On Sat, Dec 13, 2003 at 02:42:40AM +0800, Cameron Patrick wrote: > On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 06:18:15PM +0100, Hans Ekbrand wrote: > > | OK, so I got a copy of debian-installer CVS and tried to create the > | netboot initrd. After installing some needed packages I was struck by > | libdiscover1 being installed (1.5-1.4.2) but not installable :-) Is it > | libdiscover1-udeb that is needed? > > Nope, you need to patch build/get-packages as described by Geert Stappers: > > http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2003/debian-boot-200312/msg00507.html OK. Thanks. > | In section 2.4 Booting from Network it says: > | > | "It's also possible to boot debian-installer completely from the net. The > | various methods to netboot depend on your architecture and netboot setup. > | They are not explaind here." > | > | I assume that info will be included in the final docs. > > One would hope so :-) > > | A few old NICs (e.g. DEC Etherworks III) > | are supported by netboot (here "netboot" refers to the "netboot" > | package, e.g. netboot_0.8.1-9_i386.deb) but not etherboot, but I don't > | see the need for netboot support. > > According to man mknbi, the same image will work with both netboot and > etherboot. Good then. > | The last part of section 2.4 Booting from Network says: > | > | 'The "netboot-initrd.gz" is needed to netboot debian-installer. It contains > | only essential d-i modules to get the network up and running, everything > | else (d-i components and base packages) will be retrieved from network. > | If you don't have a netboot setup, you can also make a bootable CD with > | this image and have a minimal netinst CD.' > | > | Now, for pxe clients, netboot-initrd.gz works out of the box, > > This sounds wrong to me. I've never used PXE, but I was under the > impression that PXE needs its own bootloader, distinct from mknbi, to > tag the image. man mknbi mentions PXELINUX in that context... As I understand it, PXELINUX is executed BY THE CLIENT, as the first (or second, depending on how you see it) stage in the pxe boot process. I might be totally off here, since I have never used pxe, but that is how I make sense of the procedure described here: http://lists.debian.org/debian-testing/2003/debian-testing-200311/msg00098.html etherboot and pxe seem to differ at the moment where tagging is done. For etherboot, it is done on the server by mknbi-linux prior to booting, for pxe it is done at boot-time by pxelinux running at the client using a config file which is hosted by the server. The info about kernel options needed will be given as command line arguments to mknbi, or in the case of pxe, be written to a config file. People willing to try to netboot (x86 clients) into debian-installer, would likely be familiar with either pxe or etherboot and the information in http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2003/debian-boot-200312/msg00507.html and yours earlier in this thread is probably sufficient. So, the convenience of a pretagged file with kernel+netboot-initrd.gz for etherboot is probably not worth the space it would use up. -- Hans Ekbrand (http://sociologi.cjb.net) <hans@sociologi.cjb.net>
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