Re: NFS root and initrd
Hello Camm,
On Tue, 2004-02-24 at 10:01, Camm Maguire wrote:
> Greetings!
>
> Adam C Powell IV <hazelsct@debian.org> writes:
>
> > On Wed, 2004-02-18 at 19:06, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> > > > Searched a bit, and people seem to think this happens when devfs isn't
> > > > mounted. But /dev is mounted with devfs. Any idea what else it could
> > > > be? Or is cheating with pivot_root to get NFS root on a non-NFS-root
> > > > kernel just never going to work?
> > > >
> > > > One other thing: /initrd/var won't unmount because it's busy, presumably
> > > > with dhclient and/or mount stuff. Perhaps this is interfering?
> > >
> > > Don't use devfs. Your life will be happier. Any particular reason for
> > > using devfs?
> >
> > Never mind, with some searching, got it working for any stock Debian
> > kernel-image package, with devfs, with the network driver as a module.
> > There's no need to compile a kernel any more to boot nfs-root, and it
> > works well with the diskless package.
> >
> > I'll post details later. Not tested with 2.6.
>
> I'd be interested in these. And whether you are using initrd, which
> we also use.
I've attached the new "nfs" script, which you should put in
/etc/mkinitrd/scripts. Then edit /etc/mkinitrd/modules, adding at least
your NIC driver, nfs, and if using DHCP, af_packet.
Unfortunately, this doesn't quite work for woody, whose mkinitrd doesn't
get all of the modules and their dependencies into the initrd correctly.
I had to hack the mkinitrd scripts a bit to get it to work, but I think
I reverted all of my changes so it works with un-hacked mkinitrd; if it
gives you trouble, let me know.
So with this script installed, you should be able to e.g. "apt-get
install kernel-image-2.4.24-3-686-smp" and postinst will make the initrd
which will mount everything nfs-root. Then just mknbi-linux with
vmlinuz and the initrd, and you're good to go. (Well, assuming you've
set up the tftp server to serve the NBI, and the NFS server to serve the
root directory which you told diskless about...)
One more thing: this bloats the initrd quite a bit, particularly with
DHCP, so on arches like alpha and IA-64 it might not fit in 4MB. The
workaround is to expand the maximum initrd size, but that's a kernel
compile-time parameter, which kinda defeats the purpose... :-(
I'll put all this in the Wiki when I get some time.
Zeen,
-Adam P.
GPG fingerprint: D54D 1AEE B11C CE9B A02B C5DD 526F 01E8 564E E4B6
Welcome to the best software in the world today cafe!
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#!/bin/sh
# This little mkinitrd script is copyright Adam Powell February, 2004,
# based on Russell Coker's (uncopyrighted?) work written up at
# http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2001/debian-devel-200109/msg00307.html .
# No warrantee, use at your own risk, distribute under GPL version 2 or later.
# This puts a bunch of stuff in /scripts/nfs in the initrd, which is run by
# /sbin/init after /linuxrc when a system net-boots.
# Parameters
NFS_SERVER=10.5.5.1
# make a directory for mounting the NFS root file system
mkdir $INITRDDIR/new-root
install -d $INITRDDIR/etctmp/network
cp /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network/options $INITRDDIR/etctmp/network
mv $INITRDDIR/etc/* $INITRDDIR/etctmp
# These three lines are only needed for dhclient
cp /etc/dhclient.conf $INITRDDIR/etctmp
cp /etc/dhclient-script $INITRDDIR/etctmp
chmod 755 $INITRDDIR/etctmp/dhclient-script
# dhclient-script uses uname, expr and sleep which aren't in the initrd, but
# it seems to work out anyway.
# my script needs ifconfig, pivot_root, and mount which aren't installed by
# default, change ifconfig to dhclient, pump, etc for dynamic IP addresses
cp /sbin/ifconfig /sbin/dhclient /sbin/ifup /sbin/route /sbin/portmap $INITRDDIR/sbin
cp /bin/cp /bin/mkdir /bin/run-parts $INITRDDIR/bin
# The first two are needed for cp, the last two for portmap
cp /lib/libacl.so.1 /lib/libattr.so.1 /lib/libwrap.so.0 /lib/libnsl.so.1 $INITRDDIR/lib
# Create this script to be run on the initrd after modules have been loaded
cat > $INITRDDIR/scripts/nfs << END
#!/bin/sh
mount -nt proc proc proc
# This sets up /etc and /var as tmpfs or ramfs, so ifup and others can use them
mount -nt tmpfs tmpfs /etc || mount -nt ramfs ramfs /etc
mount -nt tmpfs tmpfs /var || mount -nt ramfs ramfs /var
cp -a /etctmp/* /etc/
mkdir /etc/network/if-down.d
mkdir /etc/network/if-post-down.d
mkdir /etc/network/if-pre-up.d
mkdir /etc/network/if-up.d
mkdir /var/lib
mkdir /var/lib/dhcp
echo "Configuring network"
ifup -a
portmap
# Uncomment these for network diagnostics
#echo "Network configuration, test..."
#ifconfig
#route
#ping -c 5 www.debian.org
echo "Mounting root"
mount -n -o ro -t nfs $NFS_SERVER:/var/lib/diskless/default/root /new-root
mount -n none -t devfs /new-root/dev
cd /new-root
umount /proc
echo "Switching to new root"
pivot_root . initrd
# This stuff is from diskless /sbin/init, because it might be necessary to have
# resolv.conf and ifstate right.
mount -nt proc proc proc
. /etc/diskless-image/config
IP=\`ifconfig | grep -A1 eth0 | grep -v eth0 | sed 's/^.*inet addr:\([0-9\.]\+\).*$/\1/'\`
echo "Client IP address is \$IP"
# Mount client's /etc directory
echo -n "Mounting NFS-root directories..."
mount -n \$nfsserver:/\$nfshostsdir/\$IP/etc /etc -orw,nolock
mount -n \$nfsserver:/\$nfshostsdir/\$IP/var /var -orw,nolock
# Put state files where they should go
cp -f /initrd/etc/resolv.conf /etc
cp -f /initrd/etc/network/ifstate /etc/network
cp -f /initrd/var/lib/dhcp/* /var/lib/dhcp
# Clean up old mount points (though /initrd/var doesn't unmount)
umount /var
umount /etc
umount /initrd/etc
umount /initrd/var
# Signal to init that root is already mounted
echo 256 > proc/sys/kernel/real-root-dev
END
chmod 755 $INITRDDIR/scripts/nfs
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