[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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