On Mon, Dec 31, 2001 at 12:59:00PM -0700, Sexton, George wrote:
> I have a problem using NFS root and was wondering if anyone could give me
> some ideas.
>
> I want to build a system for cloning disks via NFS. The system I have thus
> far works like this:
>
> Boot the node using a floppy disk. The kernel is configured with Auto IP
> Configuration and NFS root. The lilo line contains the appropriate append=
> line to identify the NFS root server and the IP configuration protocol.
>
> I have this working fine with an Intel EPRO 100 NIC.
>
> The problem I am hitting is that I would like to support the EPRO 1000/T
> Gigabit NIC. Intel supplies the source code for this driver so that it will
> compile as a module. There is evidently some discrepancy between the license
> Intel desires to use for this card and the requirements for the driver to
> compile directly into the kernel.
>
> I guess that I could theoretically configure an INITRD image to contain this
> driver. The problem is that once I do this, I am hosed when it comes to the
> NFS root mounting.
>
> I disassembled a RH 7.2 initrd image and found that it uses a small program
> called nash to load the modules. It appears that once it runs, it then
> mounts the real root directory. The problem is that it says in the man page
^ that's it. The real root is a number in
/proc/sys/kernel/real-root-dev.
NFSROOT has 255 (from memory,please check). Poke it in and be happy. Of course
you must tell the other params to the kernel as usual.
> that it doesn't support NFS. I looked over the source code for it, and I
> believe them. I also looked at the source code for the standard mount
> command and can see that adding NFS support to it would be non-trivial.
>
> One idea that I had would be to compile NFSROOT as a module and load it
> last. I looked at the source for it and it looks more tractable, but again I
> am not a real kernel wizard. Would this be feasible?
I'm not a kernel wizard either, but I think it would be feasible. And it's a
good idea too.
> Is there something I am missing? Is there another way that I can NFS ROOT
> systems that require the driver for the NIC to be loaded as a module?
>
> George Sexton
> MH Software, Inc.
> Voice: 303 438 9585
> http://www.mhsoftware.com
>
>
> -
> : send the line "unsubscribe linux-net" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
-
: send the line "unsubscribe linux-net" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
