RE: Using initrd to install and maintain lan clients.

[Davide Dao <davide.rao@gsmbox.com>]

>My mknbi-linux invocation looks like:
>mknbi-linux -x -a ramdisk_size=16384  -d /dev/hda1 -r ramImage.gz -k
>zImage -o /tftpboot/bootImage

>The audit trail of this invocation looks like:
>Kernel image file name  = zImage
>Output file name        = /tftpboot/bootImage
>Ramdisk image file name = ramImage.gz
>Kernel command line     =  "auto rw root=/dev/hda1 nfsroot=kernel
>nfsaddrs=kernel ramdisk_size=16384"

>The ramImage.gz is a Red Hat rescue disk which I modified and to insert

>a /linuxrc to prep my local disk and load software on it
>using rsync.

>This all works fine and so I made the roms and I find that it does not
>work like I wanted:

>If the machine is not connected to the network the rom loader never
>gives up so that the bios can load from hard disk.  Have I done
>something real stupid in using this 3c905b.lzrom stuff?  Should I be
>putting more stuff into the rom?  Or is this all there is?

>I can make-do by continueing to use the floppy but I don't really want
>that.  All systems on the net should first check with the server and
>insure that their local OS is in sync.  The systems are sometimes
>carried home.

>Advice please....  I've spent a lot of time on this thing and I hope
>there is a reasonably painless solution.

It might not be the case but I think you forgot to enable default boot
to local and a timeout value.
Try compiling your lzrom with options:
CFLAGS+=                 -DASK_BOOT=n      #where n is timeout in
seconds
CFLAGS+=                 -DANS_DEFAULT=ANS_LOCAL

set in Configure file in src32 directory.

Ciaps
Dave


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