Re: [Thinstation-general] questions about ThinStation netboot process, performance, diagnosis
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doncuppjr
From: Todd P. <pf...@mc...> - 2022-04-05 16:25:57
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Hi Don, Thanks for the response. I'll try the kernel cmd line options you suggested. The current hardware I'm testing is a new Dell Optiplex 3090 MFF, configured for UEFI PXE boot. I thought I was already using fastboot. However, now I'm not so sure. What files should I be able to see being requested from a client on my tftp or http servers? During the latest boot of my thinstation client I'm seeing this in my http access log: "GET /vmlinuz HTTP/1.1" 200 8256904 "-" "GRUB 2.03" "GET /initrd HTTP/1.1" 200 336131829 "-" "GRUB 2.03" "GET //thinstation.conf.network HTTP/1.1" 200 317 "-" "Wget" "GET //thinstation.hosts HTTP/1.1" 200 199 "-" "Wget" "GET //thinstation.conf.group-all HTTP/1.1" 200 - "-" "Wget" "GET //thinstation.conf-tc003 HTTP/1.1" 200 778 "-" "Wget" "GET //ssh_known_hosts HTTP/1.1" 404 213 "-" "Wget" Is that everything or should there be something else after initrd that I should see if fastboot is at play? I recalled seeing a lib.squash in the past, and found this in an earlier log entry before I made some changes yesterday: "GET /lib.squash HTTP/1.0" 200 315600896 "-" "Wget" Should I still be seeing this for every TS boot when fastboot is enabled, or am I conflating different mechanisms and this lib.squash has nothing to do with fastboot (in which case, when should I see lib.squash and when not)? I have this in my current build.conf: package overlayfs param fastboot and this for my current pxe boot grub2 menuentry: set http_host=192.168.1.1:8888 set http_path="" menuentry 'ThinStation' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { echo 'Loading kernel ...' linuxefi (http,${http_host})${http_path}/vmlinuz console=tty0 LM=3 FASTBOOT_URL=http://${http_host}${http_path} echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrdefi (http,${http_host})${http_path}/initrd } Thanks, Todd On Tue, 5 Apr 2022, Don Cupp via Thinstation-general wrote: > I am not sure which boot loader you are using, but regardless, boot > loaders often have to use interrupts to get things done. This makes them > slower than a regular OS. I developed a technique for breaking the > initrd up into two pieces. All the code required to boot is in the small > piece about 29mb, and everything else in the second part. It's called > fastboot. It's weird and makes things hard to debug, but it does speed > up booting. > > You could add "vt.global_cursor_default=1 systemd.show_status=true > rd.systemd.show_status=true" to your kernel cmd line. > > > > > > > > > On Tuesday, April 5, 2022, 01:17:25 AM PDT, Todd Pfaff <pf...@rh...> wrote: > > > > > > Hi ThinStation folks, > > I'm running ThinStation-6, netbooting it via UEFI PXE, with the kernel and > initrd loaded via HTTP. That's all working ok, albeit slower than I > expected. > > The kernel vmlinuz file appears to load during boot in just a couple of > seconds. > > After that the remainder of the boot process takes another minute or so, > and for most of that time all I see on the screen are the pxe boot > messages in the top-left of the screen: > > Fetching Netboot Image > Loading kernel ... > Loading initial ramdisk ... > > > After about a minute I finally see the ThinStation yellow progress bar > show up for a split-second and then it disappears and all I see is a black > screen until the boot is completed and my desktop session is running. > > The initrd file is about 320MB so I wouldn't expect it to take more than a > few seconds to load via http on a 1Gbps network. In fact, if I wget the > same file from the running thinstation, it takes about 3 seconds. > > I also wouldn't expect the uncompressing of the initrd file and the > remainder of the boot process to take as long as it is so I suspect > something is going on that I can see because the boot process is mostly > silent. > > What can I do to better visualize the boot process? I'm used to being > able to press CTRL-ALT-Fn to get out of a linux graphical boot screen and > see the kernel and init messages. I haven't found a way to do this with > TS6 but maybe I'm missing something. > > > Thanks, > Todd > > > _______________________________________________ > Thinstation-general mailing list > Thi...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/thinstation-general > > > _______________________________________________ > Thinstation-general mailing list > Thi...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/thinstation-general |