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Diskless Frontend - NFSroot
http://forum.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=10098		 Page 6 of 17
Author:  Dale [ Wed Dec 27, 2006 7:27 pm ]
Post subject: 
Greg Frost wrote:
I am going to post the updated script on the wiki.


How about a link in this thread, then Greg. Thanks, for all your effort.
Author:  chunter2 [ Wed Jan 10, 2007 8:46 pm ]
Post subject: 
I was able to get this going on a PXE machine but have a couple questions.

Can I disable dhcp on my backend machine since I have a router running dhcp as well or does network boot only work by getting the image off the same machine it got it's dhcp'ed IP from? If it will work by getting the IP off a router and the network boot info off my backend how do I disable my backends dhcp server on boot.

I'm also trying to get it to work with an older machine that doesn't seem to have PXE. I make the changes earlier in this thread about etherboot but it doesn't seem to work. It's a motherboard without onboard lan. I set the first and only boot device to be "INT18 (Network)" (I think that's what it is) but I get the "nothing to boot please insert disk" message. Do I need a network card with it's own bios info or is the motherboard supposed to figure it out.

Is there a "turn off" script that will but the backend back into the state is was before running the knoppmyth_diskless_frontend.bash script?

If I'm not making sense let me know and I'll try to explain a little better. Oh, this is all on R5E50 with the new script from the wiki.

Thanks
Author:  lostmyshape [ Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:55 pm ]
Post subject: 
i'm new to networking and booting over the network and have a few questions about the configuration i'd like to implement with diskless frontend NFSroot. here's what i'd like to do:

i'd like to set up 2 (or more) diskless frontends that boot over the network with NFSroot. i'd also like to run 2 dhcp servers, one on my backend to serve bootp and one on my wireless gateway to serve dhcp even if the backend is off.

now, i can set up the backend and the NFSroots with the included script. Any reason i can't run it twice to create 2 root directories? like:

Code:
knoppmyth_diskless_frontend.bash frontend1 /myth/nfsroot

and
Code:
knoppmyth_diskless_frontend.bash frontend2 /myth/nfsroot


now that i have 2 NFSroots i can run 2 diskless frontends with different components.

now on to dhcp: i'd like to edit dhcpd.conf to deny normal dhcp requests ("deny booting", right?). that way my gateway can handle them (its set to serve a range from 192.168.1.62 to 192.168.1.254, and doesn't seem to do bootp). however, the dhcpd on my backend should serve out bootp requests with an ip and a root-path. here's what i imagine it will look like (my gateway is 192.168.1.1 and backend is 192.168.1.10):

Code:
# dhcpd.conf for KNOPPIX terminalserver

# global settings
deny booting;
allow bootp;
default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;

subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
  next-server 192.168.1.10;
  filename "pxelinux.0";
  option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
  option domain-name-servers  192.168.1.1, 192.168.1.1;
  option routers 192.168.1.1;

  host frontend1 {
    hardware ethernet xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;
    fixed-address 192.168.1.21;
    option host-name "frontend1";
    option root-path "/myth/nfsroot/frontend1";
  }

  host frontend2 {
    hardware ethernet xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;
    fixed-address 192.168.1.22;
    option host-name "frontend2";
    option root-path "/myth/nfsroot/frontend2";
  }
}

do i have the right concept here? am i missing anything? do i need the domain-name-servers and routers option in the dhcpd.conf?

thanks for all the work on this script and the info on this board!
Author:  Greg Frost [ Thu Feb 01, 2007 3:57 pm ]
Post subject: 
I have done some updates to the script so that it automatically supports multiple diskless frontends. It should be available with the next (post R5E50) release of knoppmyth.

It works by setting up dhcp to serve fixed IP addresses to specific mac addresses as you have done, but rather than having the host-name and root-path options in dhcp, it simply renames the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default to /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/xxxxxxxx were xxxxxxxx is the fixed ip of the frontend in hexadecimal. When the frontend boots, it gets its ip address and then uses /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/xxxxxxxx in preference to the default file (and the xxxxxxxx file contains the location of the nfsroot.
Author:  lostmyshape [ Fri Feb 02, 2007 8:57 am ]
Post subject: 
very cool... i see how that would work much better for the script.

i guess i'll set something up temporarily until you release it. thanks!
Author:  lostmyshape [ Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:48 pm ]
Post subject: 
i just tried to setup my diskless frontend with the script.

i ran the script. fired up my diskless frontend. it posted, found dhcp bootp, started the boot sequence, started knoppmyth, then... stopped. it won't start x for some reason. it just tells me "INIT: Id "c7" respawning to fast: disabled for 5 minutes" and gives me the login for the command line.

i can see a few error messages that worry me as the boot scrolls by. for example, right before the login:
Code:
/etc/rc5.d/S20knoppmyth_diskless_boot: line2: update-rc.d: command not found
/etc/rc5.d/S20knoppmyth_diskless_boot: line3: update-rc.d: command not found
/etc/rc5.d/s45autofs: line 33: basname: command not found


i've tried looking through the log files and haven't found anything too interesting. i'm not really sure what to look for, though (plus, hard to tell what has been copied over from the backend and what is new).

oh, this is the newest script from the wiki with R5E50. any ideas? thanks!
Author:  sinspot1 [ Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:50 am ]
Post subject: 
This happed to me a couple of times. I would check /etc/exports and make sure you have an entry in there for /usr *(ro,async) the other thing to check is to make sure you don't have dub lines in there also.

You don't have to wait for me to update the script in the next release if you google for Advanced IP Adress Calculator you should find a program that you can download. You then just put in the ip address and it will convert it to hex for you then you can just mv the files in /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg.


Well hope that helps
Author:  lostmyshape [ Sat Feb 03, 2007 5:56 pm ]
Post subject: 
thanks Marty... looks like you are right. my FE isn't connecting to /usr correctly. when i "ls /usr" on the frontend (after logging in), it returns nothing. no wonder i'm getting all the "command not found" warnings. they're not in my usr directory.

now... how do i fix it? my /etc/exports (with comments deleted):
Code:
/myth   *(rw)
/usr *(ro,async)
/nfsroot/mythfe1 *(rw,no_root_squash,async)

looks ok to me... checked the fstab in the FE root and it looked how i imagined it should also. any ideas?

did i do something wrong? or is there still a problem with the script?

and thanks for the info on the Advanced IP Address Calculator and tpftboot/pxelinux.cfg. i'll look into that once i get my 1st FE up and running.
Author:  sinspot1 [ Sat Feb 03, 2007 7:33 pm ]
Post subject: 
Based on your earlier post it should be /myth/nfsroot/mythfe1 ..... in the /etc/exports file.

also you may want to check the /myth/nfsroot/mythfe1/etc/fstab

192.168.101.55:/nfsroot / nfs defaults,auto,noatime 0 2
192.168.101.55:/usr /usr nfs defaults,auto,noatime 0 2
192.168.101.55:/myth /myth nfs defaults,auto,noatime 0 0


192.168.101.55 is my server address also you may want to do a ifconfig on your client and make sure you are getting the ip address you setup in the dhcpd.conf file.
Author:  lostmyshape [ Sat Feb 03, 2007 8:04 pm ]
Post subject: 
sorry about the confusion... i reran the script and installed the nfsroot in / rather than /myth, thinking that there might be a permissions problem (shows how much i know).

definately an issue with mounting /usr at boot. i mounted it from the command prompt after boot and was able to start x and start mythtv (however mythtv hung). here's my /nfsroot/mythfe1/etc/fstab:
Code:
proc  /proc  proc  defaults  0  0
/dev/fd0  /floppy  vfat  defaults,user,noauto,showexec,umask=022  0  0
usbfs  /proc/bus/usb  usbfs  devmode=0666  0  0
sysfs  /sys  sysfs  defaults  0  0
tmpfs  /dev/shm  tmpfs defaults  0  0
/dev/cdrom /cdrom  iso9660  defaults,ro,user,noexec,noauto  0  0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/vg/myth /myth  auto defaults,auto 0 2
192.168.1.10:/nfsroot / nfs defaults,auto,noatime 0 2
192.168.1.10:/usr /usr nfs defaults,auto,noatime 0 2
192.168.1.10:/myth /myth nfs defaults,auto,noatime 0 0

did ifconfig and the ip looks ok. so, what are the reasons that it might not want to mount /usr at boot and do it later from the command prompt? is there a log that would show what's happening when the FE tries to mount /usr at boot?

(thanks again for your help troubleshooting.)
Author:  sinspot1 [ Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:05 pm ]
Post subject: 
I am not sure your fstab file pretty much looks like mine. The one time it happened to me was after I had ran the script a couple of times on the same FE name and I had some dubs in the /etc/exports. If you have checked it and there are not any. The only other thing I could think of is are the video cards in your BE and FE either the same or close to the same. Also is your FE a newer system?
Author:  lostmyshape [ Sun Feb 04, 2007 10:59 am ]
Post subject: 
ugh... yeah, the exports and fstab files look fine as far as i can tell. is there any log file that might tell me what's actually happening when the diskless fe tries to mount /usr?

the fe is a brand new machine. however the the graphics cards are both invidia: 5200 fx (agp) and 6150 (built-in). i can get the fe to run as fe only from the install disk. and, like i said before, i can mount /usr from the prompt and then start x and myth from the diskless fe.

i'm going to work through the troubleshooting on this nfs tutorial: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/NFS-HOWTO/index.html. i'll report back if i get it fixed. thanks.
Author:  sinspot1 [ Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:52 pm ]
Post subject: 
ok. Sorry I was not more help. I have not had that much trouble with the last 2 versions. Before that I had a lot of issues when doing diskless FE.
Author:  lostmyshape [ Sun Feb 04, 2007 11:03 pm ]
Post subject: 
marty... thanks for all your help. you've helped me get a lot closer. upon further examination, it seems i'm getting this error on boot:
Code:
Mount: RPC: Timed out
can't seem to find a good reason for this.

however, at a prompt, i can mount with this:
Code:
$ mount /usr
or
Code:
$ mount -a
so it seems that my fstab is ok. i don't have the firewall enabled on my gateway, but i've read that a firewall can cause a RPC: timed out error. or maybe it's trying to connect to the backend prematurely? all this weirdness is compounded by the fact that it has no problem mounting /myth.

i'm just stumped.

so, when i mount /usr manually and start x, i still can't get the frontend to work. it connectes to the database, freezes and then crashes. however, i can watch live tv by running "mythtv". what might cause my issues connecting to the backend database?
Author:  lostmyshape [ Mon Feb 05, 2007 9:59 pm ]
Post subject: 
ok... i'm not sure anyone else will find this useful since it's such a weird problem, but i got my unable to mount /usr problem fixed. i kept messing with my /etc/fstab and happened to switch the positions of the /myth and /usr mounts. like magic, /usr mounted and /myth didn't. seems whichever one the mount command encounters on boot times out for some odd reason. so i just put a double entry in for /usr:
Code:
192.168.1.10:/nfsroot / nfs defaults,auto,noatime 0 2
192.168.1.10:/usr /usr nfs defaults,auto,noatime 0 2
192.168.1.10:/myth /myth nfs defaults,auto,noatime 0 0
192.168.1.10:/usr /usr nfs defaults,auto,noatime 0 2

and both mount on boot. i don't get it, but i don't really care at this point. probably has something to do with my gateway hanging things up, but who knows.

anyway... x starts right up. however, mythfrontend keeps crashing before it starts up. any good reason for this? i can watch live tv with mythtv and xine and vlc, etc. but mythfrontend hangs and hangs and hangs and dies. am i short on memory? i'm only working with 1 stick 512 ram.
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