Fai server can be a different architecture from clients?

[Henning Sprang]

On 11/22/06, wtautz <wtautz at cs.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> Ok. So inorder to create an nfsroot of arch type X one needs to be
> on a machine of arch type X?

Exactly. But you only nbeed to do it once (or maybe, again when it
changes, because you can't just chroot in and install something when
it's on a machine with the wrong architecture, I believe).

> Consider the following scenario:
>
> 1. I have an FAI server on arch X with various nfsroots of arch types
> Y_1, Y_2 (these could be mounted via nfs from hosts of type Y_1, Y_2...
> where these Nfsroot would have been created by installing fai-server
> and running fai-setup).
> 2. I have clients that are of type Y_1, Y_2... and I want to use a single
> FAI server to install them. It would be good if a menu would come up
> on the client that would allow me to choose the correct FAI kernel image for
> that arch. I think this should be feasible. In fact, we have an image
> server that already has this ability. Anyone doing this?

This has notthing to do with the former. This is just booting, dhcp
and pxe magic.
It's not a problem to have the single server to install in the end,
and with some pxe config hacking you can have a menu, or give
different nfsroots on dhcp.

Still, you need to make the nfsroot _once_ on a machine of the right
architecture, because there a chroot is created with debootstrap.

Henning

BTW: it works to have an i86 chroot (and therefore base image, and
nfsroot) on amd64 , but not vice versa.