topic Re: RHEL diskless environment in Operating System - Linux

RHEL diskless environment

rob nolen — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 13:05:47 GMT

Hello,

I'm trying to set up a diskless RHEL system. I've followed the Red Hat manual directions for setting up a diskless environment pretty thoroughly, but with no success.
(http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/sysadmin-guide/ch-diskless.html)

The problem I am having is that once the server loads, the kernel begins to initialize, then says "Kernel panic: no init found. Try passing init= option to kernel."

I'm pasting my pxelinux.cfg config files below and my dhcp/nfs configs to make sure I didn't miss anything. I did copy the root of my default install into the /remote directory listed below, so all the files it needs are there, the NFS shares are there and mountable, but I'm lost as to where to go at this point.

Any help would be appreciated.
[/tftpboot/linux-install/pxelinux.cfg/ACXXXXXX]
default quatre

label quatre
kernel quatre/vmlinuz
append initrd=quatre/initrd.img root=/dev/ram0 init=disklessrc NFSROOT=172.16.53.10:/remote/i386
/ES ramdisk_size=10000 ETHERNET=eth0 SNAPSHOT=quatre

[/etc/exports]
/remote/i386/ES/root *(ro,no_root_squash,sync)
/remote/i386/ES/snapshot *(rw,no_root_squash,sync)

[/etc/dhcpd.conf]
allow booting;
allow bootp;
class "pxeclients" {
match if substring(option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) = "PXEClient";
next-server 172.16.53.10;
filename "linux-install/pxelinux.0";
}

Re: RHEL diskless environment

rob nolen — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 13:07:56 GMT

I should note that the pxelinux conf file specifies a different path than my NFS server. I use the red hat netboot tool to generate that file, and no matter what I specify, it defaults the file to that path. I've tried NFS exporting that path, as well as changing the path in the config to point to the ES/root directory and it still panics.

Re: RHEL diskless environment

Miceee — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:25:12 GMT

Hi rob,
my /etc/dhcpd.conf file looks like..see if this can help you somewhere
-------
ddns-update-style ad-hoc;

option subnet-mask X.X.X.X;
option broadcast-address X.X.X.X;
option routers X.X.X.X;
option option-128 code 128 = string;
option option-129 code 129 = text;

next-server X.X.X.X;
filename "pxelinux.0";
option root-path "X.X.X.X:/mz";

subnet X.X.X.X netmask X.X.X.X {
range X.X.X.40 X.X.X.60;
}

rob, once u boot the system u should be getting some errors or msgs do let me know what u are getting ..

Spread the knowledge so that u can get the same one day...
cheers,
Miceee

Re: RHEL diskless environment

rob nolen — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 01:45:54 GMT

Turns out the version of netboot config tool that comes with RHEL4 is bugged... it creates a bunk initrd image. In addition, it does not warn you that busybox.anaconda is required for the system to boot that image.

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=161394

Re: RHEL diskless environment

rob nolen — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 01:46:41 GMT

See previous post.