Re: etherboot/netboot problems with Linux kernel 2.4.7

[James Pearson <james-p@moving-picture.com>]

Hans-Peter Jansen wrote:
> 
> On Monday, 3. September 2001 16:20, James Pearson wrote:
> > I've been using etherboot/netboot to boot diskless Linux machines using
> > various kernels (2.2.5 -> 2.4.2) using bootp. I recently wanted to use a
> > 2.4.7 kernel - so I set things up in exactly the same way as I've done
> > many times before, but when the kernel boots it stops with the error:
> >
> > Root-NFS: No NFS server available, giving up.
> >
> > Having searched around on the Net, I've found out that the ipconfig code
> > for bootp/dhcp has changed in kernels greater than about 2.4.4, meaning
> > that you have to use "ip=bootp" or similar as a kernel boot command line
> > option to enable the kernel to get what it needs via bootp (in this
> > case). In fact, just using "ip=" seems to work as well.
> >
> > Personally, I think it's rather strange that you have to give this
> > argument even if you've already configured the kernel to get IP
> > addresses via bootp/dhcp ...
> >
> > There was a discussion on linux-kernel mail list about this available
> > via:
> >
> > http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&safe=off&th=d8413f907bcda8d7&seekm=li
> >nux.kernel.15103.18845.562418.245774%40pizda.ninka.net#link10
> >
> > which includes a patch from  H.J. Lu that I'm using to work round this
> > "problem"
> >
> > James Pearson
> 
> Have a look at offset 0x1000 in your boot images (if build with mknbi):
> This is mine:
> rw root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=/netboot/%s,v3 ip=rom
> 

Looking into this further, it turns out that I'm running an older
version of mknbi (v0.8.1). Looking at the man page for v1.2-4, it
mentions the point about IP auto configuration not happening by default
with later versions of 2.2.X kernels - however, the man page doesn't
make any mention of the change in behaviour been earlier and more recent
2.4.X kernels.

James Pearson
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