Subject: Wheezy nfsroot / FAI 4.0.3

[Brian Kroth]

Steffen Grunewald <Steffen.Grunewald at aei.mpg.de> 2012-08-17 14:51:
> On Tue, Aug 07, 2012 at 07:04:16PM +0200, Steffen Grunewald wrote:
>> On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 07:51:01AM +0200, Bjarne Bertilsson wrote:
>> >
>> > live-boot3.0(~a35-1) is broken on wheezy. If you run ipconfig in the
>> > initramfs shell the network will properly come up. There is
>> > a bug report on this somewhere but weren't able to find it just now
>> > with a quick search. I fixed it temporarily by pinning an earlier
>> > version of the package from snapshot.debian.org.
>>
>> I'm trying the two patches mentioned in bug #683240 now - as long as there's
>> no proper documentation for the live-boot -> dracut transition, I prefer to
>> stay on known terrain.
>>
>> Unfortunately, this involved patching the existing live-boot package (a38),
>> rebuilding the debs, and re-running the nfsroot build - which will not
>> finish in time before I have to leave. But I'm optimistic.
>
> I shouldn't have been too optimistic.
>
> While the network device config patches apparently worked, I'm still having
> major issues.
>
> - My PXE files read like this:
> label fai-generated
> kernel vmlinuz-install.64.wheezy
> append initrd=initrd-install.64.wheezy ip=dhcp \
> root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=/srv/fai/nfsroots/amd64.wheezy \
> boot=live console=tty0 \
> FAI_FLAGS=verbose,sshd,createvt FAI_ACTION=install
> (of course, all the append stuff is in one line)

I'm not a fan of dracut so far, and we have lots of scripts around fai 
built up around live-boot (or what was live-initramfs) already, so I'm 
trying to avoid changing.

I found that with the 3.0~a35-1 version of live-boot I was able to get a 
working network config if I also added the following:
live-netdev=eth0 ethdevice=eth0

I originally also had ip=eth0:dhcp, but either FAI or live-boot doesn't 
parse that correctly (I forget which now), so now I just leave ip=dhcp.

All of that was originally necessary to work around hosts that had 
multiple nics anyways, so for me it's required.  

Another option which may or may not work is the pxelinux "IPAPPEND 2" 
command to add info about which nic was used for pxeboot, but I didn't 
have much luck with that setting.
http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/SYSLINUX#IPAPPEND_flag_val_.5BPXELINUX_only.5D

I also found that having "dhcp" alone on a kernel boot line caused other 
problems (again I forget whether that was in live-boot or fai now).  
That's a live-boot flag for devs I think to force dhcp for debugging.

All that said, I still had to apply this patch to get the aufs mounting 
order stuff to work out correctly:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=681579

Hope that helps some.

Cheers,
Brian

> - The TFTP/DHCP setup hasn't been changed for a long time
>
> - Watching a machine start via IPMI Serial-over-LAN will stop the start
> 	at some point. Apparently the network port (through which the IPMI
> 	conenction is tunneled) gets confused at some point.
>  I had to remove the console=ttyS1,... entry from the PXE file.
>
> - I am thrown into initramfs after some errors scrolling by. Here's what
> 	I see (had to copy it to paper by hand, for the above reason):
> ...
> Begin: Loading essential drivers...
> Begin: Running /scripts/init-premount
> Begin: Mounting root file system...
> Waiting for ethernet card(s) up
> Looking for a conencted Ethernet interface ... eth0? eth1?
> ... eth0 becomes ready
> Connected eth0 found
> IP-Config: ... (correct IP, DNS, etc)
> rootserver: ${my_fai_server} rootpath: (empty!)
> filenam: pxelinux.0
> Creating /etc/resolv.conf
> Begin: Trying netboot from :/srv/...
> Begin: Trying nfsmount -o nolock -o ro :/srv/...
> nfsmount: can't parse IP address ''
>
> In the initramfs, I checked:
> /run/net-eth0.conf contains the right ROOTSERVER setting, and PROTO='dhcp',
> 	but an empty ROOTPATH=''
> /conf/param.conf says DEVICE=' eth0' (yes, with a leading blank)
> /conf/initramfs.conf contains DEVICE='' and NFSROOT=auto
>
>
> Something seems to stop propagation of the ROOTSERVER setting to the
> 9990-netboot.sh script of live-boot... (and ROOTPATH not being used)
>
> I'd like to make local modifications to the startup sequence (adding debug
> statements), and rebuild the initrd from inside the nfsroot
> - any tips how to do this, without having to *build* a new live-boot package,
> and creating a new nfsroot?
> - any suggestions which additional settings to use?
>
> S
>
> -- 
> Steffen Grunewald * MPI Grav.Phys.(AEI) * Am Mühlenberg 1, D-14476 Potsdam
> Cluster Admin * --------------------------------- * http://www.aei.mpg.de/
> * e-mail: steffen.grunewald(*)aei.mpg.de * +49-331-567-{fon:7274,fax:7298}
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