[mythtv-users] Network Booting

[Jason G]

>> 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.

> 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.

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.

Jason