[mythtv-users] Network Booting

Andy Laurence andy at andylaurence.co.uk
Thu Feb 5 14:04:08 EST 2004


Jason G wrote:
>>>> My basic setup is that I have a main server that provides data
>>>> storage (TV, Video, MP3), NFS, DNS, DHCPd, MySQL, etc.  This server
>>>> does not run any myth backend on it, though.
>>>
>>> OK.  Where is your backend running?
>>
>> I have my frontend and backend on the same box.  It's a 2GHz celeron
>> system, with a PVR-350, so it doesn't really see any appreciable
>> load.

OK.  I could do the same, but it'd take longer to boot...

>>> I've yet to find a laptop that will boot from a PCMCIA>CF adapter.
>>> All the laptops have floppy drives, so I was intending to emulate a
>>> PXE boot with a boot floppy.  This should get a DHCP address, and
>>> download a kernel from what I'm told.  I'm a little unsure of
>>> exactly how it'll work, but we shall see, or not!  I've also spotted
>>> a couple of rack-mount servers in the corner of the workshop, which
>>> should do nicely for a backend, and my new web/mail server.  I'll
>>> see if they're being skipped soon!  Thanks for the info.
>>
>> I don't think that you'd have any trouble doing a floppy boot.  You
>> probably won't even need to use PXE/Sys linux in that case.  Just
>> build a kernel with the "root over NFS" option built in and once it
>> knows where the NFS root is, it should just go.  This was basically
>> going to be my plan for with the CF adapter until I realized just
>> what PXE would do for me.

Ahh, ok.  That seems like it'd boot quicker.  I'm still a little bamboozled
by all this (not enough Linux experience really).

>> Since you're going to be using NFS, pay attention to the section on
>> the URL I sent earlier about the mount and export options.  Those
>> turned out to be more important that I had expected.  I was getting
>> _really_ frustrated about "Stale NFS File Handle" errors.  They seem
>> to have been resolved.  I'll be adding a quick update soon to
>> include the details of my /etc/exports file so things are completely
>> clear about what I've done.

OK.  As an aside, I had a thought earlier whilst listening to the radio
earlier.  There was an advert reminding students to buy their TV licenses,
even in halls.  If all the students ran MythTV frontends from a single
backend, they could share a TV license.  Of course, IANAL, but it seems like
a loophole.

Cheers,
Andy
-- 
http://ha.andylaurence.co.uk
http://projects.andylaurence.co.uk



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