[CentOS] Diskless client from system-config-netboot doesn't boot.

Tue Aug 21 19:38:03 UTC 2007
Tomas Ruprich <ruprich at uikt.mendelu.cz>

Tue, Aug 21, 2007 ve 02:42:33PM -0400, David Mackintosh napsal:
> On Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 10:14:51AM -0400, R P Herrold wrote:
> > On Mon, 20 Aug 2007, Sophana wrote:
> > 
> > >David Mackintosh a écrit :
> > 
> > >>I've followed a set of instructions I found on
> > >>http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/centos_linux_guides/centos_enterprise_linux_sysadmin_guide/ch-diskless.htmli
> > >>which describes using system-config-netboot to set up PXE booting.
> > 
> > >I just can say that I had the same problem with centos 4.5.
> > >Seems that centos is a little buggy on this.
> > 
> > and which bug is that again in the centos bug tracker?
> 
> I personally didn't enter a bug, as my research on the subject showed
> a lot of discussion in the Fedora distro as to what this tool was
> really supposed to be doing.  It isn't included in the upstream v5
> release, but is due to get re-included at a later time once things
> are sorted out.
> 
> I think this is rather like the Xen offering -- the bare bones of a
> good/useful idea that needs more work before it's ready for general
> use.  I'm sure it will be usable in the future, just not today.
> 
> I have access to, but have not tried, the upstream product.  If I get
> a chance I will and if it functions differently than the CentOS
> offering I will enter a bug; any other problems are more likely
> upstream problems.
> 

Hi,
i'm not familiar with precisely this solution, but i've been solving 
something similar few months ago...

I think the best thing you should do when searching for the reason is 
going step after step after the mount of pivot root. There must be some
script on the tftp server, where the mount of the pivot root and
snapshot is executed... so find it and then start shell right after it.

This gives you enough space for finding what is happening and trying how
to fix or find the bug (if it is a bug ;-))

best regards
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Tomáš Ruprich                                       ruprich at uikt.mendelu.cz
  DCD IICT MUAF Brno
  tel.: +420 545 132 885, +420 602 127 744
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