Mailing List Archive

The kernel the ltsp folks give you has been processed by "mknbi", or make
netboot image. This will not work with pxelinux, or other pxe servers.
I was unable to find an unadulterated kernel from ltsp. You'll just
have to compile your own kernel.

Jim


On Tue, 12 Mar 2002, Jan-Frederik wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've been using pxe-enabled nic's with an lzpxe-etherboot image generated
> by rom-o-matic.net to boot a ltsp.org kernel, with dhcp 3 to use if statements to determine which filename
> option he gives to the pxe/etherboot dhcp client.Explained at
> http://www.ltsp.org/documentation/pxe.howto.html
> This works perfectly, except for the fact that you can't use 1 etherboot pxe image for different
> types of nic's.
>
> When I replace etherboot with pxelinux, and try to boot the
> ltsp.org kernel, it crashes after the 'loading linux.........' output
> (weird colorful blinking characters all over the screen). A default linux
> kernel _does_ boot (until it stops cause it can't mount the nfs
> root-filesystem)
> I'd like to use the default ltsp.org kernel, instead of compiling my own.
>
> I use the latest default ltsp kernel, dhcp 3.0.0 and hpa-tftpd.
>
> Has anyone encountered this problem too?
>
> Jan-Frederik Martens

Jim Wright wrote:

> The kernel the ltsp folks give you has been processed by "mknbi", or make
> netboot image. This will not work with pxelinux, or other pxe servers.
> I was unable to find an unadulterated kernel from ltsp. You'll just
> have to compile your own kernel.
>


They should have their source available somewhere, or they're in
violation of the GPL.

-=hpa

> This works perfectly, except for the fact that you can't use 1
> etherboot pxe image for different types of nic's.

Etherboot does not (yet) use PXE's UNDI driver, though adding support
should not be hard to do. Many people would like this, not least me.

> When I replace etherboot with pxelinux, and try to boot the
> ltsp.org kernel, it crashes after the 'loading linux.........' output
> (weird colorful blinking characters all over the screen). A default linux
> kernel _does_ boot (until it stops cause it can't mount the nfs
> root-filesystem)

So, if it works, don't replace etherboot with pxelinux. Unless you have
many different NICs, get different images from rom-o-matic. With dhcpd
v3 it's easy enough to supply the right image to each client.

> I'd like to use the default ltsp.org kernel, instead of compiling my own.

Etherboot and pxelinux essentially do the same job as far as LTSP is
concerned, but both betray their different backgrounds. Etherboot was
originally specific to the nic it was installed in and has specific
drivers, but uses NBI to make itself relatively OS independent (and, in
the case of linux, embed a ramdisk and kernel parameters). Pxelinux is,
as the name suggests, OS specific, but uses nic-independent PXE.
However, Etherboot recently became PXE bootable, and pxelinux recently
sprouted a mechanism for booting other OSes, so they are converging.
With luck (and hopefully minimal ego clash), they will combine with each
other and various other firmware/bootloader projects to make an open
source booting toolkit.

The day that a bootloader is supported by LTSP *and* uses UNDI, use it.
Until that happy time, if you consider coping with >1 nic type is more
work than building a new LTSP kernel, use pxelinux. Otherwise use
Etherboot.

I see, that's too bad... But in the meantime i found the solution:

1) compiled my own kernel, selected the options as explained in http://www.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be/LDP/HOWTO/Thinclient-HOWTO-3.html#ss3.4
I skipped the rdev step, because the options were appended on boot.
2) in the pxelinux config: append init=/sbin/init root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=mynfsserver:/path _to_filesystem ip=::::::dhcp
3) i copied the /dev filesystem from an operational linux machine to the dev directory of the root filesystem that i wanted to use on the terminals (perhaps this can be avoided in the future by using devfs?). I forgot to do this one time and it halted with a 'Warning: unable to open initial console' error.

Now everything works as it should be... thanks for the help

Jan-Frederik Martens

> The kernel the ltsp folks give you has been processed by "mknbi", or
> make
> netboot image. This will not work with pxelinux, or other pxe
> servers.
> I was unable to find an unadulterated kernel from ltsp. You'll just
> have to compile your own kernel.
>
> Jim

Jan-Frederik Martens wrote:

> I see, that's too bad... But in the meantime i found the solution:
>
> 1) compiled my own kernel, selected the options as explained in http://www.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be/LDP/HOWTO/Thinclient-HOWTO-3.html#ss3.4
> I skipped the rdev step, because the options were appended on boot.
> 2) in the pxelinux config: append init=/sbin/init root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=mynfsserver:/path _to_filesystem ip=::::::dhcp
> 3) i copied the /dev filesystem from an operational linux machine to the dev directory of the root filesystem that i wanted to use on the terminals (perhaps this can be avoided in the future by using devfs?). I forgot to do this one time and it halted with a 'Warning: unable to open initial console' error.
>


Either that, or use an up-to-date version of the MAKEDEV script.

-hpa

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Maybe taking a look at http://pxes.sourceforge.net would help you.
This is a different approach than LSTP but running pxesconfig a GUI that
will help you to create you initial ramdisk and all the stuff needed to
boot from the network.
Download pxes-0.3Beta3.tgz.
(http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pxes/pxes-0.3Beta3.tgz)

> I see, that's too bad... But in the meantime i found the solution:
>
> 1) compiled my own kernel, selected the options as explained in http://www.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be/LDP/HOWTO/Thinclient-HOWTO-3.html#ss3.4
> I skipped the rdev step, because the options were appended on boot.
> 2) in the pxelinux config: append init=/sbin/init root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=mynfsserver:/path _to_filesystem ip=::::::dhcp
> 3) i copied the /dev filesystem from an operational linux machine to the dev directory of the root filesystem that i wanted to use on the terminals (perhaps this can be avoided in the future by using devfs?). I forgot to do this one time and it halted with a 'Warning: unable to open initial console' error.
>
> Now everything works as it should be... thanks for the help
>
> Jan-Frederik Martens
>
> > The kernel the ltsp folks give you has been processed by "mknbi", or
> > make
> > netboot image. This will not work with pxelinux, or other pxe
> > servers.
> > I was unable to find an unadulterated kernel from ltsp. You'll just
> > have to compile your own kernel.
> >
> > Jim
>

--
______ ________
/ / \/ /___ ) I N T E G R A C I O N
/ / /___ / I N F O R M A T I C A
/__/__/\___/_____'

Diego Torres Milano Maipu 42 Office 164 - (C1084ABB) Buenos Aires Argentina
diego@in3.com.ar Tel: +5411 4331-2233 Fax +5411 4331-3377 www.in3.com.ar



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<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<pre></pre>
</blockquote>
Maybe taking a look at <A HREF="http://pxes.sourceforge.net">http://pxes.sourceforge.net</A> would help you.
<br>This is a different approach than LSTP but running <b><tt>pxesconfig</tt></b>
a GUI that will help you to create you initial ramdisk and all the stuff
needed to boot from&nbsp; the network.
<br>Download pxes-0.3Beta3.tgz. (<A HREF="http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pxes/pxes-0.3Beta3.tgz">http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pxes/pxes-0.3Beta3.tgz</A>)
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<pre>I see, that's too bad... But in the meantime i found the solution:

1) compiled my own kernel, selected the options as explained in <A HREF="http://www.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be/LDP/HOWTO/Thinclient-HOWTO-3.html#ss3.4">http://www.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be/LDP/HOWTO/Thinclient-HOWTO-3.html#ss3.4</A>
I skipped the rdev step, because the options were appended on boot.
2) in the pxelinux config: append init=/sbin/init root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=mynfsserver:/path _to_filesystem ip=::::::dhcp
3) i copied the /dev filesystem from an operational linux machine to the dev directory of the root filesystem that i wanted to use on the terminals (perhaps this can be avoided in the future by using devfs?). I forgot to do this one time and it halted with a 'Warning: unable to open initial console' error.

Now everything works as it should be... thanks for the help

Jan-Frederik Martens
&nbsp;
> The kernel the ltsp folks give you has been processed by "mknbi", or
> make
> netboot image.&nbsp; This will not work with pxelinux, or other pxe
> servers.
> I was unable to find an unadulterated kernel from ltsp.&nbsp; You'll just
> have to compile your own kernel.
>&nbsp;
> Jim</pre>
</blockquote>

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&nbsp;/__/__/\___/_____'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

</font>&nbsp;Diego Torres Milano <font size=-2>Maipu 42 Office 164 - (C1084ABB) Buenos Aires&nbsp; Argentina
</font>&nbsp;<b><a href="mailto:diego@in3.com.ar">diego@in3.com.ar</a></b>&nbsp;&nbsp;<font size=-2>&nbsp;&nbsp; Tel: +5411 4331-2233 Fax +5411 4331-3377&nbsp; <i>www.in3.com.ar</i></font></pre>
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Looks interesting, I will surely test this monday. Most of the PC's that
have to boot with PXE have an i810 graphical chipset, so XFree 4 support
would be a good addition.
Another good thing is that, with this approach, you don't need an NFS server
with the root filesystem anymore..

----- Original Message -----
From: "Diego Torres Milano" <diego@in3.com.ar>
To: <jan-frederik@martens.tk>
Cc: <syslinux@zytor.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2002 3:53 AM
Subject: ltsp kernel crash


> Maybe taking a look at http://pxes.sourceforge.net would help you.
> This is a different approach than LSTP but running pxesconfig a GUI that
> will help you to create you initial ramdisk and all the stuff needed to
> boot from the network.
> Download pxes-0.3Beta3.tgz.
> (http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pxes/pxes-0.3Beta3.tgz)