Split between initramfs and nfsroot in FAI

[Thomas Lange]

>>>>> On Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:18:59 +0200, Torsten Schlabach <tschlabach at gmx.net> said:

    > Actually, I understand that the FAI installation proecess is based on
    > the Debian live system and that the Debian live system is based on
    > initramfs. So IIUC, what will happen on the install client is:
FAi is only using a part of Debian live, it only uses the
live-initramfs package.

    > 1. kernel is loaded.
    > 2. initramfs including Debian live system is loaded and the Debian live
    > system is started.
    > 3. The nfsroot is mounted via NFS and made the root filesystem,
    > replacing the live system root file system which is in the initramfs.
    > 4. The installation script starts which will mount the config space,
    > then perform the actual installation.
Yep, this is right.

    > 1. Is the network configuration done in step 2 (i.e. entirely inside the
    > initramfs) or is there any re-configuration of the network settings
    > after the root filesystem change? (Obviously, /etc/hosts will be a
    > different one after the root filesystem has been changed to the NFS
    > mounted one, but I am more after ipconfig stuff.
ipconfig stuff is done inside the initrd. But also the kernel itself
is doing some network things, for example detecting and activating the
network interfaces.

    > 2. What do we need the NFS mounted root filesystem for? What does it
The nfsroot contains more than 300MB of software. It contains all
software (like parted, ssh, perl, setup-harddisks,..) which is not
available in the initrd, but needed by FAI. The initrd also only
contains the busybox version of programs like ls, df,... But I like to
use the standard version, which have more options.
So, IMO we really need the nfsroot.
-- 
regards Thomas