Fai server can be a different architecture from clients?

[wtautz]

Henning Sprang wrote:
> 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.
Yes, I figured it should be easy to do this part. As Thomas points
out I could copy over the different nfs roots once they've been
created on a machine of appropriate architecture....

>
> Still, you need to make the nfsroot _once_ on a machine of the right
> architecture, because there a chroot is created with debootstrap.
Yes, I noticed that running and this program obviously can't run on
an arch that is different.
>
> Henning
>
> BTW: it works to have an i86 chroot (and therefore base image, and
> nfsroot) on amd64 , but not vice versa.
Yes, that had occurred to me.

walter