On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 07:59:58PM +0100, Michael Prokop wrote:

AFAIK klibc still doesn't support nfs v4:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=409271 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=409272

I'm not sure whether there are reasonable ways to work around klibc, trying dracut instead of initramfs-tools might be a good start as booting from nfsv4 works there (though I've no idea yet what needs to get adjusted so it works for our live boot mode). I'm definitely interested to see nfs4 working for netboot out-of-the-box on Grml too, so if there's something where we could help please let us know.

For this, main point is the used tools must understand nfs4.

...

Also, as I am using the grml96 iso image via a loopback mount, I would greatly appreciate if I could use the bootmenu for isolinux also for pxelinux. To me it seems it is mainly a matter of pathnames (and maybe symlinks) to get it to work with a statement like

...

LABEL grml-from-iso CONFIG <iso-root>/boot/isolinux/<common.cfg> APPEND <<iso-root>

...

from pxelinux.cfg

Hm, a symlink pxelinux.cfg pointing to {isolinux,syslinux}.cfg isn't enough, right?

Yes. The main point is how the different {sys|iso|pxe}linux lookup paths.

isolinux looks in boot/isolinux/ and /. The various include config files in boot/isolinux/ make use of that path, whereas theextras use an absolute path. pxelinux however has all paths relative it itself. An option would be to use absolute paths everywhere, and an additional pxelinux.cfg at the top level of the iso, contai a default file including stuff from boot/isolinux.

Any chance you could provide a working pxelinux.cfg so we could work on an according template for grml-live (see https://github.com/grml/grml-live/tree/master/templates/boot/isolinux )

It does not (yet) completely work, I have no direct idea how to make autodetection of the live filesystem via network work other than giving an explicit nfsroot option, but see attachment. Maybe iPXE with recent nfs support might also help

So, the setup is: - fstab: /usr/lib/syslinux /nfsexports/tftp/syslinux none auto,rbind 0 0 /export/sw/iso/grml/grml96-full_2012.05.iso /nfsexports/tftp/grml auto auto,ro,loop 0 0 # ls -l /nfsexports/tftp total 15 dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 May 28 2012 grml lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 Jan 18 23:43 memtest -> grml/boot/addons/memtest lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 Jan 18 21:36 menu.c32 -> syslinux/menu.c32 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Jan 22 23:19 pxechain.com -> syslinux/pxechain.com lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 Jan 18 21:25 pxelinux.0 -> syslinux/pxelinux.0 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 1024 Jan 22 23:36 pxelinux.cfg drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 12288 Dec 20 17:30 syslinux # ls -l /nfsexports/tftp/pxelinux.cfg/ total 4 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 448 Jan 22 23:36 default drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 3072 Jan 23 00:20 grmlboot - default LABEL grml kernel pxechain.com append grmlboot/pxelinux.0 # ls -l /nfsexports/tftp/pxelinux.cfg/grmlboot/ total 3 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 Jan 23 00:11 additional.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/additional.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 43 Jan 23 00:11 addon_10_grub2.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/addon_10_grub2.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 46 Jan 23 00:11 addon_20_allinone.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/addon_20_allinone.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 Jan 23 00:11 addon_25_gxpe.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/addon_25_gxpe.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 41 Jan 23 00:11 addon_30_dos.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/addon_30_dos.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 41 Jan 23 00:11 addon_35_bsd.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/addon_35_bsd.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 45 Jan 23 00:11 addon_40_memtest.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/addon_40_memtest.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 41 Jan 23 00:11 addon_45_hdt.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/addon_45_hdt.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Jan 23 00:11 addons.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/addons.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 40 Jan 23 00:11 addons_list.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/addons_list.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Jan 23 00:20 boot -> ../../grml/boot lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Jan 23 00:11 boot.cat -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/boot.cat lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Jan 23 00:11 defaults.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/defaults.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Jan 23 00:11 distri.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/distri.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Jan 23 00:11 f1 -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/f1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Jan 23 00:11 f10 -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/f10 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Jan 23 00:11 f2 -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/f2 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Jan 23 00:11 f3 -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/f3 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Jan 23 00:11 f4 -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/f4 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Jan 23 00:11 f5 -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/f5 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Jan 23 00:11 f6 -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/f6 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Jan 23 00:11 f7 -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/f7 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Jan 23 00:11 f8 -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/f8 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Jan 23 00:11 grml.png -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/grml.png lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 48 Jan 23 00:11 grml32_full_default.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/grml32_full_default.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 45 Jan 23 00:11 grml32_full_grml.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/grml32_full_grml.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 47 Jan 23 00:11 grml32_full_hidden.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/grml32_full_hidden.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 48 Jan 23 00:11 grml64_full_default.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/grml64_full_default.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 45 Jan 23 00:11 grml64_full_grml.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/grml64_full_grml.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Jan 23 00:11 grmlmain.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/grmlmain.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Jan 23 00:11 hd.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/hd.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Jan 23 00:11 hidden.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/hidden.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Jan 23 00:11 hiddens.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/hiddens.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Jan 23 00:11 ifcpu64.c32 -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/ifcpu64.c32 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Jan 23 00:11 isolinux.bin -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Jan 23 00:11 isolinux.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 38 Jan 23 00:11 isoprompt.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/isoprompt.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 Jan 23 00:11 logo.16 -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/logo.16 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 47 Jan 23 00:11 option_grml32_full.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/option_grml32_full.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 47 Jan 23 00:11 option_grml64_full.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/option_grml64_full.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Jan 23 00:11 options.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/options.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Jan 23 00:11 prompt.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/prompt.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 Jan 23 00:11 promptname.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/promptname.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Jan 22 23:37 pxelinux.0 -> ../../pxelinux.0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 3072 Jan 23 13:16 pxelinux.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Jan 23 00:11 syslinux.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/syslinux.cfg lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Jan 23 00:11 vesamenu.c32 -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/vesamenu.c32 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Jan 23 00:11 vesamenu.cfg -> ../../grml/boot/isolinux/vesamenu.cfg # ls -l /nfsexports/tftp/pxelinux.cfg/grmlboot/pxelinux.cfg/ total 1 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 117 Jan 23 13:16 default # more /nfsexports/tftp/pxelinux.cfg/grmlboot/pxelinux.cfg/default DEFAULT grml APPEND root=/dev/nfs rw nfsroot=172.17.2.1:/nfsexports/tftp/grml noeject LABEL grml config vesamenu.cfg

Bye,

Joerg