Mailing List Archive: PXE/NFS Root Problem

Hey Folks,
I am attempting to set up a router box on a diskless machine.
I have PXE boot rom and am able to load a kernel (2.4) and mount
the root filesystem off the server. The kernel executes and then
I get the kernel panic, with the "no init found" message. I have
tried various permutations of the init= parameter (/bin/init,
/bin/sh, etc..), the client machine can't seem to see any of the
files on the server. I get a message on both the server side
(mountd confirms mount request for the proper directory) and the
client shows a kernel message that the VFS nfs root is mounted. I
use DHCP to launch the PXE stuff. The root filesystem is exported
with (rw,no_root_squash). The root filesystems was created by doing
a minimal Slackware install to the subdirectory on the server.

Is there any way to get more detailed diagnostic messages to figure
out what is going on?

Do I have to export all the directories individually, or just export
the root?

Are there any permissions or user authentication steps for the client
to perform in order to see the contents of the NFS root directory?

I have tested the nfs export and I can mount the shares from the client when
I boot normally (disk on chip).

Thanks, Pat

On Thu, Apr 25, 2002 at 08:16:15PM -0800, pat wrote:
>
> Hey Folks,

hey,

> I get the kernel panic, with the "no init found" message. I have
> tried various permutations of the init= parameter (/bin/init,
> /bin/sh, etc..), the client machine can't seem to see any of the
> files on the server. I get a message on both the server side
> (mountd confirms mount request for the proper directory) and the
> client shows a kernel message that the VFS nfs root is mounted. I
> use DHCP to launch the PXE stuff. The root filesystem is exported
> with (rw,no_root_squash). The root filesystems was created by doing
> a minimal Slackware install to the subdirectory on the server.

what you can try is to chroot into the filesystem on the NFS server, see
if bash wants to start there. It could be that there are libs missing. Init
/the kernel doesn't tell if there are libs missing, it just says that it can
find no init.

> Do I have to export all the directories individually, or just export
> the root?

only the root is ok.

> Are there any permissions or user authentication steps for the client
> to perform in order to see the contents of the NFS root directory?

nope.

> I have tested the nfs export and I can mount the shares from the client when
> I boot normally (disk on chip).

again, try to chroot into it, and see if any libs are missing.

grtz, Tijn

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