Netboot configs Hi all,
I recently began playing with some iMacs/eMacs I have here, and thought I should do some usefull stuff, so I decided to run the debian netboot install. I must say I think I'm making it it harder than it is. ;-) Now I had two problems first of all I the instructions for woody (and the new ones as well) gave lots of hints on how to succeed, but it didn't seem to work very well on my iMac and eMacs, they never downloaded things from the tftp by themselvs. I'm talking about this section in the manual: http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.powerpc/ch04s05.html Soo I did an woody install from harddrive on an iMac to make a custom netboot server this way. imac4:/boot# apt-get install dhcp3-server tftpd /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf: <pre> subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { range 192.168.0.15 192.168.0.30; } group { option routers 192.168.0.115; #important the router should exist on the net, #imacs will ARP for it. server-name "imac4"; next-server 192.168.0.115; #TFTP server filename "/boot/yaboot"; option vendor-class-identifier "AAPLBSDPC"; #important host emac { hardware ethernet 00:0A:DE:AD:FE:E7; filename "/boot/yaboot"; fixed-address 192.168.0.12; # Client address option vendor-encapsulated-options 01:01:02:08:04:01:00:00:01:82: 04: # length 69:6d:61:63:34 # hostname (not really important this could just be used as "keeping apple happy values" } } </pre> #/boot/yaboot.conf: <pre> # yaboot will download this file via tftp, and then linux.bin and initrd.gz init-message="Welcome this should load stuff from ethernet" timeout=1 image=enet:0,linux.bin label=linux initrd=enet:0,initrd.gz initrd-size=8192 </pre> I added this in, and don't enable bootps that will make the iMacs confused about who they should talk to. /etc/services: #:BOOT: Tftp service is provided primarily for booting. Most sites # run this only on machines acting as "boot servers." tftp dgram udp wait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/sbin/in.tftpd /boot #bootps dgram udp wait root /usr/sbin/bootpd bootpd -d4 -i -t 120 in /boot yaboot yaboot.conf linux.bin initrd.gz Make sure to start/restart the servers, and check /var/log/syslog for errors. imac4:/boot# /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server restart imac4:/boot# /etc/init.d/inetd restart Now all was in place to make the iMacs netboot. I only had to reboot the iMacs and then pressing down "n" on the keyboard, this brought up an blinking blue globe, lo and behold the iMac was running Linux before I could recite Hamlets monolog. That's how I got it netbooting, but running the install seems harder. I was booting them with a small woody kernel and a custom made [1]initrd containg the nic module "8390.o", and that worked flawlessly. But then I downloaded the netinstall for sarge from: ftp://ftp.du.se/debian/dists/testing/main/installer-powerpc/current/images/powerpc/netboot Something went wrong here, I managed to get yaboot loaded as usual, but when the kernel was being transfered it just hanged. I tried 3 times and it always hanged at the same packet. That's when I sat down to write this mail about how I got netbooting working, and failed to transfer the kernel sarge uses for netinstall. [1] Easy just do gzip -d initrd.gz mount -oloop initrd /mnt/ cp /lib/modules/2.4.18-newpmac/kernel/drivers/net/8390.o /lib/modules/net/ umount /mnt gzip -9 initrd And you have your module. Thanks to http://nic.phys.ethz.ch/readme/90 for apples magic numbers. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
