Hello all. I have a question or two, and be warned: I'm a complete linux newbie wretch.
I've been trying (for a week) to setup a small LTSP test in my lab with a single
switch, one server, and one
workstation. I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible for the moment and then
I'll work on complicating
things. All that means right now that there is no subnetting, no DHCP proxies, and all
the required services (DHCP,
TFTP, PXE) are all sitting on the same server. Both server and client are using Intel
EtherExpress Pro 10/100 NICs.
I'm using RedHat 7.1 right out of the box without any new kernels or modifications
with the exception of ISC's DHCP
3.0 instead of the 2.x that came with RedHat.
I've spent the last week just trying to figure out certain services wouldn't work -
TFTP would hang, and it turned
out to be a RedHat 7.1 issue, as did just about everything else. Anyway - all my
services are working and I'm
creeping along to success. Today I've managed to get the client to accept an address
from the DHCP server and
generally do its thing until the PXE service kicks in. I'm using the basic pxe.conf
file except that I've changed the
following:
[UseDHCPPort]
0
because all the services are on the same server. No problem. What I get is a small
menu that asks if I want a local
boot or remote linux install. Just for testing purposes, I copied the pxe vmlinuz
image and the initrd image from
the RedHat CD and renamed then linux.1 and linux.2 (respectively) into the
/tftpboot/X86PC/UNDI/linux-install
directory. When I boot the client, I can choose the remote install option from the
little menu and sure enough it
takes me right into the RedHat Linux remote install menu.
Considering my week, I think this is a major success.
Okay, since I don't want to do this sort of network install (diskless workstations are
the idea) and instead just
boot a kernel designed for a happy thin client, I know that I need to compile a small
kernel and ... ah, the
problem. I've had some small success by blindly producing a few kernels after using
make xconfig and turning most
things off except for the networking stuff, and renaming the resulting bzImage file to
linux.1 and placing it in the
/tftpboot/X86PC/UNDI/linux-install to just quickly "fool" the boot menu to load this
kernel instead of the install
kernel from the RedHat CD. I know this is inelegant, but honestly I'm not sure how to
configure the pxe.conf file to
point to a better directory and just load bzImage file. Normally I've seen other
people rename the bzImage to
vmlinuz, so I'll probably do that also. Anyway, sometimes the kernel actually begins
to boot but panics because the
kernel I cranked out earlier doesn't work right, if it gets that far at all. Usually
it just says, "Uncompressing
linux...." and hangs.
The FAQ on the LTSP website uses a different procedure to get PXE workstations to
boot, but I couldn't get it to
work. It also says that none of the packaged kernels (vmlinuz.all or
vmlinuz.eepro100) will work and that I need to
compile my own from scratch. I quote:
"None of the kernels on the LTSP site are plain, so you'll have to compile them from
scratch. In the next
section, I'll describe how to do that." Except that there isn't another section where
that's described at all. I'm
not complaining, I'm just a little lost.
So I basically have two problems:
1) I think I need more basic pxe.conf file that avoids small boot menus and instead
just loads up the kernel. I've
monkied a good deal with this only to be smacked with failure each time. Also, the
stock pxe.conf file (if the
install linux option is chosen) loads the kernel and then loads initrd. Does this
second part really need to happen?
Does anyone have some thoughts or a better sample file?
2) My kernels are just as horrible. Does anyone have some better do's and don't for
producing such a basic kernel?
It seems like there would be a zillion systems with RedHat 7.1 + Intel NICs happy
churning away in the world ..
Thanks,
Marcus
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