solution is to have grub and a kernel installed locally on each machine. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]