Re: Almost there!

["David J. Pfaltzgraff" <davepfz@fred.net>]

When I asked for help when a DC was not coming up..

Christoph Plattner <christoph.plattner@alcatel.at> wrote:
>
>Have you compiled in the ethernet card type you use ? (And not as
>module). 
Yes.

>The /tftpboot/machine/etc/fstab is in this situation not used, yet.
>Do you have activated the IP Autoconfig with the BOOTP option in the
>kernel configuration, so the kernel is able to konw his correct 
>network setup, which is independent defined from the netboot. What
>I mean, is that netboot use BOOTP to setup it's IP setup (address,
>submask, etc..), then it loads the kernel into memory and netboot
>tells the kernel, that the Root-FS is NFS on /tftpboot/machine
>(you have compiled in NFS-ROOT support in the kernel ?).
As far as I know, all this has been done.

>Then the kernel execution is started. The kernel has its own ethernet
>driver, its own IP stack, etc, so the kernel has to start again with the
>network initialization. So the kernel also does a BOOTP request to
>setup the IP parameter and try to mount the root file system.
Ok, I saw all that - the second BOOTP sequence, etc. So I must be doing most
of it right.

>
>And after the ROOT-FS is mounted, all files in /tftpboot/machine
>gain interest. You said you edited the /tftpboot/.../etc/fstab.
>Don't forget to edit the IP settings in ..../etc/sysconfig/network and
>network-script (this is true for RedHat, on other distribution the
>IP setup is else where !!)
Ok, I follow this. I'm doing Slackware, but work with RH so I'm familiar
with the similarities/differences.

>
>An important hint to the NFS server setup:
>	in /etc/exports
>	Don't forget the keyword (option) no_root_squash
>	otherwise the system (running as root) has the problem
>	in mounting the tree ! (IMPORTANT !)
Yup, got that one. (There were enough warnings in the different HOWTOs, how
could I miss!?)

Also, Ken Yap <ken@nlc.net.au> wrote:
>Services on server? rpc.mountd, nfsd, portmapper
I did a 'ps ax' and saw rpc.mountd, nfsd and rpc.portmap so it would appear
that these are all in place. I was a little confused by 'portmapper' vs
'rpc.portmap', but what I could find in the man docs, it appeared that there
should be no problem. The man page did talk about the hosts.allow file, so I
went back and checked that. I had set them up as per section 3.5 Security of
"Thin-Client-HOWTO"
(http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/beta/Thin-Client-HOWTO.html) which put
restrictions on rpc.portmap. So, I went back and removed these. Now the
system comes up. 

>Services on client? portmapper (but that's for later)
OK, I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Meanwhile, I'll have to go back
and understand hosts.allow and hosts.deny better. In my environment, I'm not
too concerned about security, but I do need to understand it.

I have a few other problems, but they are related to the initialization
files, etc. Now, I need to owkr my way through all the files and clean them up.

Thanks for your help.

Would there be any interest in a document describing what I needed to do in
the Slackware environment? My intent be to not repeat what you have in the
other documents, but, presuming that the others have been read, woul be a
'cookbook' of steps that lead to success. My specific interest is not
termials as most people view a DC, but a system being used in a process
control environment.

Once again, many thanks to all who contributed.

I don't think this is the last you'll hear from me... (!)
Dave




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