netbooting an install kernel

[Andrew Elmore]

On Thu, Jun 17, 2004 at 06:39:38PM -0700, Stephen Jones wrote:
> Taking advise form another freebsder, I grabbed the boot-only ISO, 
> copied the
> 'kernel' file and the 'netboot' file, thinking that was all I needed.  
> When that
> didn't work, I cp -Rp'ed the mounted ISO into my tftpboot (bootp's dir) 
> and
> tried that.
> 
> So, netboot gets loaded, but it can not find a kernel unless I either 
> do a
> boot kernel/kernel  or boot ./kernel (if I place the kernel file in the 
> current
> directory and rename the kernel directory).
> 
> $ file boot
> boot: data
> $ ls -lad boot
> -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  7484 Feb 24 02:32 boot




I suppose I'm that "another freebsder".  :)

Let me describe the configuration that works for me a little more.

On host 10.0.0.1, which acts as the router, firewall, and general
server, I've set up dhcp to do bootp.  Add the line "allow bootp;" to
/etc/dhcpd.conf, and add a section like the following:

group {
  option broadcast-address 10.0.0.255;
  option domain-name "example.com";
  option domain-name-servers 10.0.0.15, 10.0.0.16;
  option routers 10.0.0.1;
  option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;

  host hostname.example.com {
    hardware ethernet 00:00:F8:f3:3F:88;
    fixed-address 10.0.0.46;
    option host-name "hostname";
    filename "netboot";
    option root-path "/local/freebsd-5.2-alpha-install";
    next-server 10.0.0.1;
  }
}


Note that "next-server" parameter indicates the nfs server the client
will contact to mount the filesystem.

Make sure that the nfs server is enabled and /local is exported on host
10.0.0.1; to /etc/exports, add a line like:

/local -alldirs -network 10.0.0.0/24


and in /local/freebsd-5.2-alpha-install, put the contacts of the
boot-only iso.  

# ls /local/freebsd-5.2-alpha-install     
boot
# ls /local/freebsd-5.2-alpha-install/boot
boot         defaults     loader       loader.help  modules
boot1        device.hints loader.4th   loader.rc    netboot
cdboot       kernel       loader.conf  mfsroot.gz   support.4th


Enable tftpd; uncomment the line for tftp in /etc/inetd.conf, and
modify the directory specified, for example:

tftp            dgram   udp     wait    root    /usr/libexec/tftpd tftpd -l -s /local/tftpboot


Copy the netboot file to the tftp directory.

At this point, you should be ready to boot the alpha.

Hope this gets you up and running.

regards,
Andrew