Looking for a way to boot YDL off a remote server? Here's how.
Step 1): Set up dhcp server
- Make sure the package dhcp is installed on your system.
- Edit /etc/dhcpd.conf:
- Below is an example dhcpd.conf file:
subnet 192.168.10.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
filename "yaboot";
range dynamic-bootp 192.168.10.2 192.168.10.100;
}
subnet 10.0.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { }
- You must change the subnets to that of your interfaces. Every interface
must have a corresponding subnet declaration (leave subnet declarations empty
for interfaces which you don't want to listen for requests on)
- Change the range to a range of ip's on your subnet.
- See man dhcpd.conf for more info
- Start the dhcpd server:
service dhcpd start
Step 2): Set up tftp
- Make sure you have package tftp-server installed
- Enable tftp:
chkconfig tftp on
- Restart xinetd:
service xinetd restart
- Create a directory called /tftpboot
mkdir /tftpboot
- Copy the yaboot binary to /tftpboot
cp /usr/lib/yaboot/yaboot /tftpboot
- Create the file /tftpboot/yaboot.conf
- Below is an example:
timeout=30
default=linux
image=vmlinux
label=linux
initrd=ramdisk.image.gz
- This is an example if you have created a ramdisk.
- If the netbooting machine has a filesystem on it's harddrive, you would change initrd to:
root=/dev/hda[part]
Where [part] is whatever partition the root filesystem is on.
- Copy your netboot kernel to /tftpboot
- Strip it
strip /tftpboot/[kernel name]
- Create an alias to it called vmlinux:
ln -s [kernel name] /tftpboot/vmlinux
Step 3) Netboot the node
- Make sure both machines are connected to the network, and boot the node, holding down the 'n' key.
- You can watch the messages for helpful clues:
tail -f /var/log/{messages,secure}
This HOW-TO was found in a random directory of Troy Vitullo's hard drive.
