#115 CDROM over NFS (for Network boot PXE)

[Niels Basjes]

Hi,

It seems that people have asked about this in forums
but have omitted to make it an 'official' feature
request. So here goes: I would like to be able to boot
Morphix over the network using PXE.

What this feature request all boils down (long
explanaition below) to is that I would like the kernel
to accept a parameter so Morphix can locate the 'CDROM'
using nfs instead of using a physical CDROM drive.

That's it. Having Morhpix as a boot server is not
important (for me).

Long explanaition:

People in forums have suggested boorint using PXE could
be a minimodule but as far as I can determine that only
applies to Morphix being a server for booting. If you
want to boot Morphix itself over the network a few
changes should be part of the main system.

Booting over the network requires 2 things:

1) A server to respond to the PXE requests with a
kernel and other required files. This requires a DHCP
server and a TFTP server that can serve a Linux kernel
and a root filesystem to bootstrap the system. It then
also needs a file server (NFS/SMB) that allows the base
system to open the rest of the system over the network.
This bit is 'easy' and taking the Knoppix Terminal
Server script(s) as a base for this can very well be a
minimodule for Morphix.

2) An operating system that is capable of being booted
using PXE and can locate the required files over the
network. If you want to boot Morphix using PXE the core
system itself must have a few extra features that
Knoppix already has: Basically Knoppix is capable of
accepting a parameter (nfsdir) that tells it the root
of what is normally the CDROM can be found over the
network using NFS. The base system should therfore have
full DHCP based network support with 'CDROM root over
NFS' support so it can open the root of what is
normally the CDROM using NFS.
For Knoppix this parameter (nfsdir) is passed using the
pxelinux config file. I've recreated the "Terminal
Server" on my normal server (running Redhat) the
pxelinux config file for Knoppix contains these lines:

-------------
DEFAULT vmlinuz
APPEND
nfsdir=172.21.13.1:/shared/install/tftpboot/Knoppix34/cdrom
nodhcp lang=us ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc
/init apm=power-off nomce vga=791 initrd=miniroot.gz
quiet wheelmouse BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
-------------

So if Morphix can use NFS to find the 'CDROM' then I
can boot Morphix in a similar way over the network
using PXE as I boot Knoppix here.

Thanks for your effort

Niels Basjes