Bug#140579: TFTP Testing
Philip Dodd <philip.dodd@free.fr> writes:
> Sorry to bother you directly, but i am unsure of the correct way of
> going about this.
CC'ing the bug in question is the best way in all cases. This lets us
follow the progress of the issue.
> The tftpboot.img alone indeed seems not to include a root.bin image.
No it does not. That is by design, so I'm told. Apparently there is
no standard way to include the root image with the TFTP kernel image.
Thus the root filesystem must be loaded and mounted by other means
(root=/dev/nfs kernel boot argument, apparently).
> I can make it boot by taking the bf2.4 root.bin and using mknbi-linux
What is mknbi-linux? Will that work with most/all i386 hardware that
is even capable of netbooting?
> to make a boot image with tftpboot.img and the bf2.4 root.bin and
> ramdisk, appending root=/dev/ram as the kernel parameter. it boots
> into the debian install process.
>
> i am trying to install onto an nfs / partition and this bit gives me
> lots of trouble. it complains about locking when trying to chroot
> /target dpkg --force-depends --install etc. i can get no further. I
> assume this is a seperate issue, but think that it needs solving for
> tftp to be any use, since those using it may use it because the
> machine is diskless.
Well, it's purely an NFS and kernel issue at this point. Perhaps you
don't have lockd running on the server? Have you consulted the docs,
Debian and otherwise? NetBSD has some pretty good instructions on
this sort of stuff...
> i am also unable to ascertain the correct method of installing the
> kernel and driver modules (the only success i have had is installing
> the bf2.4 ones from /dev/fd0).
Why not from the network?
> The server (dhcp, nfs-kernel) is a linux debian woody. i could test
> this with solaris servers if it helps to take server side problems out
> of the picutre, but i don't think the problem is here.
>
> The install guide is very unclear on both tftp booting and nfs root
> installs.
>
> I am willing to help if i can, and to test various configs if
> necessary, the client on which i'm installing is a test machine so
> it's no prob. I would also like to improve the install guide sections
> once we've tracked down an appropriate method for tftp installs.
Well, the fact is, you can't get it working, so I doubt you can help
us much.
--
...Adam Di Carlo..<adam@onshore-devel.com>...<URL:http://www.onshored.com/>
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