FAI technical questions/issues

[Thomas Lange]

>>>>> On Thu, 25 Mar 2004 21:05:37 +1200, "Alex" <misc at viceconsulting.co.nz> said:

    > when running make-fai-nfsroot, it died trying to run mknbi-linux, it
    > complained that --outfile was not a valid option, and that --ip=any
    > was an invalid host
You are using the mknbi-linux from the package netboot, but you should
use the package mknbi. It includes the right mknbi-linux executable.


    > when running make-fai-nfsroot, it complained about unresolved symbols
    > when running depmod:
Just ignore these error messages.

    > however, i noticed the kernel had not been installed, and was thus 
    > unable to boot
    > into linux.
Look at shell.log.

    > i believe it has something to do with correctly setting the following 
    > two variables in /usr/local/share/fai/class/DEFAULT.var:
I also think this is the problem. Have a look at the log files.

    > #kernelversion=2.4.24 # for the packages  kernel-doc and kernel-
    > source
    > #addpackages="kernel-image-2.4.24-2-386"

    > do i need to set both "kernelversion" and "addpackages" ?
No. $kernelversion is only used in package_config/KERNEL_SOFT.

    > then do i set the addpackages to "kernel-image-2.4.18-686" or
    > "kernel-image-2.4.18-686_2.4.18-5_i386" or
    > "kernel-image-2.4.18-686_2.4.18-5_i386.deb" or what?
You have to set it to kernel-image-2.4.18-686

    > i found this step to be not very clearly explained in existing
    > documentation.
Patches for the documentation are welcome.

    > is thus being set to the name "172.30.1.132" - is there any way to 
    > change the hostname to something else like "demohost" ? (note: i do 
    > not have access to the DHCP server, which is most likely
You can set it in a script in class by calling the command hostname.

    > i had to edit /usr/local/share/fai/class/LAST.var to set FAI_ACTION 
    > to
    > install:

    > mktable() {

    >     # Here, you have to add all your hosts
    >     # This is the table: host -> action

    >     cat <<-EOT

    >    172          install
    >    172.30.1.132 install
    >    kueppers     install
    >    bigfoot      sysinfo
    >    pittermaennche install
    > EOT
    > }

    > is this correct?
Yes, if you don't have control over the pxelinux.cfg files or can't
specify the FAI_ACTION on the kernel command line (via boot floppy).

    > e)

    > how is are the files deployed to the host machine, are they .deb 
    > files which are installed via dpkg? or is it just a straight copy of the 
    > $NFSROOT?
No straight copy of the NFSROT. The NFSROT can be complete different
to the files installed on the target host. RTFM. For installing deb
files the command install_packages (which uses apt-get) is called.

regards thomas