netboot issues, 8.0, mfsroot mount failure

[Garrett Cooper]

On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 5:28 PM, Charles Sprickman <spork at bway.net> wrote:
> Howdy,
>
> I'm having some problems getting 8.0 to install over the network.  I've got
> my dhcp, tftp and nfs server working well, and I've tested all three
> services from this host before attempting to boot over the network.
>
> pxeboot seems to work, and I see it get loaded via tftp.  The kernel boots,
> and parses the options in loader.conf that exist in my nfs-exported 8.0 DVD
> fileset:
>
> [root at archive /home/spork/tmp]# cat
> /usr/local/netboot/freebsd8/boot/loader.conf
> mfsroot_load="YES"
> mfsroot_type="mfs_root"
> mfsroot_name="/boot/mfsroot"
> boot_multicons="YES"
> boot_serial="YES"
> console="comconsole,vidconsole"
> vfs.root.mountfrom="ufs:/dev/md0c"
>
> I see the kernel does find mfsroot and attaches it:
>
> md0: Preloaded image </boot/mfsroot> 4423680 bytes at 0xc0f6dfe0
>
> But then when it's ready to mount the root filesystem, I get this:
>
> SMP: AP CPU #1 Launched!
> Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/md0c
> ROOT MOUNT ERROR:
>
> If you have invalid mount options, reboot, and first try the following from
> the loader prompt:
>
>     set vfs.root.mountfrom.options=rw
>
> and then remove invalid mount options from /etc/fstab.
>
> It doesn't really state what the error is.  It's hinting that it's
> read-only, but that seems odd.  Even if it couldn't mount r/w, shouldn't it
> just drop to single-user at this point?
>
> Next it tries nfs:
>
> Trying to mount root from nfs:
> NFS ROOT: 192.168.1.111:/usr/local/netboot/freebsd8
> em0: link state changed to UP
>
> And there it sits.  Remotely I can't do anything.  If I'm local, I can
> ctrl-alt-del a few times and then about a minute later it does an orderly
> restart.
>
> I'm not aware of a good way to snoop on nfs traffic, but tcpdump shows nfs
> traffic between the two hosts, which appears to be the client stat-ing a
> file or directory.  tcpdump also shows some checksum errors, but I recall a
> few threads here mentioning that on Intel cards that generally is not a
> cause for concern.
>
>> From another host, I have no issues mounting that nfs filesystem r/w:
>
> root at h10[/home/spork]# mount_nfs 192.168.1.111:/usr/local/netboot/freebsd8
> /mntroot at h10[/home/spork]# ls /mnt/
> .cshrc          HARDWARE.TXT    boot.catalog    media           sbin
> .profile        README.HTM      cdrom.inf       mnt             stand
> 8.0-RELEASE     README.TXT      dev             packages        sys
> COPYRIGHT       RELNOTES.HTM    docbook.css     proc            tmp
> ERRATA.HTM      RELNOTES.TXT    etc             rescue          usr
> ERRATA.TXT      bin             lib             root            var
> HARDWARE.HTM    boot            libexec         rr_moved
> root at h10[/home/spork]# touch /mnt/foo
> root at h10[/home/spork]# rm /mnt/foo
> root at h10[/home/spork]# umount /mnt
>
> Any ideas?  I've got about a dozen remote boxes to upgrade, so I want to
> totally nail down this procedure.  I've been putting off learning this for a
> few years, and now I've got an actual need for it.

    I'll be in your shoes in a little bit... I ran into some issues
when I last tried with NFSv3 on a Solaris server so we'll see how
things go in the second go-around [with a FreeBSD nfs rootfs server],
but 7.x netbooted and 8.x didn't when I tried last; the 7.x images
have some secret sauce fixes for PXE booting -- the ones I know of are
as follows (apply to loader.conf as you feel fit):

vfs.root.mountfrom="nfs"
boot.nfsroot.path="/absolute/path/to/netboot/dir"
boot.nfsroot.server="nfs-server-ip-addr"

    There were also some code changes made to `fix' netbooting with
pxeloader, but I'm not sure if they're applicable or needed in 8.x,
and I'm not sure what the actual changes are TBH...
Cheers,
-Garrett