RAMdisk netboot again

[Pricop Ioan <pniky@yahoo.com>]

> 
> Dear Kent,
> 
> Maybe you can help me with my problem. I am using
> EtherBoot to experiment with a diskless client.
> After
> a few hoops, I made it working from a NFS-root
> filesystem. Now I am experimenting with RAM-disks.
> I
> tried with a 9 MB fs and it seems to work. Then, I
> tried with a 96 MB fs. Of cause, I modified the
> /usr/src/linux-2.2.5/drivers/block/rd.c to be able
> to
> create ramdisks of 128 MB (have 196 MB on the
> client)
> and recompiled the kernel. I tested these, by
> creating
> a 128 MB RAMdisk and populating it with the fs I
> downsized at 96MB. It worked with a "chroot",
> exception the X part (only fvwm and Netscape). I
> obtained a 50 MB "rdImage.gz". But when I tried to
> make a NBI and boot it, all is well until it's
> tftp-ing the NBI. Than the rotator keeps spinning
> and
> spinning forever - i think, cause after 2.5 hours
> I stopped the process. Anyway, with "tcpdump" I
> estimated the 3.8 MB composed immage loading time
> (fs
> of 9 MB gzipped) and calculated the 51 MB one's -
> it
> must have been 1 min and 47 secs. What can be
> wrong?
> Can anyone tip me on some sites where I can find
> specific documentation on NBI use of ramdisks?
> 
> > Thank you for at least reading this mail,
> 
> =====
> Ioan (John) NIKY Pricop
> Bucharest - ROMANIA
> pniky@yahoo.com
>

Hi folks,

I previously said that the 9MB filesystem compressed
to a 2.8MB rdImage and tagged with a kernel into a
3.5MB tftp-loaded file works. But it seems I have
something wrong even here. Although it seems booting
OK, when I reach the login screen (runlevel 3), after
username and <ENTER>, it says "Incorect login" and it
prompts again. I don't get even a "Password" prompt.
More, when I try to reboot "Ctrl-Alt-Del", I get the
message: "You don't exist. Go away." There was a big
laugh here on me because of this, but I'm desperate.
BTW: The kernel decompresses and initializes well,
then I see a glimpse of something like "Compressed
ramdisk found at..." and then jumps straight into the
login screen. It doesn't do any of the "[  OK  ]"
stuff - "rc.sysinit", I guess. I tried to put some
echoes both at the beginning of "rc.sysinit" and into
a "linuxrc" at the root of the compressed RAMdisk, but
it seems the box never comes in touch with these
files. Does anyone know where can I be wrong?

Thanks for all past and future advices,


=====
Ioan (John) NIKY Pricop
Bucharest - ROMANIA
pniky@yahoo.com

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere!
http://mail.yahoo.com/
===========================================================================
This Mail was sent to netboot mailing list by:
Pricop Ioan <pniky@yahoo.com>
To get help about this list, send a mail with 'help' as the only string in
it's body to majordomo@baghira.han.de. If you have problems with this list,
send a mail to netboot-owner@baghira.han.de.