Hello. For a long time with FreeBSD 4.X we ran and still run a bunch of diskless stations, X11 Terminals, some special workstations and now a growing system with several nodes for usage as PVM.
Now I want to switch to FreeBSD 5.0 and run into massive problems. I searched for similar problems in the archive and groups.google, but I did not find any appropriate. Hope someone can help. The environment is really simple. All diskless machines uses PXE to bootstrap. In FreeBSD 4.7 this environment works perfect (and ist is still working), but in FreeBSD 5.0 I get into trouble. I want first to describe the environment. Each class of machines has its own full FreeBSD-4/5 installation. Within ist root-path, there is a populated /etc and a populated /conf. /conf has three main entries: /conf/base, /conf/default and /conf/IP.SPECIFIC.ENTRY. As I understand the diskless boot process in FreeBSD 4.X, at first a memory disc is created, then the stuff in /etc/ is copied to that RAM disc, executed and then the process does a kind of hierarchy overlay by unifying /etc with /conf/base with /conf/default and at last with /conf/IP.SPECIFIC.ENTRY and executes then the on top remaining config files (sorry about my English). That means: the most specific system configs are in /conf/IP.SPECIFIC.ENTRY and get executed. This seems to have changed in 5.0 as there is only the /conf/default and /conf/IP.SPECIFIC.ENTRY left. /conf/base has gone. But nevertheless, this should work, but does not! When booting a FBSD 5.0 client without a populated /etc directory but with a well populated /conf/defaults/etc directory, it fails. It also fails when populating /etc and delete those files which are in /conf/default/etc. Putting all the stuff in /etc forces the client to do things it should do, but this is not the way it should be and its not the way as it is decribed (rarely) in the docs I found and as I expect this in FreeBSD 4.7 (where this scheme works like a charme). This seems to be the first problem I can not figure out. What is the hierarchy of /etc and /conf/defaults/etc in FBSD 5.0 now? How can I keep my config files in sync without copying all the stuff again from /conf/default/etc to /etc (which breaks the config scheme, I think)? When the kernel has been bootstraped and started , the first thing is it moans about a non writeable root partition. This also does not change when exporting the root partition as read/writeable on the server (doing a killall -HUP mountd ...). I also use the rc_ng="YES"-scheme. The kernel has options NFS_ROOT and MD_ROOT and also options md for the memory disc compiled in. The only problem is that in the clients /dev directory is no appropriate md0* node, I can not create it via MAKEDEV all in this directory and I wonder whether this is needed. Can anyone help? Has someone a runnng diskless FBSD 5.0-R/5-CURRENT environment? Thanks in advance, Oliver -- MfG O. Hartmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------ Systemadministration des Institutes fuer Physik der Atmosphaere (IPA) ------------------------------------------------------------------ Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz Becherweg 21 55099 Mainz Tel: +496131/3924662 (Maschinenraum) Tel: +496131/3924144 (Buero) FAX: +496131/3923532 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
