live-boot packages with udhcpc support for testing

[Stephan Adig]

Dear Colleagues,

as I was announcing in the past, I have some packages ready with udhcpc
support. You can find them on the FAI Wiki under

http://wiki.fai-project.org/wiki/User:StephanHermann

(The packages are inside the tgz file)


These packages are removing ipconfig support for dhcp completly, and are
using udhcpc instead.

In our setup we are using the pxelinux functionality of IPAPPEND 2 which
provides BOOTIF to the kernel commandline. This works out of the box.

As I don't have another pool of test machines and test infrastructure, I
would like to invite you to test those packages in your specific setups.

What you have to do?

1. create a new nfsroot with make-fai-nfsroot --vvv
   please be sure, that you are not overwriting your working nfsroot.

2. The live-boot-initramfs-tools package does have a dependency on 
   the udhcpc package, so you don't need to worry about the 
   installation of udhcpc

3. chroot into your newly created nfsroot and adjust 
   your /etc/initramfs-tools/modules to your needs

4. update-initramfs -k all -u inside your nfsroot

5. copy the resulting initrd from your nfsroot to your tftp root 
   directory.
   Again, please do not overwrite your current working kernels and 
   initrds

6. If you find anything not working especially when you are using not 
   the IPAPPEND parameter, please send some informations to me.
   a) append DEBUG=1 and break=premount to your kernel append 
      commandline
   b) when you see the initramfs busybox prompt please do 
      a . /scripts/live and call do_netsetup from the prompt
   c) all errors should be visible then, copy and paste or take a 
      picture with your favorite digital cam and send them to me.

One advise, this package doesn't work on ubuntu lucid/maverick , so
don't install it in your ubuntu nfsroot, please :)

Why should I do this?

During my testdrives of FAI with dhcp kernel boots, we had a lot of fun
with ipconfig not working correctly. Mostly on newer NICs and newer
hardware.
We don't know why this was happening or what is causing this, because
the bios pxe implementations were working out of the box with our dhcp
setup. 
Having now udhcpc on board, everything works without problems, so we
think that udhcp is a better way to provide a much more stable ip=dhcp
support for the kernel and for the FAI users.

I'm happy to receive a lot of mails and trying to support you on irc or
via mail.

Please don't kill me, when you find bugs, or something is not working. I
want to have a proper package handy, and push that upstream.

Thanks for your attention and thanks in advance for your help,

\sh
-- 
Stephan '\sh' Adig
SysAdmin / Ubuntu Developer
xmpp: sh at sourcecode.de