[mythtv-users] Best options/howto for diskless frontends

[Ross Boylan]

On Mon, 2012-11-26 at 12:14 +0000, Paul Gardiner wrote:
> On 26/11/2012 09:33, Per Jessen wrote:
> > Paul Gardiner wrote:
> >
> >> 2) To use opensuse because it's the linux I best know.
> >
> > I have servers on openSUSE that boot with root on NFS, it works.  I had
> > to generate the initrd separately though.
> 
> That's good to know. Any hints on the generation of a suitable initrd?
> I'm guessing that's going to be the difficult bit.
> 
I just set up a diskless front-end using Debian.  Relative to regular
install, I needed to
set BOOT=NFS and MODULES=netboot in the initramfs.conf that creates the
initrd.
Disable automatically bringing up the network interface, since it's
already up (and I think bringing it up screws up the NFS root).
Set kernel parameters for NSF root in my syslinux.cfg file
Modify fstab for NFS root and selected filesystems on tmpfs
Modify the resolver files so that the system knows where the nameservers
and gateways are (on Debian, these would typically be set when the
interface comes up; since it is up before the kernel starts these don't
get triggered).

I generated the initial installation using debootstrap. An issue for me,
as it sounds as if it is for you, is that my server had a different
hardware type than the FE.  I had access to another machine with the
same architecture; I've also seen suggestions to use a VM or temporarily
install a disk in the target FE (probably could be a USB stick).

Ross Boylan