network boot problems

[Erik Hjelmås]

>From Patrick:
> I'm booting the clients over network with PXE. The first problem i
> had was that the clients stopped booting with an "Could not fond
> kernel image: linux." error. Therefore, I created a linux ->
> vmlinuz-install link. Now, that part works.
> But now, when the client boots the kernel, I get the following
> error:
> .
> .
> .
> kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k block-major-8, errno = 2
> VFS cannot open root device "" or 08:01
> Please append a correct "root=" boot option
> Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:01
>
> I checked /etc/exports and /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf and I couldn't find
> any error in there.

I think we are working on the same problem at the same time :) and I
encountered the same issues as you. My problem was that the kernel I was
trying to boot did not support the network card (it was a Broadcom card in
a Dell D800 laptop). But when I compiled a new kernel it works and nfs is
mounted, but I end up with the screen suddenly going black (just after or
at the end of the hardware detection process, the last lines before is
"ide-scsi" and "/usr/sbin/mouseconfig: not found") and then just one line
appears which says
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module nls_iso8859-1
which should be present:

romulan:/usr/lib/fai/nfsroot/lib/modules/2.4.21# find | grep nls
./kernel/fs/nls
./kernel/fs/nls/nls_iso8859-1.o

at first I had a different error, complaining about missing ntfs module,
anyone encountered this before?

/Erik