Multiple architectures on a single fai server

[Tim Cutts]

On 5 Dec 2007, at 12:02 pm, Rudy Gevaert wrote:

> Sjors Robroek wrote:
>> Dear all,
>> I am currently trying to generate a NFSroot for both our 64 and  
>> 32bits desktop machines, but i'm not having much success. I've  
>> tried running make-fai-nfsroot and fai-setup under linux32. And  
>> while it does generate a nfsroot, it's still all 64bits.
>> Installing a fai server on a 32bits machine is not really an  
>> option, since we don't have lots of 32 bits machines available  
>> anymore and because it makes managing the nfsroots a lot more  
>> complicated, unless there's ofcourse no other choice.
>> Does anyone have any ideas to solve this problem?
>
> Yes.  We are running an install server that is 32 bit but has a 64  
> bit kernel with 32bit support.  This only so we can debootstrap in  
> 32 or 64 bit.
>
> When we boot our client we boot a 64 bit kernel with 32 bit support.  
> Our nfsroot is 32 bit but has baseimage files voor 64 bit.
>
> So when a 64 bit client is to be installed we make sure that the  
> 64BIT class is defined.  If that is the case the 64bit baseimage  
> file is unpacked so we get a 64bit system.
>
> Have a look in the archives, for posts of me and you will surely  
> find something that is helpful.

We used a different approach; we have both nfsroots, but the code that  
builds them doesn't like making two on one machine, so what we did was  
install FAI on two servers initially, and then rsync the 32-bit NFS  
root onto the 64-bit server.  This works fine.

Tim


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