[mythtv-users] mythbuntu-diskless - how to set client hostname?

Jim Stichnoth stichnot at gmail.com
Sat Dec 25 18:32:16 UTC 2010


On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 8:03 PM, Jack Perveiler <perveilerj at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Jim Stichnoth <stichnot at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I made the OVERLAYKEY change, then regenerated the initrd by running
>> mkinitramfs on the client, then copied the initrd to the server's tftp
>> area and rebooted the client.  Now the hostname ends up being "ltsp".
>> What could I be doing wrong?
>>
>
> I had a similar problem when I moved to mythbuntu 9.10 (never did go to
> 10.04).  I don't have an ltsp file in /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/ltsp, but
> the trick for me was to add "hostnameoverride=HOSTNAME" (just like that,
> don't put in your hostname for HOSTNAME) to the kernel boot options.  My
> final option line looks like this:
>
> append ro initrd=initrd.img quiet splash hostnameoverride=HOSTNAME
>
> I think OVERLAYKEY does the same thing, except that your copy-on-write
> directory in /var/cache/mythbuntu-diskless/overlay will also be named by
> hostname instead of mac address.  The old mythbuntu diskless stuff used mac
> addrs in the overlay directory, and I already had overlays I wanted to keep,
> so I went the hostnameoverride route instead.
>
> I don't remember what exactly I did to get that to stick, but I have that
> part appended to the following files:
>
> /opt/ltsp/amd64/boot/pxelinux.cfg/default (/opt/ltsp/and64 is my changeroot)
> /var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp/amd64/pxelinux.cfg/default
>
> It's been a while, but I THINK that I changed the /var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp
> version first, and then ltsp-update-kernels copied it into the changeroot?
> Or maybe the other way around?  Either way, I stopped getting "ltsp" or
> "(mac addr)" and started getting my hostname from my dhcp router.
>
> Again it's been a while, but I think I got my mac address for a hostname,
> made the above edits and started getting "ltsp" instead.  Eventually I
> figured out that my router (running tomato) wasn't setting itself properly
> to actually hand out host names if I assigned a static dhcp name through the
> gui (the dhcp-host line in the dnsmasq configuration file it generated
> lacked the actual host name, stupidly).  Eventually I ignored the "static
> dhcp" basic configuration page for making the address static and instead
> added this line to the "dnsmasq custom configuration" page in the advanced
> section:
>
> dhcp-host=(my:mac:addr),192.168.1.115,(my_hostname),1440m
>
> I think I used wireshark/ethereal to figure out it was the router doing the
> wrong thing.
>
> Hope this helps.  If not, I'll be able to search for my own answer when this
> bites me again in a year or so :)

Thanks Jack.  I suspect I might have the same problem where the router
(a standalone NETGEAR unit) is offering the IP address without
correctly implementing the host-name option.  It looks like it will be
easy enough to just use a custom overlay key for each frontend.

Jim


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