Diskless server install..

SUSE Product Topics SLES Install-Boot
1

Hello Everyone!

I am trying to build an environment with a number of diskless clients and I have run into a snag. Here is what I have done so far.

Setup dhcp, NFS server and atftpd. I was able to install the OS and point the root file system to an NFS share. I am using the following options in dhcp to point to the kernel:

option root-path “10.0.0.10:/path/to/my/root”;
filename “path/to/my/root/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.76-0.11-default”;
next-server 10.0.0.10;
server-name “10.0.0.1”;
hardware ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00;
fixed-address 10.0.0.20;

When the server starts, it sees the kernel, loads the kernel then does a kernel panic with:

VFS: Cannot open root device “(null)” or unknown-block(0,0)
Please append a correct “root=” boot option; here are the available partitions:

The first time I saw that, I took a look at the menu.lst in /boot/grub/ and there was no menu.lst! So, I copied one from another machine and made some assumptions (which are probably wrong), but, here is my menu.lst :

Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Tue Sep 9 12:05:42 EDT 2014

default 0
timeout 8
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (10.0.0.10:/path/to/my/root)/message
##YaST - activate

###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3 - 3.0.101-0.35
##root (hd0,0)
root (10.0.0.10:/path/to/my/root)
kernel /vmlinuz-3.0.76-0.11-default root=10.0.0.10:/path/to/my/root splash=silent showopts vga=0x314
initrd /initrd-3.0.76-0.11-default

Anyone tried this before? If so, what did you do to fix this?

Thanks!

2

Hi zentz,

[QUOTE=zentz;23984]Hello Everyone!

I am trying to build an environment with a number of diskless clients and I have run into a snag. Here is what I have done so far.

Setup dhcp, NFS server and atftpd. I was able to install the OS and point the root file system to an NFS share. I am using the following options in dhcp to point to the kernel:

option root-path “10.0.0.10:/path/to/my/root”;
filename “path/to/my/root/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.76-0.11-default”;
next-server 10.0.0.10;
server-name “10.0.0.1”;
hardware ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00;
fixed-address 10.0.0.20;

When the server starts, it sees the kernel, loads the kernel then does a kernel panic with:

VFS: Cannot open root device “(null)” or unknown-block(0,0)
Please append a correct “root=” boot option; here are the available partitions:

The first time I saw that, I took a look at the menu.lst in /boot/grub/ and there was no menu.lst! So, I copied one from another machine and made some assumptions (which are probably wrong), but, here is my menu.lst :

Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Tue Sep 9 12:05:42 EDT 2014

default 0
timeout 8
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (10.0.0.10:/path/to/my/root)/message
##YaST - activate

###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3 - 3.0.101-0.35
##root (hd0,0)
root (10.0.0.10:/path/to/my/root)
kernel /vmlinuz-3.0.76-0.11-default root=10.0.0.10:/path/to/my/root splash=silent showopts vga=0x314
initrd /initrd-3.0.76-0.11-default

Anyone tried this before? If so, what did you do to fix this?

Thanks![/QUOTE]

have you had a look at https://www.suse.com/communities/conversations/pxe-booting-nfs-or-iscsi-roots-diskless-environment/ , which describes booting of diskless machines via PXE? It does explain where the boot loader information needs to go.

Regards,
Jens