ME wrote: > Sorry for the delay, I am going through my mail now... > > On Mon, 25 Mar 2002, eric nelson wrote: > > Thanks for the major breakdown of the project. It's going to take me > > a little while to read these docs., and go through the whole process, > > but we want to use this for two things: > > > > 1) testing an os we are putting together. we can work on the os on a > > host machine, then boot it on the target to test, so the target is a > > simple machine and the host has full development enviroment. > > This is a good idea. I'll also suggest copying the tree to a backup before > exporting it in testing as rw. Why? If you test station boots, but does > not shutdown, files will be left behind in /var/lock and /tmp that may > cause problems with the next booting station - especially if the > production system's root export is a ro export. > > Also, avoid using tar to creat backups of the exporte system root. It has > a history of bugs. I used it for the longest time, and was a die-hard user > of it, but finally gave up on it for archived system roots like netbooting > system roots. > > Instead of tar, try " cp -aR " the "a" is for archive (permissions and > special flags) and the capitail "R" does recursive like "r" but deals with > device special files as you would most likely want (no tries to read the > contents of the device - yeeech) > > Yes it uses up more space than a tarball, and is not compressed, *but* it > seems to work with all of the files, and is short/easy to remember. (Dont > use " cp -ar " as it will probably try to read the contents of devices > like /dev/sda and make copies of the contents instead of the c/b/f special > devices.) > > (Had problems with tar and some dev special files, some permissions not > being copied as they should and certain major numbers that were "too > high" not being copied and.. and... and... Yes, yes, i know about all the > special flags for tar, and had a command line tar command that was 3 lines > long at one time to almost get things to work as well as " cp -aR ".) > > > 2) we are developing a linux based product, which will net boot as an > > option, so we need to understand the whole process very well. > > Though it is not *exactly* the same thing, I reverse engineered Apple's > Propritary NetBoot-ing protocol and published papers on how it works. You > may be able to grab some useful information on the pages I created for > this "how-to" as it is very close the the "standard" *NIX diskless client > system (using modified DHCP with vendor extentions instead of the standard > method and AFP/IP instead of NFS.) > > Others out there have written much better pages on Linux and diskless > client booting. > > http://mike.passwall.com/macnc/ > > > I have read that people use this technique to boot multiple diskless > > workstations. Is that what you use it for? > > Yep, about 80 or more diskless client workstations (no local HD, no local > floppy disk, no moving parts except the fan on the CPU and power > supply.) The root is mounted as a ro NFS root, and is exported from the > server as such (for better security.) Having diskless client do their work > from a root filesystem that is readonly is a bit tricky, but possible. (We > have use the 2.0.x and 2.2.x kernels, but are now using the 2.4.x kernels > for this.) > > Have used it home on a private network with firewall rules and did some > with roots being (rw) but dont suggest this on more open networks with > NFS. Also, no two machine should share the same system roots (when /var, > /tmp and others) are part of that root when the roots are mounted as (rw). > > Also, based on som complaints from another user doing netbooting, there > may be problems with having the server use reiserfs or ext3 with nfs > exports as root for the clients. (Not experienced this as I use ext2 for > this still. Also, no references for this other than, "some guy said this > was a problem.") > > Done many kind sof netbooting including use of a BSD based system on an > Sun 3/60 with XTerm support for remot processing and local display. > > Wayyyy back when, I wanted to do netbooting of windows too, but have heard > netbooted windows stability rating makes normal desktop windows look like > a happy thing as interruptions to networking cause delays for file access > of the OS that are unbearable to the OS. > > I am far from a netbooting guru, but I may be able to answer some of the > simple questions if you should wish to ask. >
Well, my queue is filling up w/ all this information, it's going to take some time to assimilate it all. But, I do have some more questions. First, our bios mentions something about netboot. This must be something pretty generic, that works w/ various OS's. So, doing a netboot from the bios, is this the same type of thing? Second, I looked at the sourceforge netboot project. It looks like quality stuff, but again, I need to get some busywork out of the way, then I can dig into this stuff. Last, for now, what we really want to do is read a switch from a port, then either do a normal boot, off the flash disk, or boot into some menu which will allow either booting into a diagnostic shell which will permit adding new software, running diagnostics etc., or doing the netboot we have been talking about, I guess this is all possible using all this stuff, along w/ lilo, and some shell scripts, etc. (I am just asking for affirmation, this is our plan). Well, sure appreciate the discussion. ;~) > > -ME > > -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- > Version: 3.12 > GCS/CM$/IT$/LS$/S/O$ !d--(++) !s !a+++(-----) C++$(++++) U++++$(+$) P+$>+++ > L+++$(++) E W+++$(+) N+ o K w+$>++>+++ O-@ M+$ V-$>- !PS !PE Y+ !PGP > t@-(++) 5+@ X@ R- tv- b++ DI+++ D+ G--@ e+>++>++++ h(++)>+ r*>? z? > ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ > decode: http://www.ebb.org/ungeek/ about: http://www.geekcode.com/geek.html > > _______________________________________________ > vox-tech mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech _______________________________________________ vox-tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
