CentOS - Jan 2009 - Anyone got Diskless BOOT working under CentOS ???

Im trying to get a diskless boot set up under CentOS 5.2, and having no luck
at all.

I am to the point of running system-config-netboot, and whatever information
I put in, I get an error message.

Responding to the 2nd button on the first popup, which asks for NFS info,
I put in the IP address of the current machine (the machine that will hold
the boot images for the diskless machine) and the root directory for the
diskless machine, viz

	/diskless/i386/CentOS5.2/root

Which has a copy of my root file system, and in particular has a /boot 
subdirectory.  When hitting FORWARD, I get the error message:

	The diskless subdirectory must be NFS exported	
	and contain a boot subdirectory.

Now Ive checked, vsftpd is running, nfs is running, and the above directory
(and others) are in the /etc/exports file.

I did this several years ago under Fedora, and dont remember having problems
like this.  Has ANYONE done this recently, and do you remember what you had
to do???  I would REALLY like to exchange some e-mail with you.
It would be nice if there was an example somewhere.

-- 
                                        Reg.Clemens
                                        reg at dwf.com

On Tue, 2009-01-06 at 00:02 -0700, clemens at dwf.com
wrote:
> Im trying to get a diskless boot set up under CentOS 5.2, and having no
luck
> at all.
> 
> I am to the point of running system-config-netboot, and whatever
information
> I put in, I get an error message.
> 
> Responding to the 2nd button on the first popup, which asks for NFS info,
> I put in the IP address of the current machine (the machine that will hold
> the boot images for the diskless machine) and the root directory for the
> diskless machine, viz
> 
> 	/diskless/i386/CentOS5.2/root
> 
> Which has a copy of my root file system, and in particular has a /boot 
> subdirectory.  When hitting FORWARD, I get the error message:
> 
> 	The diskless subdirectory must be NFS exported	
> 	and contain a boot subdirectory.
> 
> Now Ive checked, vsftpd is running, nfs is running, and the above directory
> (and others) are in the /etc/exports file.
> 
> I did this several years ago under Fedora, and dont remember having
problems
> like this.  Has ANYONE done this recently, and do you remember what you had
> to do???  I would REALLY like to exchange some e-mail with you.
> It would be nice if there was an example somewhere.
Check Out:
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/DisklessClients

JohnStanley

On Jan 5, 2009, at 11:02 PM, clemens at dwf.com wrote:
> Im trying to get a diskless boot set up under CentOS 5.2, and having  
> no luck
> at all.
>
> I am to the point of running system-config-netboot, and whatever  
> information
> I put in, I get an error message.
>
> Responding to the 2nd button on the first popup, which asks for NFS  
> info,
> I put in the IP address of the current machine (the machine that  
> will hold
> the boot images for the diskless machine) and the root directory for  
> the
> diskless machine, viz
>
> 	/diskless/i386/CentOS5.2/root
>
> Which has a copy of my root file system, and in particular has a /boot
> subdirectory.  When hitting FORWARD, I get the error message:
>
> 	The diskless subdirectory must be NFS exported	
> 	and contain a boot subdirectory.
>
> Now Ive checked, vsftpd is running, nfs is running, and the above  
> directory
> (and others) are in the /etc/exports file.
>
> I did this several years ago under Fedora, and dont remember having  
> problems
> like this.  Has ANYONE done this recently, and do you remember what  
> you had
> to do???  I would REALLY like to exchange some e-mail with you.
> It would be nice if there was an example somewhere.
>
> -- 
>                                        Reg.Clemens
>                                        reg at dwf.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
I remember getting something similar when the file and directory  
permissions were not set properly (and/or export permissions).  So  
even when the boot directory exists, correct permissions to view or  
use it were not set properly.  I didnt track down any information  
regarding the exact settings required for diskless boot, however when  
I copied the nfs export to a new export and chmod to world readable,  
then i got past the gui errors.  I stepped back, adjusted the boot and  
then got the diskless client booting, however there were a few other  
things regarding permissions, home directories, and whatnot that also  
caused failure to boot, or get x started.  Ill check out the wiki and  
see if anyone posted the information for file permissions, would be  
nice to get this going again.'

Trevor