Netbooting diskless client; need rc.sysinit help....Barry ?

[Guest]

The scene....

Puppy 1.0.3 loading the kernel and image.gz via pxe (ie network boot)

Booting goes ok until we need to mount /mnt/home and then loop mount /usr as we have no local storage.

What I want to do is mount /mnt/home via nfs and then loop mount usr_cram.fs via the share.

Now I've noticed in rc.sysint that there is a test to see if we are booting from a hard disk install and a branch if we are. Now I want to insert a test to see if we are booting from the network (PNET="some such parameters) and then exec rc.sysinit-net (or some such script I cobble together).

I have tested this with the standard boot scripts and then let it boot , got mesages about no usr_cram.fs being found, mounted the remote share then mounted usr_cram.fs, logged out then straight back in (LIBRARY path gets updated this way, if you dont mozilla can't find it's libraries).
I want something more elegant and have the option of using an existing pup001 file or recreating one on the fly or just not mounting one at all.

Now what I would really like to know is what variables do I have to set after my sysinit script runs so that puppy runs smoothly....

Maybe in 5 or 6 releases this could become part of the "mainstream" release, as I see puppy could be great in classroom,lab or internet cafe enviroment.
I doubt if we'd need the unionfs feature in this situation.
I know I did get puppy booting remotely before but this was heavily version dependant and a lot of work to setup.
Even a machine booting from a cd could still mount /mnt/home, usr_cram.fs and pup001 via a share. All ip parameters as well as the nfs server and shares can be given on the command line or via user defined options in the dhcp.conf file on the server.

And no custom kernel would be required, ethernet drivers would be loaded as per normal.

I know it's a big ask but diskless booting\client really have me intrigued.

Thanx once again

[PeterSieg]

Hi bladehunter,

When I fiddled around with grub hdd boot, I read in the manual, that grub
can load kernel and image.gz via network, requiring only tftp server setup.
This together with usr_cram.fs inside image.gz (checkout John's versions),
could be another possibility...

PS

BTW: I also think a network boot for classrooms/internet cafes would be
great! But the setup should be close to nothing (wrap it inside scripts, go for
192.168.1.0 adress ranges etc.)

[Guest]

That method works fine, if you have +128MB or a swap partiton but the request I had was for lesser spec'd machines......Like I said I did getting going before but the instructions were long winded and some people didn't follow ALL of them to the letter and had problems.I'm looking for something simpler and more portable across versions