* Erik Dykema <ed2019@columbia.edu> [2004-03-03 19:35]: | Hi- | I think it would be very useful to support installing onto NFS | volumes. | At my site we operate these big netapp NFS file servers (filers). | They have no intelligence except to serve NFS volumes, i.e. there is no | real 'os' on them. | If we could support installing TO an NFS root, we could use diskless | workstations & servers that would install to their own volume on the | filers. Then, the filer takes care of stuff like redundancy. | This might also help for a situation where the NFS master server is | one architecture (i386) and the machine you want to install 'to' is | different, i.e. powerpc / mainframe. | Also, I think that it would be very useful if DI supported | installing FROM an NFS volume. Using an NFS volume is more flexible for | testers than the initrd.gz files. If the kernel supported NFS root, could | just mount it's root directory & init & etc, it would be possible to tinker | with a running installer system, add drivers as needed, etc. without | having to re-make the initrd.gz file, which is not easy. ok. I know what you mean. Bringing nfs support to d-i shouldn't be very hard. But you must create your own installation medium, I guess. First you must modify the existing d-i kernel to support nfs filesystems (in client mode). Next you must create udebs for the portmap package and the nfs client tools. Maybe you need also a small udeb, which ask the user for the nfs mounting parameters (server, port, etc.). And then you must mount the nfs volume into /target. (this udeb must provide mounted-partitions). After this d-i should be able to install to an nfs volume. Create the udebs, and d-i will support it :-) Bye Thorsten -- Thorsten Sauter <tsauter@gmx.net> (Is there life after /sbin/halt -p?)
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