diskless client (centos 5.5) on centos 4.8 server

Post date: 2010/05/26 8:13:20

1. do not forget to install busybox-anaconda on your running centos which you intend to install on diskless

2. follow instructions in http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/natto_heaven/11513467.html

in my case, it was necessary to add ramdisk_size=50000 in append statement in default file

under linux-install/pxelinux.cfg

3. before executing system-config-netboot, install root

rsync -v -a --exclude '/cadence/*' --exclude '/nfsboot/*' --exclude '/\root/*' --exclude='/home/*' --exclude='/proc/*' --exclude='/sys/*' / /nfsboot/root

4. if you see, PXE-E32: TFTP open timeout error, check /etc/hosts.allow

5. to avoid NFS root mount failure, it was necessary to add utility commands to initrd.img

cp /tftpboot/linux-install/centos55/initrd.img /tmp

# cd /tmp

# zcat initrd.img > initrd.dat

# mount -o loop initrd.dat /mnt

# cp /sbin/mount.nfs /mnt/sbin/

# cp /sbin/umount.nfs /mnt/sbin/

# cp /sbin/mount.nfs4 /mnt/sbin/

# cp /sbin/umount.nfs4 /mnt/sbin/

# umount /mnt

# gzip -c9 initrd.dat > initrd.img

# cd /tftpboot/linux-install/centos55/

# mv initrd.img initrd.img.org

# cp /tmp/initrd.img .