Re: etherboot question...

dony (dony.he@huawei.com.cn)
Wed, 30 Jun 1999 15:43:37 +0800

> On Fri, Jun 25, 1999 at 11:13:52AM +0800, dony wrote:
> > 1 it boots from ROM or FLOPPY DISK, then it broadcasts to all BOOTP Server for its IPADDRESS,HOSTNAME etc.
> > 2 it downloads its kernel via TFTP from BOOTP server and run it .
> > 3 it mounts its root filesystem via NFS from NFS server (also BOOTP server) on RAMDISK and finishs booting.
> >
> > The question is ,when the NFS server is down, then this diskless workstation cannot work normally since it is so dependent on NFS server.
> >
> > So when it takes the above step 3, I hope it can work the same way as step 2 .
> > That is ,it first downloads its compressed root filesystem via TFTP from BOOTP server ,then uncompresses it and mounts it on RAMDISK. If it can work this way , then it will be standalone . I know I have to modify kernel to serve this purpose. But I just don't know how to begin? Can someone help me?
>
> hmm i think the SUSE Bootdisk do something similar. It boot the kernel and run /linuxrc where you can choose your modules and your rootfs
> you can load it via nfs / cdrom ...
> (the rescue image is about 9MB )

What does "you can load it via nfs/cdrom" really mean?
Actually it just does the same thing as I have done:When NFS server is up,then the diskless workstation can work normally. When NFS server is down,or something was wrong with network,then this workstation cannot work properly. Because it is not independent.

>
> the problem i cant figure out is:
>
> howto cahnge rootfs after booting ?

What is your meaning about "howto change rootfs after booting "?

Do you mean "after booting we can change rootfs from 'nfs rootfs' to 'local rootfs' or anything else"? Am I out of your meaning?

dony

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