Diskless ROOT NFS Filesystem won't load

[Jesse <marshall28@juno.com>]

Title:

I first want to start off this post by asking how I can capture the text that is displayed when my diskless client is booting and I get an error that freezes the machine which prevents me from doing anything. If I can capture the text and send the output to a machine on the network I can send all of that so you guys can see exactly what is occuring during during boot.

I'm doing a diskless boot off a Gentoo server and have everything working upto booting the root filesystem off of NFS. I'm using the "rom-o-matic" rtl8139 boot rom which I've loaded onto a floppy that binds to my NIC and talks to the TFTP server which pushes down the linux kernel that begins the boot process. When it comes time to load the root file system via NFS it says something like "ROOT VFS: mounted" (so it looks like it's mounted) and then I get the error: "Unable to open the initial console"

thanks
marshall

Here are my config files for dhcpd.conf, and my exports file, and my diskless nodes fstab

DHCPD.CONF

# Global Configuration Options
authoritative;
ddns-update-style none;
option domain-name-servers 192.168.7.1;
option broadcast-address 192.168.7.255;
option routers 192.168.7.1;
allow booting;
allow bootp;

# DHCP configuration file for DHCP ISC 3.0
# Definition of PXE-specific options
# Code 1: Multicast IP address of boot file server
# Code 2: UDP port that client should monitor for MTFTP responses
# Code 3: UDP port that MTFTP servers are using to listen for MTFTP requests
# Code 4: Number of seconds a client must listen for activity before trying
#         to start a new MTFTP transfer
# Code 5: Number of seconds a client must listen before trying to restart
#         a MTFTP transfer
option space PXE;
option PXE.mtftp-ip               code 1 = ip-address;
option PXE.mtftp-cport            code 2 = unsigned integer 16;
option PXE.mtftp-sport            code 3 = unsigned integer 16;
option PXE.mtftp-tmout            code 4 = unsigned integer 8;
option PXE.mtftp-delay            code 5 = unsigned integer 8;
option PXE.discovery-control      code 6 = unsigned integer 8;
option PXE.discovery-mcast-addr   code 7 = ip-address;

subnet 192.168.7.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {

class "pxeclients" {
  match if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) = "PXEClient";
  option vendor-class-identifier "PXEClient";
  vendor-option-space PXE;

  # At least one of the vendor-specific PXE options must be set in
  # order for the client boot ROMs to realize that we are a PXE-compliant
  # server.  We set the MCAST IP address to 0.0.0.0 to tell the boot ROM
  # that we can't provide multicast TFTP (address 0.0.0.0 means no
  # address).

  option PXE.mtftp-ip 0.0.0.0;

  # This is the name of the file the boot ROMs should download.
  filename "/tftpboot/pxelinux.0";
  # This is the name of the server they should get it from.
  # Use the master's IP
  next-server 192.168.7.56;
}


host node1 {
     # Use your slave's MAC address
     hardware ethernet                00:50:2C:06:BA:1F;
     # Give your slave a static IP
     fixed-address                    192.168.7.57;
     server-name                      "superterminal";
     # Use your gateway IP, if required
     option routers                   192.168.7.3;
     # Use your DNS IP, if required
     option domain-name-servers       192.168.7.1;
     option domain-name               "clubpeb.org";
     # Use your slave hostname
     option host-name                 "node1";
               # Etherboot and pxe boot with a mac specific image
     option root-path                 "/mosixnodes/192.168.7.57";
          if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) = "Etherboot" {
                      filename "/tftpboot/menu.nb";
      } else if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0,9) ="PXEClient" {
                      filename "/tftpboot/pxelinux.0";
      }
                                                             }
}


Exports

/mosixnodes/192.168.7.57        192.168.7.0/24(sync,rw,no_all_squash,no_root_squash)
/opt            192.168.7.0/24(sync,ro,no_all_squash,no_root_squash)
/usr            192.168.7.0/24(sync,ro,no_all_squash,no_root_squash)
/home           192.168.7.0/24(sync,ro,no_all_squash,no_root_squash)
/var/log        192.168.7.0/24(sync,rw,no_all_squash,no_root_squash)

Diskless node FSTAB

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
# $Header: /home/cvsroot/gentoo-src/rc-scripts/etc/fstab,v 1.14 2003/10/13 20:03:38 azarah Exp $
#
# noatime turns off atimes for increased performance (atimes normally aren't
# needed; notail increases performance of ReiserFS (at the expense of storage
# efficiency).  It's safe to drop the noatime options if you want and to
# switch between notail and tail freely.

# <fs>                  <mountpoint>    <type>          <opts>                  <dump/pass>
192.168.7.56:/mosixnodes/192.168.7.57   /       nfs     sync,hard,intr,rw,nolock,rsize=8192,wsize=8192  0 0
192.168.7.56:/opt                       /opt    nfs     sync,hard,intr,rw,nolock,rsize=8192,wsize=8192  0 0
192.168.7.56:/usr                       /usr    nfs     sync,hard,intr,rw,nolock,rsize=8192,wsize=8192  0 0
192.168.7.56:/home                      /home   nfs     sync,hard,intr,rw,nolock,rsize=8192,wsize=8192  0 0
192.168.7.56:/var/log                   /var/log nfs    hard,intr,rw    0 0


none    /dev/pts        devpts  mode=0620 0 0


# NOTE: The next line is critical for boot!
none                    /proc           proc            defaults                0 0


#OpenMosix File System
none                    /mfs            mfs             dfsa=1  0 0