From TFTP weaknesses to RAMdisk netboot

[Pricop Ioan <pniky@yahoo.com>]

--- Kent Snook <kent.snook@echostar.com> wrote:
> We encountered similiar problems. Implemented the
> following.
> 
> First results in an automatic reboot upon tftp
> timeouts, instead of
> waiting for a key press ( we regularly reboot these
> hosts remotely ).
> Second reduces the tftp timeout to get hosts up and
> running much faster.
> ( We use ramdisks for all of our diskless hosts, so
> images can run up to
> 6-10 mb in size, at 5 seconds per packet tftp
> timeout, could take 15
> minutes or more to boot. Now less than a minute.)
> 
..........
>
> -- 
> Kent
> 

Dear Kent,

Maybe you can help me with my problem. I am using
EtherBoot to experiment with a diskless client. After
a few hoops, I made it working from a NFS-root
filesystem. Now I am experimenting with RAM-disks. I
tried with a 9 MB fs and it seems to work. Then, I
tried with a 96 MB fs. Of cause, I modified the
/usr/src/linux-2.2.5/drivers/block/rd.c to be able to
create ramdisks of 128 MB (have 196 MB on the client)
and recompiled the kernel. I tested these, by creating
a 128 MB RAMdisk and populating it with the fs I
downsized at 96MB. It worked with a "chroot",
exception the X part (only fvwm and Netscape). I
obtained a 50 MB "rdImage.gz". But when I tried to
make a NBI and boot it, all is well until it's
tftp-ing the NBI. Than the rotator keeps spinning and
spinning forever - i think, cause after 2.5 hours I
stopped the process. Anyway, with "tcpdump" I
estimated the 3.8 MB composed immage loading time (fs
of 9 MB gzipped) and calculated the 51 MB one's - it
must have been 1 min and 47 secs. What can be wrong?
Can anyone tip me on some sites where I can find
specific documentation on NBI use of ramdisks?

Thank you for at least reading this mail,


=====
Ioan (John) NIKY Pricop
Bucharest - ROMANIA
pniky@yahoo.com

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