Re: Newbie needs some advice.

[Ken Yap <ken@nlc.net.au>]

>Hi,
>
>Last night I started playing with etherboot.  I successfully setup
>NFS, tftp, and dhcp on my RedHat 6.0 Linux box.
>
>After compiling the custom kernel with my net card driver, "Root file
>system on NFS",
>and "BOOTP support" compiled in, I used this command:
>
>mknbi-linux -x -k zImage -o /tftpdir/vmlinuz.xterm
>
>I booted the diskless workstation with etherboot on floppy.  It found
>the dhcp server,
>obtained an IP address, logged into the tftp server, and found the
>kernel.  
>
>Then, the kernel started to load and went crazy.  Numbers scrolled
>by on the screen non-stop.  It never completely loaded.
>
>Is this because I don't have my root filesystem in the correct place?

No, it didn't get as far as trying to mount a root FS. The loading
didn't work. I have no idea why. Are you positive it's a tagged image
you're loading? Unfortunately there's backward compatibility code to
load untagged binaries so it cannot reject those out of hand.

>I found the following statement:
>
>"The customised Linux kernel for the DC expects to see the root
>filesystem at /tftpboot/<IP address of the DC>, for example:
>/tftpboot/192.168.1.100 in the case above. This can be changed when
>configuring the kernel, if desired."

This is true of 2.0 kernels. In 2.2 kernels, it will be
/tftpboot/<hostname of DC>, provided bootpd/dhcpd have been configured
to return the hostname of the DC in the reply. (This paragraph must be
from the Linuxfocus article, which was written when 2.0 was current. The
Etherboot docs are more current.)

>Is this true?  If so, do I need to export /tftpboot/192.168.241.3, and
>place the root files
>there?  If I recall correctly, the mknbi-linux app said the root was
>located somehwhere else.  If
>it can be changed when compiling the kernel...then where?

By default the root directory is derived from the client details as above,
but this can be changed with mknbi-linux arguments, see the man page. But
you haven't got that far yet.
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