Tom Rockwell wrote:
> Aldo Saavedra wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I was wondering if someone would an insightful comment.
>>
>>  From reading past posts I managed to get a node to boot from a server
>> using PXE+DHCP+HTTP
>>
>>
>> The image resides in /tftpboot and the configuration is
>> default SL45
>> serial 0,9600n8
>> timeout 100
>> prompt 1
>>
>> label localboot
>>   LOCALBOOT 0
>>
>> label SL45
>>   kernel SL45-vmlinuz-boot
>>   append console=ttyS0,38400 console=tty0 load_ramdisk=1
>> initrd=SL45-initrd.img-boot root=/dev/sda1
>>
>>
>>  the node finds it and installs SL 45
>> and reboots...  two questions
>> 1) If this was a diskless node.. rebooting would not be helpful so how
>> is that installation
>> done. (I suppose I would need to remove the root=/dev/sda1 but does SL
>> installation always
>> needs to be reboot?)
>>   
> The anaconda installer doesn't work for diskless nodes.  For a diskless 
> node, you need to have the system stored somewhere.  Usually it is 
> accessed via NFS.  The process is basically to take an already installed 
> system and copy the files to the NFS accessed area.  Then you PXE boot 
> the host and tell it to mount / from the NFS area.  There are various 
> how-to's about this process.
>> 2) If it installs to the hard disk.. then how can I change the default
>> PXE configuration so it performs a localboot the next time. In this case
>> while it was powering down I changed the file so the default would be
>> localboot .
>>   
> You have to get the pxelinux config file changed somehow (or change the 
> node BIOS to boot the harddrive before PXE).  Cluster software packages 
> such as ROCKS or xCAT provide a mechanism to do this automatically.  (A 
> server runs on front-end waiting for indication from client that the 
> install has finished, and then the change is made.)

Systems I've seen recently have BIOS option to make a one-time choice of 
boot device and/or network boot.

Failing that, a pxelinux default to boot the local hard drive, and to 
timeout after a few seconds works okay.



-- 

Cheers
John

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