Re: NFS boot with a dhcpless network
On Tue, 2008-12-09 at 23:38 +0200, Micha Feigin wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:14:23 -0600
> Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net> wrote:
[snip]
> I can't use a dhcp server on this network. These machines are exposed
to the
> general network which already has a dhcp server and if I add another
one I'm
> going to cause trouble over the whole network.
>
> Besides a dhcp server with the specific setup is going to be a serious
pain.
>
> The machines do have disks which are meant mostly for local user data.
The idea
> is to have as little as possible in terms of a system on each machine
to make
> it easier to maintain and keep safe from the users. Looks like the
easiest
> solution is to have grub and a kernel installed locally on each
machine.
>
>
I once was futzing around with 4 really old machines with no PXE
support. I was able to get it to boot with a CD with just grub (and just
a kernel) on it. Had to use a special stage2 for GRUB in order for it to
boot.
See here:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-grub/2004-04/msg00152.html.
Or google for 'GRUB El Torito'.
I remember having trouble initially. But once that was figured out, it
turned out to be a handy bootloader with a default menu.lst with shell
for when menu.lst didn't cut it.
Now, I think I put the IP addresses into the menu.lst which then passed
it onto the kernel which was built with diskless (NFS root) support.
So grub would load the NFSroot kernel on the CD (and I burned almost
identical CD - the only difference being a different IP address on the
menu.lst file) and the kernel would then proceed with the NFS root
filesystem.
At least that is how I recall it. It could all be a figment of my
imagination/hazy-memory. I might still have the CD lying around
somewhere so if you run into trouble email me and I'll look for it.
Anoop.
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