[gentoo-releng] x86 netboot, because beejay sucks

[gentoo-releng] x86 netboot, because beejay sucks

[Jeffrey Forman]

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hey guys,

i actually have a good idea, i'm not here to make fun of beejay's sheep.
i have a machine that is really finicky about booting from a cdrom. i
have no clue why, its a new machine, good parts, etc. what my thought
is... i know grub can do netbooting of images on remote machines. but my
question is, is there a way to make/create a gentoo livecd image that
can be netbooted? if its not a big deal, i think it would be a kick ass
feature request (zhen, add that to the page por favor). 

thanks guys,
jeffrey
-- 


--------------------
Jeffrey Forman
Gentoo Infrastructure
Gentoo Release Engin.
jforman@gentoo.org
--------------------

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Re: [gentoo-releng] x86 netboot, because beejay sucks

[Guy Martin]

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On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 16:52:29 -0400
Jeffrey Forman <jforman@gentoo.org> wrote:

> hey guys,
> 
> i actually have a good idea, i'm not here to make fun of beejay's
> sheep. i have a machine that is really finicky about booting from a
> cdrom. i have no clue why, its a new machine, good parts, etc. what my
> thought is... i know grub can do netbooting of images on remote
> machines. but my question is, is there a way to make/create a gentoo
> livecd image that can be netbooted? if its not a big deal, i think it
> would be a kick ass feature request (zhen, add that to the page por
> favor). 

I'd like to see such thing integrated into catalyst. Actualy Weeve wrote
a bash script to build netboot images for sparc but it's not very
flexible :-/
Maybe I could help with this. I'd really like to publish netboot images
for hppa.

-- 
Guy Martin
Gentoo Linux - HPPA port Lead / IPv6 team
Lug Charleroi (Belgium)

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Re: [gentoo-releng] x86 netboot, because beejay sucks

[Sven Vermeulen]

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On Fri, Sep 03, 2004 at 10:53:16PM +0200, Guy Martin wrote:
> I'd like to see such thing integrated into catalyst. Actualy Weeve wrote
> a bash script to build netboot images for sparc but it's not very
> flexible :-/
> Maybe I could help with this. I'd really like to publish netboot images
> for hppa.

I'd like to see something like this integrated in Catalyst as well.
Netbooting is heavily used on most of the organisations I administer systems
for as it provides great flexibility.

It might also be very interesting for JumpStart-like possibilities (as a
start).

Wkr,
      Sven Vermeulen

-- 
 ^__^   And Larry saw that it was Good.
 (oo)                                      Sven Vermeulen
 (__)   http://www.gentoo.org              Documentation & PR

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Re: [gentoo-releng] x86 netboot, because beejay sucks

[John Davis]

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On Sat, 2004-09-04 at 08:00, Sven Vermeulen wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 03, 2004 at 10:53:16PM +0200, Guy Martin wrote:
> > I'd like to see such thing integrated into catalyst. Actualy Weeve wrote
> > a bash script to build netboot images for sparc but it's not very
> > flexible :-/
> > Maybe I could help with this. I'd really like to publish netboot images
> > for hppa.
> 
> I'd like to see something like this integrated in Catalyst as well.
> Netbooting is heavily used on most of the organisations I administer systems
> for as it provides great flexibility.
> 
> It might also be very interesting for JumpStart-like possibilities (as a
> start).
> 
> Wkr,
>       Sven Vermeulen

I'm game :)
File a bug please and attach that script from weeve. TBH, I know very
little about the netboot process and what is needed, but if I have some
code to look at, I should be OK.

BTW, sorry that I have been rather silent lately on the lists and IRC. I
have been way busy with school, both academics and extracurriculars. I
am still reading my mail and conducting correspondence though. Don't
think that i have disappeared ;)

Regards,
-- 
John Davis
Gentoo Linux Developer
<http://dev.gentoo.org/~zhen>

----
GnuPG Public Key: <http://dev.gentoo.org/~zhen/zhen_pub.asc>
Fingerprint: 4F9E 41F6 D072 5C1A 636C  2D46 B92C 4823 E281 41BB

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Re: [gentoo-releng] x86 netboot, because beejay sucks

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Fri, 3 Sep 2004 22:53:16 +0200 Guy Martin <gmsoft@gentoo.org> wrote:
| > i actually have a good idea, i'm not here to make fun of beejay's
| > sheep. i have a machine that is really finicky about booting from a
| > cdrom. i have no clue why, its a new machine, good parts, etc. what
| > my thought is... i know grub can do netbooting of images on remote
| > machines. but my question is, is there a way to make/create a gentoo
| > livecd image that can be netbooted? if its not a big deal, i think
| > it would be a kick ass feature request (zhen, add that to the page
| > por favor). 
| 
| I'd like to see such thing integrated into catalyst. Actualy Weeve
| wrote a bash script to build netboot images for sparc but it's not
| very flexible :-/

I had this sort of working working a while back with catalyst, but it
kinda relied rather heavily on the "don't use genkernel patch" which
the previous catalyst maintainer rejected, so I dropped it entirely and
switched to manual builds. Prod me if you need advice :)

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Sparc, MIPS, Vim, Fluxbox)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-releng] x86 netboot, because beejay sucks

[John Davis]

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On Sat, 2004-09-04 at 19:24, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Sep 2004 22:53:16 +0200 Guy Martin <gmsoft@gentoo.org> wrote:
> | > i actually have a good idea, i'm not here to make fun of beejay's
> | > sheep. i have a machine that is really finicky about booting from a
> | > cdrom. i have no clue why, its a new machine, good parts, etc. what
> | > my thought is... i know grub can do netbooting of images on remote
> | > machines. but my question is, is there a way to make/create a gentoo
> | > livecd image that can be netbooted? if its not a big deal, i think
> | > it would be a kick ass feature request (zhen, add that to the page
> | > por favor). 
> | 
> | I'd like to see such thing integrated into catalyst. Actualy Weeve
> | wrote a bash script to build netboot images for sparc but it's not
> | very flexible :-/
> 
> I had this sort of working working a while back with catalyst, but it
> kinda relied rather heavily on the "don't use genkernel patch" which
> the previous catalyst maintainer rejected, so I dropped it entirely and
> switched to manual builds. Prod me if you need advice :)

Prodding commenced ;)
Can you provide a rough step-by-step outline to creating a netboot
image? Also, this image is what will be loaded via tftp when the machine
PXE boots, correct?

Regards,
-- 
John Davis
Gentoo Linux Developer
<http://dev.gentoo.org/~zhen>

----
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Fingerprint: 4F9E 41F6 D072 5C1A 636C  2D46 B92C 4823 E281 41BB

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Re: [gentoo-releng] x86 netboot, because beejay sucks

[Guy Martin]

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On Sat, 4 Sep 2004 14:00:30 +0200
Sven Vermeulen <swift@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 03, 2004 at 10:53:16PM +0200, Guy Martin wrote:
> > I'd like to see such thing integrated into catalyst. Actualy Weeve
> > wrote a bash script to build netboot images for sparc but it's not
> > very flexible :-/
> > Maybe I could help with this. I'd really like to publish netboot
> > images for hppa.
> 
> I'd like to see something like this integrated in Catalyst as well.
> Netbooting is heavily used on most of the organisations I administer
> systems for as it provides great flexibility.


I'm working on this atm.

My catalyst patch starts from a stage3, compile all the stuff you
specified in the spec file, copy the file you specified for each pkg in
the chroot, handle required libs and co. It also compiles busybox and
let you specify your config file for it.
I still have to write support for the kernel compilation and the final
netboot image generation.

Btw, I need info about generating such image for x86. I know how to do
it for hppa but nfi for x86. :)


 
> It might also be very interesting for JumpStart-like possibilities (as
> a start).
> 
> Wkr,
>       Sven Vermeulen
> 
> -- 
>  ^__^   And Larry saw that it was Good.
>  (oo)                                      Sven Vermeulen
>  (__)   http://www.gentoo.org              Documentation & PR
> 


-- 
Guy Martin
Gentoo Linux - HPPA port Lead / IPv6 team
Lug Charleroi (Belgium)

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Re: [gentoo-releng] x86 netboot, because beejay sucks

[Kumba]

Guy Martin wrote:

> I'm working on this atm.
> 
> My catalyst patch starts from a stage3, compile all the stuff you
> specified in the spec file, copy the file you specified for each pkg in
> the chroot, handle required libs and co. It also compiles busybox and
> let you specify your config file for it.
> I still have to write support for the kernel compilation and the final
> netboot image generation.
> 
> Btw, I need info about generating such image for x86. I know how to do
> it for hppa but nfi for x86. :)

Can one possibility for this be to just generate the loopback-mountable 
ramdisk as the final catalyst product along with a tar.bz2 of the same data 
(i.e., skip kernel compiliation)?  In the case of mips netboots, systems whose 
kernels can be built w/ ramdisks will use the loopback image, while the others 
will use the tar.bz2 for nfsroot.

Also, will this be able to use uclibc by chance?


--Kumba

-- 
"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small 
hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere." 
--Elrond

--
gentoo-releng@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-releng] x86 netboot, because beejay sucks

[Guy Martin]

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On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 09:49:44 -0400
Kumba <kumba@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Guy Martin wrote:
> 
> > I'm working on this atm.
> > 
> > My catalyst patch starts from a stage3, compile all the stuff you
> > specified in the spec file, copy the file you specified for each pkg
> > in the chroot, handle required libs and co. It also compiles busybox
> > and let you specify your config file for it.
> > I still have to write support for the kernel compilation and the
> > final netboot image generation.
> > 
> > Btw, I need info about generating such image for x86. I know how to
> > do it for hppa but nfi for x86. :)
> 
> Can one possibility for this be to just generate the
> loopback-mountable ramdisk as the final catalyst product along with a
> tar.bz2 of the same data (i.e., skip kernel compiliation)?  In the
> case of mips netboots, systems whose kernels can be built w/ ramdisks
> will use the loopback image, while the others will use the tar.bz2 for
> nfsroot.

For now, I was planning somehting simple. The catalyst script would just
create a kernel and the ramdisk which would be a simple ext2 filesystem.
The final image would be created by a third-part script like the iso
generation script for the livecd.
Do you absolutely need to not build a kernel or the kernel build will
always be required ?

> Also, will this be able to use uclibc by chance?

I'm not familiar with uclibc. If simply copying the uclibc's libc.so
file in the ramdisk instead of the glibc's one works then I can
implement it quickly.
If all apps really needs to be linked against uclibc, I guess it can be
doable too but I'll have to look at it.


I should be able to have somehting running and useable today. I just
finished the kernel generation part. I just need to pack all of the
files. If you want to test, I'm on irc :)


> --Kumba
> 


-- 
Guy Martin
Gentoo Linux - HPPA port Lead / IPv6 team
Lug Charleroi (Belgium)

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